Electrical Must be Grounded?
Our recent home renovation did not pass the electrical inspection due to several outlets in the house not being grounded. Contractor says this is a brand new rule from the city and he shouldn’t have to pay for the additional work to pass inspection. Does anyone know if this is indeed a new requirement in…
Our recent home renovation did not pass the electrical inspection due to several outlets in the house not being grounded. Contractor says this is a brand new rule from the city and he shouldn’t have to pay for the additional work to pass inspection. Does anyone know if this is indeed a new requirement in the past 4 months? We are very surprised that our contractor is balking at doing the additional work to ensure the job is done to code. We are hitting an impasse with him and I was wondering if anyone here has any advice or knows anything about electrical who can tell me if what he is saying is b.s. or not…
Great comments!
That’s outrageous. I hope you have a contract and that it specifies he will perform the work to code.
if you have the old style 2 slotted 115V outlets they might of flagged it that way.all ne wiring pulls should havea a raw copper wire that connects to the typical grounded outlets.there are 2 types of electrical grounds “mechanical” is when the metal box or BX is the ground connection back to the panel.CODE the “electrical” ground is the copper RAW wire to the socket(green screw).if you had all new wire pulled back to your panel all the grounds should go to the raw screw bar in the panel along with all the white neutrals from the sockets and loads.if the guy wired all the old sockets leaving the raw copper hanging at all the sockets then just go around and install 115V outlets with the green screw
did he use the “self grounding” outlets? (the ones with copper wire on one of the screws.)
If he used armored metallic cable (BX), check to see that he used the small red plastic shields at the end of the cable where the connector is screwed on. I bet this guy cut that corner too.
Whether he used armored cable or Romex, a proper job produces a fully grounded outlet. Anything other than that is 1. a safety hazard, 2. a half-assed job and 3. LAZY. Tell him to do the job according to the code that the whole country follows. This is ridiculpus.
Thanks AlexSPK. This is very informative…
This code change went in effect with 2002 NEC which NYC adopted January 2004. This means that all jobs filed from July 2004 required receptacle bonding jumpers as per NEC 250.146. However, not many inspectors checked for this. After the last code cycle in January 2007 most checked. The point is bonding jumpers have been required for a long time. Just because enforcement was not 100% this shouldn’t be an excuse to cut corners. Many code requirements are routinely not checked and most take advantage. If rough-in inspections would be required in NYC most all licensed contractors would have severe problems.
pwhite- this code requirement has nothing to do with the wiring method. It was added because most flush metal boxes are set back some degree from the wall surface. This makes the ground depend on the 6-32 mounting screws and not full contact with the device yoke. The mounting screws are not always flush or tight to the device so the ground is basically not there. A $5 tester would light up, but at full current the ground path would fail.
Armored cable is still required in most all cases. If someone tries to do a job in NM cables you should promptly send them back to Long Island or New Jersey. Even though the conductors type inside are equivalent NM is inferior in many ways.
It was my understanding that if you are using metal boxes, armored cable, and metal conduit all the way back to the panel (Assuming the panel is properly grounded and bonded), you are grounded and don’t need an additional jumper. This may be what the OP is referring to. Has this part of the code changed recently now that armored cable is no longer required?