Unterminated wires in a panel box........

[tlmartin84]

I am pretty sure that code says you cannot have them, which presents an issue for me.

I am planning to run several heavy gauge 6-3 or 8-3 with ground wires to single boxes. That way I have them for future machine hookups. For now though I would like to be able to stick a receptacle in them and use them with single pole 20 amp breakers.

What do I do with the spare wires? Nut one off in the receptacle box, and then run it to a ground block in my panel? Is that acceptable?

 

[Mustang51js]

As long as they have wire nuts on the end I've never had an issue with that

 

[teamextreme]

Nothing says you can't have unterminated wires. Spares are run to panels all the time. As Mustang said, just make sure they're capped off.

 

[brook41]

As long as you put a tag to identify it, your good to go.

 

[Wirepuller]

^ All of these. Never had an issue with it. Sometimes people are too worried with being code compliant without looking at what the code article is trying to do.

 

[wyliesdiesels]

Theres no issue with unterminated wires in a panel or j box....where did u hear of this?

 

[tlmartin84]

When I built my house, I had my electrician run wires from my panel out through conduit under my patio to a junction box for a future 100 amp service. I just folded the wires up, zip tied them, and left the wires in the bottom of the panel neither end connected to anything nor wire nutted. Reason being once the patio was in, I wouldn't be able to get back under it if I wanted a future outbuilding.

My inspector didn't like it (we worked around it), and I am pretty sure some guys on here were fussing about it in some other threads.

 

[rlitman]

Unterminated is not cool.
You can cap them with wire nuts.
If you're paranoid, and want to make it absolutely clear they're dead, put a pigtail in that wire nut, and connect them to the ground bus.

 

[alfredeneuman]

My inspector didn't like it

It doesn't matter that he didn't like it.
The inspectors are not there to enforce their likes or dislikes. They can't make up their own rules.
They've got to enforce the Code as written, and if there's no prohibition against it, it's unenforceable.