Looking for some helpful comments on this.
Thanks.
What's this practice called?
Illegal
What shall I arrest this guy for?
For one thing it changes the gauge.
wrong choice of wording I guess unacceptable installation method may be better
He was just wondering the problem , but unsafe conductor connection would be fine also.
The wire can overheat , before the breaker trips, creating a fire hazard.
Since the wire is significantly larger than the lug on the breaker I doubt it could be overloaded. This is simply a listing violation. You are using a wire larger than the breaker accepts and you used an unapproved way to get it connected.
When you have to do something like this for voltage drop problems you splice an appropriately sized smaller pigtail to the breaker.
Good thought as I did not even check that close.
It is mis leading as a white wire used as a hot.
Unless, of course, that this is the size wire that is required for whatever is on the other end.
How would you determine that?
If the breaker is labled then you could check the appliance for the required amp draw. It is a 220 30 amp breaker maybe the appliance requires more. 60 amp breaker connector would be sized for the appropriate wire. I can’t tell the existing wire size by sight, but I’m sure one of our resident gurus can.
You just made a case for why this practice is wrong.
If something really needed a 60a breaker the 30 should trip.
This could be were an existing circuit had a higher ampacity than the new appliance required. The breaker may have been changed to the smaller required size.
As has been said there are much better ways to reduce the conductor size properly. It would be hard to guess what size the conductor has been reduced to or to tell if what remains is appropriate for the ampacity.
I’m no electrician but I have seen this before and I believe it should be investigated further. It is suspect. JMHO
The real reason the practice is illegal is that when a random number of strands are removed (possibly different strands on each end) the ampacity of the resulting conductor cannot be determined. Note also that the conductor appears to be aluminum.
I noticed that first - stranded aluminum conductor - together with an improper connection, it could be a real problem. Any idea what is on this circuit?
I would also call attention to Table 8 in Chapter 9 and 90.7 in the NEC.