With some of the illiterate knuckle draggers working construction it wouldn’t surprise me at all if the “electrician” fished the wires based on sheathing color, instead of the printed size or the feel of the wire.
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That’s really interesting, I haven’t seen CCA (copper-clad aluminum) romex in the field before, but that appears to explain what is going on here. At first read I thought the same as others, possible mislabel and overpull for voltage drop.
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except the oversized stranded copper conductors as well. But this is interesting… Didn’t know they were making that again.
Good call on the copper clad Al wire.
Now when would you ACTAULLY upsize a wire? When you have a 24/7 large load, and want to control voltage drop, it might make sense. Heat lost in the wire is lost energy and burdens any A/C system. So there are limited cases where upsizing wire makes financial sense.
Yeah, but home is only 1800 sf, probably not concerned about voltage drop
New construction has started using copper clad aluminum lately. We just had a discussion on that recently in a TPREIA class.
Interesting how copper clad is a safe option. Knowing that copper and aluminum expand/contract differently, seems like it would break down the wire over time, and lead to fire hazards again. I wonder if they will be requiring these to be replaced 20-30 years from now too??
Did you measure the end of the circuit for Vd?
Increased AWG is to prevent adverse Vd down stream.
In most cases, on lighting circuits, the AWG is smaller then required downstream. I measure current.
Increased sizing was also done due to using a less conductive material.
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Your comment is unintelligible. There is ALWAYS a Voltage drop.
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You’re correct in saying unintelligible, thank you for the rebuke. I need to remind myself to proof read prior to sending.
I was referencing that city enforcement was going to start requesting from builders verification, that voltage drop were within tolerances. Hense the reason a number of contractors are upgrading the feeders to there respective areas.
There proposals to allow 14 AWG copperclad aluminum for 10A lighting circuits in the 2023 NEC, there is one huge problem with the wirenuts, Wingnuts & other like connectors is that they are listed for copper connections only. Copperclad is one material I don’t care for, only thing like even less is 10AWG & 12AWG aluminum conductors which is still allowed by the NEC, just not made anymore.
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