In my last video, I probably should have included an image of what "in conduit" means. So here's the outlet in my kitchen island, and what's inside the cabinet.
All electrical work around Chicago is done like this even in residential construction. Armored cabling is sometimes allowed and is much easier for a DIYer. I've worked with it before, though, and it still sucks compared to Romex!
Lord Kelvin
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It can be any number of things, I basically think of it as any space that is unfinished that you can't stand up in.
Many homes have a crawl space below the entire first floor (if they don't have a basement) but in this case it is an unfinished area underneath the stairs. A few plumbing-related things exist here, otherwise it's storage.
Landa
in reply to Technology Connections • • •Mia ‘Meetings? I Abstain’ Luna Tearmoon
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in reply to Mia ‘Meetings? I Abstain’ Luna Tearmoon • • •@mia it is arguably much safer than ordinary wiring. You're not going to be able to pierce a wire if you're nailing something into a wall, and the entire metal enclosure is grounded. So if there are any frayed wires anywhere within the system, it will instantly trip a breaker if it touches the metal.
In fact, the first time I encountered Romex, I thought it was weird that the house had extension cords running through the walls!
Trouble with conduit though is it's a royal PITA to work with...
ocdtrekkie
in reply to Technology Connections • • •@mia I am literally still horrified after learning places outside of Chicago *don't* require electrical to be in conduit.
The idea that people just staple their extension cords inside the walls like cowboys is absolutely terrifying and insane.
Mark
in reply to ocdtrekkie • •The thing is conduit might reduce the fire risk from cable damage, but at the same time it increases the risk from overloads as cables need to be de-rated due to it trapping heat.
For example in the UK 2.5mm² is very common size rated for 27A when clipped directed, however in conduit that drops to an insufficient 23A so you have to go up to 4mm².
ocdtrekkie
in reply to Mark • • •Mia ‘Meetings? I Abstain’ Luna Tearmoon
in reply to ocdtrekkie • • •Mia ‘Meetings? I Abstain’ Luna Tearmoon
in reply to Mia ‘Meetings? I Abstain’ Luna Tearmoon • • •Mark
in reply to Mia ‘Meetings? I Abstain’ Luna Tearmoon • •Don't forget that's just for the cable by itself, when put into the ring circuit configuration we use it gets up-rated to 32A.
We do that because of post-war copper shortages requiring us to run a small number of larger circuits, even in the 60s and 70s the most common model of fuse box only had 4 slots.
Mia ‘Meetings? I Abstain’ Luna Tearmoon
in reply to Mark • • •Mia ‘Meetings? I Abstain’ Luna Tearmoon
in reply to Mia ‘Meetings? I Abstain’ Luna Tearmoon • • •ocdtrekkie
in reply to Mia ‘Meetings? I Abstain’ Luna Tearmoon • • •Wild. Here we might have several outlets in the same room wired in a series, but like... no. I think I have 50 circuit breakers in my basement.
My two bedroom unit had like 20?
Mark
in reply to ocdtrekkie • •ocdtrekkie
in reply to Mia ‘Meetings? I Abstain’ Luna Tearmoon • • •Mark
in reply to ocdtrekkie • •Can't find anything with a reference object, but this shows them all next to each other.
ocdtrekkie
in reply to Mark • • •@mark @mia So our wire gauge is AWG: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_wire_gauge#Tables_of_AWG_wire_sizes
12 AWG, which appears to be 3.31 mm², is what most of our houses are wired with today.
North American standard for electrical wire diameters
Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)Seph Harrison
in reply to ocdtrekkie • • •ocdtrekkie
in reply to Seph Harrison • • •@taur10 @mark @mia 14 gauge is still allowable for 15A circuits, but the general advice I've seen most people give is to just run 12 AWG everywhere so you never have to risk re-running it down the line.
I am not an electrician or a builder though, I do not know what percentage of modern construction takes that advice.
Mia ‘Meetings? I Abstain’ Luna Tearmoon
in reply to Mark • • •Object reference not set to an instance of an object.Mia ‘Meetings? I Abstain’ Luna Tearmoon
in reply to Technology Connections • • •I am used to these (flat and round alike), they typically run along very specific locations inside the walls… and said walls are often reinforced concrete or solid granite plates.
And RCDs would shut power off the moment there is a leak, so…
Technology Connections
in reply to Mia ‘Meetings? I Abstain’ Luna Tearmoon • • •Johan | PD1JMB
in reply to Technology Connections • • •@mia
I don't like significant lengths of bare, conductive stuff next to electrical wiring.
Sure, it is hard to drive a nail through. But one should be mindful of what is inside walls anyway.
Sure, if properly grounded the RCD will trip when the live wire touches the metal but if not it will become live. And it is bare metal.
I don't have such problems in my house, it is all PVC conduit.
Technology Connections
in reply to Johan | PD1JMB • • •every single piece of conduit is grounded to the electrical box that they ultimately come from. So if a live wire were to touch the metal, it's going to cause the breaker feeding it to trip instantly.
That is actually one of the main points of having conduit. In many cases, the conduit itself is used as the ground, and a separate ground wire isn't even run. The switches and outlets are just bonded to the boxes
Mia ‘Meetings? I Abstain’ Luna Tearmoon
in reply to Technology Connections • • •the thing is, the way stuff is installed according to your second photo is straight up prohibited in my home prefecture of Hokkaido and as far as I know from the two decades I worked there, in all of ex-USSR…
That kind of sticking-out wiring is a code violation, basically.
Technology Connections
in reply to Mia ‘Meetings? I Abstain’ Luna Tearmoon • • •Mia ‘Meetings? I Abstain’ Luna Tearmoon
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in reply to Mia ‘Meetings? I Abstain’ Luna Tearmoon • • •@mia @dynode huh. Well I don't know why you find it dangerous, to be honest. It's far better protected than a run of Romex and a plastic box, and all of the piping is grounded.
I'm honestly not sure if using the conduit as ground is still allowed at this point, but when it was every connection between pipe and box (and pipe-to-pipe) has specific fittings to ensure they were electrically bonded.
Webster Leone
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I bet your wall detectors pick up every wire though…
Archie
in reply to Technology Connections • • •What's that really silly little plug and socket?
There's your problem. You need the Great British Plug
Best in the World 😇
Mark likes this.
Jourei
in reply to Technology Connections • • •Here we use pipes to put in the walls, to guide the cables.
Chloe Raccoon
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in reply to betazed • • •@betazed it is! And the conspiracy-minded will tell you electrical unions lobbied for this to ensure job security.
There may be some truth to that, but we also have long-standing paranoia about fire safety since the Great Chicago Fire
betazed
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in reply to Graham Ballantyne • • •This is a weird case. Normally, electricians use double wide boxes like this one and then put a mud ring on top to hold onto the outlet. When there's more than one run of conduit going into the box it's a lot easier to work with
The single box on the end of a stub was probably done sideways just to match the rest
Tim Ellis 🦝
in reply to Technology Connections • • •But… the mud ring can be installed in a vertical orientation just as easily as horizontal on a square double-wide box, can't it? e.g. This outlet in a commercial space here in Washington State.
In fact I think here the conduit is required for commercial spaces, but I've rarely seen the horizontal orientation. Color me still confused.
Technology Connections
in reply to Tim Ellis 🦝 • • •@The_Tim Sure, but we don't for whatever reason.
To be quite honest, having the sideways is usually a boon. Never have overlapping cords!
Tim Ellis 🦝
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in reply to Tim Ellis 🦝 • • •@The_Tim What I mean is conduit means we can, so we do.
It's harder (though not impossible) to do sideways outlets with plastic boxes, but it's not harder at all with a two-gang box and a mud ring. And for whatever reason, it's a norm with lots of inertia.
I'm gonna start paying attention when I'm out and about (I failed with one task today, though) and earlier I renewed my car registration. Outlets at the DMV*, sure enough, were sideways.
*Illinois Secretary of State Driver Services Facility
Technology Connections
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in reply to Technology Connections • • •Ah ok yeah, flexible conduit. We have similar stuff in the walls here (maybe slightly larger, not sure), though it's made of plastic.
The reason why I wasn't sure that's what you meant was because in the UK they have "steel wire armoured" cable which is a totally different thing (a round cable with steel wires around it for protection, strong enough that it can be buried).
Interestingly enough, one of the differences between UK and continental European wiring is that the UK tends to use something very similar to Romex - twin and earth cables - while other parts of Europe tend to use conduits in the walls. On brick buildings, this makes it easier to change things later on, and in fact it's very common these days to add a few empty conduits in an installation specifically for future use (either power or data), since adding new conduit later on is a huge PITA
Technology Connections
in reply to samuele963 • • •@samuele963 yeah, conduit is a double edged sword. Want to upsize a circuit? Easy! Just run a fish tape through and pull new wiring. You can even reconfigure what switches do in some cases.
Want to add a new circuit to a new place? Good luck.
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It's probably something like this https://www.grainger.com/category/electrical/wire-cable-management/surface-raceways-cable-concealers/prewired-outlet-raceways-strips
A metal raceway with prewired outlets.
screambiogenesis
Unknown parent • • •@mia @ocdtrekkie Not desktop staples, but the big ka-chunk-y type. General way to install romex it to staple it to a stud instead of leaving it flopping around inside a wall.
Romex is a lot tougher than your average extension cord, but still, it's a barbaric way to deal with electricity tubes!
screambiogenesis
Unknown parent • • •@mia @ocdtrekkie Wild. Here you could just drive some cheap screws directly into the sheetrock with your cheap screwgun. No pre-drilling needed.
For heavier items, just make sure one of them hits a stud for strength.
Mia ‘Meetings? I Abstain’ Luna Tearmoon
Unknown parent • • •yeah the benchmark is like…
(note this is from when I worked for our consulate in StPetersburg)
I wanted to hang my speakers and thus needed to drill three (left, right, centre speakers) holes in it. I used a Bosch GBH 12-52 DV hammer drill with Bosch concrete drill bits. While drilling three 20 mm deep holes I broke 4 drill bits.
ocdtrekkie
Unknown parent • • •Mia ‘Meetings? I Abstain’ Luna Tearmoon
in reply to screambiogenesis • • •that sounds terrifying to me. Over where I am from, the general way to install wiring is to make a groove in the wall, lay the wire there with at least 0.5 cm from the surface of the wall to the outer shell of the cable, and seal with some finishing-like thinger like Rotband.
I do not think it is possible for the cabling to flop around inside the wall because both reinforced concrete and granite are very dense and very solid materials haha…
For non-load-bearing walls (stuff like wooden lattice with plasterboard stuck onto it) you usually put the cabling inside these and secure them to the lattice with cable ties.
Technology Connections
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2023-09-28 18:31:23
Ryan
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TikToksky "carbonated" piss
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in reply to sky "carbonated" piss • • •@sky That's the neutral pin, actually, and it's a T because this is a 20 amp circuit.
For devices which require 20 amps, it will have a NEMA 5-20P connector which has a sideways neutral pin. This prevents it from being used on 15 amp circuits.
Note, however, that you don't actually need to use 5-20R receptacles on 20 amp branch circuits unless there's only a single receptacle on that branch. Since most receptacles are duplex receptacles, they're actually rarely required.
Technology Connections
in reply to Technology Connections • • •The electrician that wired this place, however, elected to use them.
Consumer devices which actually have a 5-20P are extremely rare (the only device I've ever seen with one was a commercial conveyor toaster) so there's essentially no practical need to have them. But, it does identify which circuits are 20A circuits, which is somewhat handy to know.
sky "carbonated" piss
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