Shady electrical work?

[Ballvalve]

My acid test for a "real" electrician was if he used no-corrode paste on and in wire nuts in damp areas, and especially on the cheap steel cover screws and threaded portions of those lousy pot-metal outdoor electrical boxes.

 

[junction_expert]

Invent your own definitions, it's still a buried box

NEC-compliant recessed light junctions are buried boxes. This is done
for safety reasons. The materials that electricians use are not rated
to a high enough temperature to be safe inside the same box that the
lamp outlet is in. Another safety reason to bury boxes (apart from
recessed lights) is to reduce electrocution hazard.

The notion that a buried box's unexpectedness is a safety hazard is
nonsense. A metal box is more puncture-proof than the buried cable it
replaces. Period. In fact it is safest to shield each cable from
puncture by building a box around it every time it crosses through a
stud. The best electricians know this.

The notion that a buried box can cause a fire is also nonsense. It
wasn't the box that caused the fire, it was the gaping hole, the
missing cable clamp, or the damaged cable. A fire does not care
whether the box is accessible to a human or not. Making a box safer by
making it more accessible is like making it safer by mounting a fire
extinguisher next to it. You can put out the fire so it's safer. Any
insurance company that refuses a claim solely based on a box being
buried is merely illustrating its own ignorance.

The problem with buried boxes is that when you put unreliable
connections in them, it takes a long time to find and fix the
problem.

Making reliable connections requires an electrician with the right
attitude. If you ask for a buried box and the electrician responds
with second-guessing your engineering and the engineering of the
recessed light design, debates about whether your recessed light is
even a buried box, bogus safety scares, etc., then you are unlikely to
get good results.

On the other hand, if the electrician is responsive to your needs, and
is honest about what he knows and doesn't know how to do, then it may
not matter so much that he can't solder very well. For example, the
failure rate of twisted junctions decreases exponentially with the
number of twists. Therefore, a connection made with 2 twists (i.e.,
stripping more than an inch off 14 guage wire) will be significantly
more reliable than a connection made with one twist. Most electricians
don't even know how to count twists. But many have a good attitude and
are willing to learn.



- junction_expert
25 years electrical AND electronics experience

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Ballvalve]

Good point, and use some no-corrode paste on that triple twist and fill the nut with it. The insurance company will not be using that as your fire source.

Its time and "pressure" - oxidation - that kills connections. Who the hell ever finds and goes back to junction boxes?

If the insurance company denies a claim based on a buried box, its not about ignorance, its about arrogance and greed to save a buck and stiff the client.

Buried boxes starting a fire might be an issue in Florida with the sulphur-toxic waste chinese drywall that makes copper wire look like the roof of union station in Chicago after 95 years. I doubt I have any supporters, but if I was running the national electric codes, All wire nuts would be pre packed with paste.

Probably why they invented arc fault breakers - assurance of poor connections developing over time due to "standard practice"

One twist prevented from corrosion is better than 4 twists open to ocean air.

 

[Jim Port]

Just because you can access it by removing several components
before getting to the box cover doesn't mean it's not a buried box.
You just don't want it to be called a buried box because you don't
want to admit that it needs to be more reliable than a normal
junction box.

You can at least find an accessible box because you know where it is. Read the NEC definition of accessible. A buried box could be anywhere.

On the one hand the electrician assures us that his splices are the
most reliable available, and on the other he ignores a significant
body of scientific evidence pointing to a high failure rate for
twisted wire junctions.

Where is this alleged evidence?

 

[junction_expert]

unsoldered connections

> Where is this alleged evidence?

Who hasn't owned a piece of electronics long enough to know that the bare copper contacts eventually corrode and fail? As for twisted wire, just twist up a few hundred connections and leave it outside for a few months. This is high school science.

There's a reason why we solder things in the electronics industry. With fat wire that electricians use the failure rate is lower, and there aren't that many connections in a typical home, but the failure rate is still worth worrying about.

Solder can be just as bad if the solderer doesn't know what he's doing. A "cold joint" looks fine to some people but is actually worse than no solder. But properly soldered joints are extremely reliable. Think of how many you have in just the CPU in your computer.

 

[junction_expert]

corrosion-proofing

> One twist prevented from corrosion is better than 4 twists open to ocean air.

I can believe that.


Besides that gel you use, another way to prevent corrosion (where it counts) is to hold the wires together with extreme pressure. I have never seen a failed junction made by screwing a wire tightly onto a terminal block. In the electronics industry we have new "press-fit" components which fit tightly into PCB holes rather than being soldered in. This method is reliable enough to be used in connectors with hundreds of pins and it seems they work perfectly for many years so far...





- junction_expert
25 years electrical AND electronics experience

 

[sbrn33]

WOW, I don't know how to get it through your head that a recess lighting j-box is not a buried j-box. I think you don't really understand or want to understand.
On the reliability issue, There are literally billions and billions of wire nut type connections out there and failure rate of a properly done wire nut is virtually nil, but you take someone who doesn't know what they are doing and put a bad connection in a buried box and you will be taking drywall out to find it.
Arc-faults were designed to save lives. Most of the tripping problems can be traced back to a drywall screw through a wire or another trade nicking a wire during installation.

Nobody is saying that a soldered joint is a bad thing, just that in 2010 it is just not necessary. You must have a computer now go buy yourself some wire nuts and join the 21st century.

 

[riteair]

Hey!

Except for the yellow cable not being stapled properly I don't see any issues as long as the splices remain permanently accessible.

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