What electrical code violations do you see the most?

[Forgottonia]

Hey sparkys (and others knowledgeable about all thing electrical):

What are some of the common electrical code violations you see in DIYer's work? What are the most dangerous ones?

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Every time some DIYer posts a thread about something electrical he's doing (like this one: LINK) there's a refrain of posts saying, "Make sure it's to code". It makes me wonder what code violations DIYers are guilty of most often? (And how many am I guilty of???)

 

[snickers muncher]

I'm not a sparky, but while doing some work in my brother's house I found that the builder (owner built) was using a cheap 14 gauge extension cord to power one wall of the living room. Behind the washer there was a small hole with the extension cord coming through and plugged into an outlet behind the washer. That extension cord snaked into the wall and fed the outlets on the other side of the wall.

 

[LXCam]

Grounding and bonding.

 

[cmandp]

I'm also not an electrician. But stuff I've seen I've found or seen:
1. Hidden junction boxes.
2. Overfilled boxes.
3. Flying splices (Wire nutted junctions just sitting free in floors or walls).
4. Taped only connections.
5. Metal boxes/fixtures not grounded.
6. Undersized wire.
7. NM/NM-b cable used outside or in "wet" locations.
8. MWBCs wired wrong.

 

[M6erfan]

Not caulking ceiling/floor penetrations.

 

[Jim greengo]

Unprotected romex in basements,omaha requires conduit in unfinished basements.

 

[toplessHO]

I think that at one time or another just about every part of the code has been violated by some jackleg.
I had to redo an overhead service that was only about a year old...owner built.
Overhead service requires a lightning arrestor at the mast.
A couple of years previous the code was changed to require full encirclement of the conductor.
Before that it was standard practice to use a small split bolt and separate a couple strands of wire from the service entrance cable.
Inspector could see by the size of the taped/waterproofed connection that it was large enough to have large splitbolt inside.
This HO cheaped out and bent a piece of romex in an S to make it appear as tho there was a large splitbolt under the tape.
When I found this and confronted the home owner,they were rather embarrassed but didnt offer any explanation.

 

[wyliesdiesels]

Buried junction boxes and poor grounding and bonding

 

[rjn2649]

Not a licensed electrician but I have done more than a few building repairs.
In the Chicago area, LOTS of exposed and unsupported BX. Supposed to be EMT. I think limits for exposed BX is like 36".
I've found outlets daisy chained w/lamp cord behind the wall in more than one building.

My FAVOURITE sad story. I worked in a dairy lab. They installed new fridges that the compressors ran on 240, BUT the control and lighting voltage was 120. Some idiot used ground to get the 120. When a lab tech opened the door got a gallon of milk out sat it on the (wet) s/s table and closed the door he got zapped. I check w/a voltmeter...60 volts from the door to the table.
When I confronted the "electrician" I got told "it's a right to work state ANYONE can be an electrician" That led to a major argument between me and the current employer. I got told there was no money in the budget to run 120 and 240 to the fridge. I asked if anyone ever heard of a transformer. I Left there a few weeks later.

 

[CoogarXR]

I'm not an electrician by trade, but it is what I went to school for way back in the day.

The most common things I see are wires running through knock-outs with no fittings (on breaker boxes and junction boxes). Also, over-stuffed junction boxes without covers (and impossible to put a cover on due to over-stuffage).

I have renovated a lot of old houses, and I also see a LOT of light fixtures with no boxes under them. Many times it's due to old abandoned gas light plumbing being in the way. Other times it's just straight-up lazyness/short-cutting.

 

[Zeke]

IDK if I have a 'most' often seen violation but in 2 cases I have run into hot/neutral/EGC wired improperly which has left some outdoor boxes out in the garden hot or leaking voltage. You really DO have to meter everything before touching. No fun picking up stray current while out in the damp garden.

I had one light fixture socket that worked using the switch nearby. The thing is, when the lamp was not lit, the threaded part of the base was hot as determined by a grounded connector run from another circuit for testing purposes. So tell me how that works.

 

[toplessHO]

Buried junction boxes and poor grounding and bonding

Found a manhole for the underground power feeding a local theme park under 20 ft of dirt.
Infrastructure was done years before the initial build,asbuilts were lost.
That manhole now has a very long neck.The last buildout they did,
all high voltage contractors from this area refused to go in there.
They did find an out of state contractor to do it,most safety protocol was out the window with them,
no sniffer,using a crane to move men in and out of holes,no room for ladder that long etc
It was like a 3 ring circus pulling new cable

 

[isb cornbinder]

I was installing tank insulation in a refinery. I pointed out the many switch boxes that had covers missing. I was visiting a mine near Sheffield in England. I found several switchbox covers missing in that colliery.

 

[u2slow]

Fully qualified/certified electrican here (unlicensed.)

Haven't had to deal with code, home or work, for a good 10 years. What I do encounter in visiting friends and colleagues are: buried/hidden/overstuffed jb's, flying splices, extension cords used for semi-permanent installs, uncapped wires poking out of places, wrong colour wires (not even taped/ remarked).


Imho, the real skill of the trade is to be able to pick apart the petty violations from the real hazards. Second is to approach work with the expectation the guy before you didn't do it right. Prove your basics before you make assumptions

 

[wyliesdiesels]

IDK if I have a 'most' often seen violation but in 2 cases I have run into hot/neutral/EGC wired improperly which has left some outdoor boxes out in the garden hot or leaking voltage. You really DO have to meter everything before touching. No fun picking up stray current while out in the damp garden.

I had one light fixture socket that worked using the switch nearby. The thing is, when the lamp was not lit, the threaded part of the base was hot as determined by a grounded connector run from another circuit for testing purposes. So tell me how that works.

they were switching the neutral or it was a series circuit with another load.

 

[engineer2]

Not an electrician but I have done my share of remodeling in the Chicago area (EMT land).
Some of these are pet peeves more than serious violations.
The most common is finding Romex when EMT is code.
Loose outlets. Not the wires, but the 2 mounting screws.
Randomly networked neutrals throughout the house. Got bit a few times.
Bathrooms and kitchens that were remodeled, but electrical was never updated to more current code. (20A, GFCI).
Federal Pacific circuit breakers.

At work I saw a some workbench light fixtures that were wired H-N reverse and left exposed. I guess electronics guys are not electricians. Gee, white to white and black to black. How hard can it be??

 

[sparky 1971]

The one I see the most is too large of a breaker for the wire size. If a 15 amp breaker is good, then a 20 or 30 must be even better. There's the occasional buried junction box. Open splices with duct tape wrapped around them, romex run under joists, romex buried in the dirt, extension cords used as permanent wiring, outdoor receptacles without a weatherproof cover, ground wires being used for a neutral, and no box connector when entering the panel are a few others that I see on a semi regular basis. The vast majority of those repairs are the result of a home inspection along with "double tapped" breakers and installing GFCI's, but the lack of those probably wasn't a code violation at the time the home was built.

 

[f121]

The best I’ve seen was the very end of a pair of wires sticking out of a ceiling beam in our kitchen, where a spotlight once was. The wires had been pushed back so they were almost flush with the wood. Beam is roughly 7ft off the ground because that part of the house is about 400yo, even short people would be able to rest their palm on the exposed wires. Yup, they were live when the lights were on.

 

[Wrench97]

My favorite- knob and tube spliced to old 2 wire NM in midair then spliced to newer 3 wire NM in a hiden JB all protected by a screw in slo-blow fuse with a penny behind it...........................................

 

[reader2580]

Not a professIonal electrician, but one common DIY thing is the “haircut” to get a wire to fit in a circuit breaker.

This was done at my house for a 60 amp feed to the detached garage. They used some good sized aluminum wire and the old 60 amp breaker didn’t have a large enough terminal so they cut away about half the strands. I replaced the feed with new wire for a 70 amp feed. The new 70 amp breaker has much larger terminals. Even the new 60 amp breakers have larger terminals.

 

[mcbane]

1) overfilled junction boxes
2) wrong color wire used (ie red for ground)
3) wires cut too short inside junction boxes
4) oversized holes drilled or cut in important framing members (like bottom chord of a truss)
5) use of water and DWV pipe and elbows as conduit

 

[toplessHO]

they were switching the neutral or it was a series circuit with another load.

ran into that with a friend of familys DIY.
Circuit worked until the floodlamp burned out.
I traced it back to the fixture he had recently installed.
Fixture had 2 white wires only so neutral coming in was attached to one,
the other attached to outgoing neutral.He was very lucky no one got hurt.

 

[slimpickins]

I hate going into a house, but particularly a basement that has been "developed" by a DIY'er. I've seen very few DIY basements that are done right from a construction or electrical perspective.
One of my favorites was my first house bought in the 1980s. Started ripping out the DIY basement within a few weeks of purchase and found aluminum and copper twisted together and screwed under an outlet screw. Also found Aluminum and copper together in wire nuts.
The 2x2 wall framing was stick built with scrap pieces not long enough, so they were installed in a haphazard crisscross pattern to "fill the space". The wiring in this wall was just notched into the face of the 2x2's and then hardboard paneling was nailed onto that. When I removed the paneling, one wire was stuck to the back of the paneling because one of the ring nails for the paneling had pierced the wire.
The day I found that, I ripped out the entire basement development that had been done by the previous owner.
To this day I shudder in any house with any DIY work.

 

[EricS]

Fully qualified/certified electrican here (unlicensed.)

What's unlicenced certified electrician? Curious as also BC electrician and I thought you are either certified( Red Seal) aka a licenced electrician or not certified thus unlicenced.

My background is industrial and when I first started I was doing service( industrial/commerial) for places with no full time electrician. Came across lots of overloaded pannels/branch circuits usually the inhouse 'maintenance' adding stuff with no load calculations.

 

[u2slow]

What's unlicenced certified electrician? Curious as also BC electrician and I thought you are either certified( Red Seal) aka a licenced electrician or not certified thus unlicenced.

Red Seal yes, contractor's license no.

Maybe I'm showing my age, but 'TQ' (Trade Qualification, aka red seal) is what I've always heard/said, but our USA friends use 'license'.

 

[wyliesdiesels]

What's unlicenced certified electrician? Curious as also BC electrician and I thought you are either certified( Red Seal) aka a licenced electrician or not certified thus unlicenced.

My background is industrial and when I first started I was doing service( industrial/commerial) for places with no full time electrician. Came across lots of overloaded pannels/branch circuits usually the inhouse 'maintenance' adding stuff with no load calculations.

in california we have certified journeyman and licensed electrical contractor. theres also registered trainee. one must be a registered trainee in order to be able to work for a licensed electrical. once the ET has enough hours theyre eligible to take the journeyman test. once they pass that they have to work a minimum of 4yrs before theyre eligible to take the licensed electrical contractors test

from start to finish one is looking at about 8yrs working for someone else before they can become a licensed electrical contractor...

 

[sparky 1971]

in california we have certified journeyman and licensed electrical contractor. theres also registered trainee. one must be a registered trainee in order to be able to work for a licensed electrical. once the ET has enough hours theyre eligible to take the journeyman test. once they pass that they have to work a minimum of 4yrs before theyre eligible to take the licensed electrical contractors test

from start to finish one is looking at about 8yrs working for someone else before they can become a licensed electrical contractor...

All we have to do in IA is have an employee that has a Master License, prove we have insurance, and pay the money to get a contractors license. Since I am the only employee, I have to carry the Masters and the Contractors.

 

[wyliesdiesels]

All we have to do in IA is have an employee that has a Master License, prove we have insurance, and pay the money to get a contractors license. Since I am the only employee, I have to carry the Masters and the Contractors.

yeah cali is a real pain in the *** and these stringent requirements are causing a major shortage of "legal" workers in the electrical industry. you should see all the job ads for electricians...

 

[mike93lx]

in california we have certified journeyman and licensed electrical contractor. theres also registered trainee. one must be a registered trainee in order to be able to work for a licensed electrical. once the ET has enough hours theyre eligible to take the journeyman test. once they pass that they have to work a minimum of 4yrs before theyre eligible to take the licensed electrical contractors test

from start to finish one is looking at about 8yrs working for someone else before they can become a licensed electrical contractor...

Huh. I thought a klien 11 in 1 and a set of linesmans was all that was needed

 

[EricS]

So did a little reading and in BC upon completion of your apprenticeship and schooling you write a final exam and upon passing are a journyman electrician.

To be an licenced electrical contractor the following is required

1. Complete Electrical Contractor License Application Form 1028
2. Ensure that you name a Field Safety Representative (FSR) on this application
3. Provide an original surety bond in the amount of $10,000 bearing the principal’s signature and insurer’s signature and seal along with the application
4. Pay the relevent fee and submit to any Technical Safety BC office
5. Item #2 referes to an FSR which is needed to pull an electrical permit. This requires a seperate exam and the contractor doesn't need to have one but must have someone on staff with one. Class A FSR: can submit declarations for any type of regulated electrical work, no voltage or ampere limitations. Class B FSR: can submit declarations only with respect to electrical installations in which the voltage of the completed installation does not exceed 750 volts. Class C FSR: can submit declarations only with respect to electrical installations that do not exceed 200 amps and voltage of 150 volts to ground, single phase power. There are also Restricted FRS in the classes limiting the scope of work within the voltage/amps class

 

[engineer2]

Around here the IBEW (International of Brotherhood of Electrical Workers) union controls most of the training. There are some technical colleges that offer training too. You start as an apprentice to get your "R" card (Residential). Beyond that you study "books" to get commercial licenses. The money is with contractors and utilities doing power line stuff.

 

[no704]

Might not really apply to this thread. But now funny, I would never do this now! Many years ago I had a roommate that was attempting to vacuum his car. He used my shop vac. He called me at work to let me know that my vac had bit the dust.
He then plugged in his own shop vac into the same extension cord, and let the smoke out of it too!
I had just gotten a new 220v welder, and used a 110 cord to power it from a dryer plug. Wanted to try it out before spending $$ on plugs. It now has a dedicated circuit with 40A twist lock plugs.

 

[Norcal]

Might not really apply to this thread. But now funny, I would never do this now! Many years ago I had a roommate that was attempting to vacuum his car. He used my shop vac. He called me at work to let me know that my vac had bit the dust.
He then plugged in his own shop vac into the same extension cord, and let the smoke out of it too!
I had just gotten a new 220v welder, and used a 110 cord to power it from a dryer plug. Wanted to try it out before spending $$ on plugs. It now has a dedicated circuit with 40A twist lock plugs.

There are no 40A Twistlock® plugs.

 

[mike93lx]

There are no 40A Twistlock® plugs.

Dun dun dun

 

[alfredeneuman]

There are no 40A Twistlock® plugs.

You forgot to mention there is no 110 or 220 either

 

[mike93lx]

You forgot to mention there is no 110 or 220 either

220, 221, whatever it takes

 

[u2slow]

You forgot to mention there is no 110 or 220 either

Yet I have 220V/50Hz at work....

 

[Norcal]

Yet I have 220V/50Hz at work....

And being 50 Hz, means it a mostly 3rd world voltage.

 

[alfredeneuman]

Yet I have 220V/50Hz at work....

A place I worked had 115V/400Hz, but the main service was 480/277

 

[BFBOB]

At work I saw a some workbench light fixtures that were wired H-N reverse and left exposed. I guess electronics guys are not electricians. Gee, white to white and black to black. How hard can it be??

But, it's Alternating Current - both wires are positive and negative so it doesn't matter which goes where.