DIYbanter - View Single Post - How much margin for safety is built in to the NEC?

Mike Hartigan

In article m,
says...
On Mar 13, 9:11 pm, "volts500" wrote:
On Mar 13, 6:31 am, Phisherman wrote:

The NEC is just a guideline. If you follow it closely (and use a
little common sense) you get more safety and convenience.
Unfortunately, few electricians follow the NEC due to cost. "Do you
want the job done for $350 or do you want me to follow the NEC and do
the job for $550?"

If that's the kind of experience that you've had with electrician's,
then I'd say it's your responsibility to send 'em on down the road
when they make offers like that. Somebody like that, even if they
charge you for an "installation to code", you're NOT going to get it.
Agreed, there's plenty of residential hacks out there who couldn't
make a code compliant installation even if they wanted too.

As an electrician, I find that it's the opposite. It's the customers
(some, not all) who try to get the electrician to cut corners. I
simply tell them to call someone else. I gotta sleep at night. I'm
not going to purposely do something that will jeopardize someones life
and the ONLY way that I know how to do that is to install electric
equipment according to code. I've been fired from jobs for refusing
to do work to code, lost work, and will continue to refuse to not do
work to code. How would you feel if a 4 year old child was
electrocuted or killed in a fire because some asshole didn't have the
intestinal fortitute to stand up to some clown who was too cheap to
pay for a proper installation? When I am confronted by people who
_truly_ cannot afford to pay for what needs to be done right, I just
go ahead and do it right, then charge them what they can afford to
pay. Now you know why I jump on people in this NG who post dangerous
or bogus electrical info. I figure folks are going to DIY regardless,
so one may as well try to help them get the right info rather than
keeping them in the dark.

Typo, make that:

"I've been fired from jobs for refusing to do work that is NOT to
code, lost work, and will continue to refuse to not do work that is
NOT to code."

I automatically made the correction the second time I re-read that
sentence.