In article ,
bud-- wrote:

Smitty Two wrote:
In article ,
Wayne Whitney wrote:

On 2009-09-10, Smitty Two wrote:

What are the chances that an older motor on a washing machine or fridge
could have another ten years of robust life on it, but still have a
trickle of leakage current? I'd not replace an appliance motor just to
satisfy some pesky device.
And what are the chances that over those ten years, the motor winding
insulation further degrades, and due to a problem with the EGC the
chassis becomes energized? The consensus opinion, as expressed by the
current NEC (which anyone can make a proposal to modify) is that the
safety risk is larger than the cost of retiring older machinery with
greater than 5 ma leakage current.

Cheers, Wayne

Safety risk? The "consensus opinion" is a large helping of b.s. Here,
try this little test. Google is famous for returning 475,000 alleged
"hits" on just about any search string. So please link me to a report of
someone who was electrocuted by a leaky motor on a home appliance,
through incidental contact with the chassis. Hell, I'll settle for
someone who was shocked seriously enough to be frightened into a doctor
visit.

The requirement for refrigerators and freezers in commercial kitchens to
be GFCI protected was because of shocks that occurred when they weren't
GFCI protected (presumably involving a refrigerator problem and faulty
grounding).


Virtually all the exceptions to requirements for GFCI protection (like
refrigerator in garage) were removed from the 2008 NEC. A couple
arguments we
"The permitted leakage current for typical cord and plug connected
equipment is 0.5 ma. The trip range for GFCI protective devices is 4-6
ma. For this utilization equipment to trip the GFCI device, it would
have 8 to 12 times the leakage current permitted by the product standard."
and
"The present generation of GFCI devices do not have the problems of
'nuisance tripping' that plagued the earlier devices."

Yeah, the room is full of code junkies, who can cite chapter and verse
but can't substantiate many of the rules with logic or reason. They
worship the NEC for the same reason the Believers worship the bible:
Because it tells them to.

The damn unalterable truth is that electrocutions in the home are very,
very, very rare. I've posted statistics to substantiate that statement
more than once. Yet the junkies continue to insist by insinuation that
if you grind down a neutral blade, snap off a ground pin, or operate a
light switch with a wet hand, you'll almost certainly be dead in a
matter of milliseconds.