Stuff Electricians Should Know!

The world of wire is a vast, wide ranging and confusing area for most any of us to be able to get much of a handle on anything other that what we really use every day. But there are a few questions that you can ask when you are trying to decide what jacket needs to be used. For example, do you use polyvinyl chloride (PVC) or plenum rated cable?

Here are a few simple questions that you can ask yourself to help you decide which cable will be right for your job.

This Episode is sponsored by Acmetools.com

You get reminders every day. Reminders on your phone, reminders in your email, reminders in your texts.

Some reminders get kind of annoying, but some reminders are there to keep you safe.

If you haven't read article 250.4 in the National Electrical Code lately, then consider this a reminder.

According to the US Department of Labor, “Accident statistics compiled by MSHA's Health Safety Analysis Center indicate that approximately 14% of all electrical fatalities occur from improper or inadequate grounding.”

Grounding and bonding might sound like simple concepts, especially to a journeyman or a master electrician, and it really is SIMPLE, but that doesn't always mean it's easy. There may even be times when you wonder if something needs to be grounded at all.

This episode is brought to you by Acmetools.com

This episode is brought to you by Acmetools.com

In this episode I cover an AFCI Troubleshooting flow chart.

Today I’d like to cover 7 simple enclosure no no’s. Some of these are simple, some aren’t so well known, and some are an issue that you’ll run across because someone else was just too lazy to do it right the first time, and now you have to come behind them and fix it.

If you want to get your copy of the NEC out and follow along that would be wonderful. If not, you can pull it out later and take a look at some of the code references.

You need to know where to properly lock out and tag out and also I cover some changes to the show!

So I read a heartbreaking story about an accident that could have been easily prevented by some simple maintenance. I wanted to share it with you to demonstrate the importance of having proper pathways for current to flow, and how dangerous it can be if you don’t.

So my buddy Will sent me a picture the other day that I reposted on Instagram. I’ve also put it in the show notes for this episode. But if you look closely, you can see an extremely dangerous situation inside of the fused disconnect.

You can see in the bottom of the box, 3 split bolts that are exposed. Not a single bit of tape or insulating material on them.

If you follow the conductors over, you can see that they go right into a breaker. He was smart enough to check them with his meter before he got into the box and what did he find? They were hot of course!

So what does the NEC say about splices such as this one? Let’s go to article 110.14(B)

So today’s question is this: Can you use a circuit breaker as a switch? I bring this up because I heard a story today of a local woman using a breaker in her panel to turn her TV on and off to prevent the kids from watching it when they shouldn’t be.

Needless to say, the breaker won’t turn on anymore and she can’t turn her tv on because it was an old, hard to find breaker.

So, let’s go to the code.