Lesson 2 - Explaining the clients options

Specific Inspection Topics Electrical Inspections
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Will,

Very handy information to pass on…thats what this thread was all about…to me it was getting involvement and bringing things out and learning from it…nothing more.

I don’t care to know it all…but what I do know I want you to know…at little bits at a time…thats why I am here…

Todd…actually " Service Conductor" never comes into play here on this example…but I think you really wanted to say " Ungrounded" conductor…:slight_smile:

Yes Todd…but should only be done by a licensed electrician…because while 250.130© permits this application…it is important to know a few other things as well about that article…

One thing is and you guys will see it ALOT…someone has a normal 2 wire NM Cable running into the attic…with no EGC…and they tap onto it with a new lets say 14-2 W/G and then run it to another location and put it in a box…and then since at that point it has 2 conductors and 1 bare EGC…they think they can at this point use a 3 hole plug…well…NOT…

So as you can see…under the watchful eye of an electrician the homeowner has a few addititional options to play with…

Hope this helps explain the clients options so they dont go into cardiac arrest when they find out they dont have grounded plugs…

Ironically…many will argue a 2 wire system is technically grounded because of the neutral…but it is not providing a EGC…so really we are adding for the EGC to the system.

22

Always good to read again…

23

My points to explain to the client would be two fold:

  1. Protection of equipment. Running new 3 wire (hot, neutral and ground conductors) would do this, but can get involved and expensive.

  2. Protection of people. As you stated, this is am unfinished basement and you can protect people without having to run new wire. Just switch to GFCI recpetacles or breaker.

Option 1 costs more, but is not as important as the results of option 2, peotecting people. In my case (as state law requires my reports to be written) I would make option 2 a necessity (for closing) and option 1 a long term goal.