On Nov 17, 3:07*pm, David Nebenzahl wrote:
On 11/17/2009 9:25 AM jamesgangnc spake thus:







On Nov 16, 11:43 pm, (Doug Miller) wrote:

In article
,
jamesgangnc wrote:

Isn't lots of your existing house wiring in your crawl? *All the wire
I have ever seen in a crawl is ordinary house wire. *And stapled to
the bottom of the floor joists. *The crawl is ok for ordinary wire.
And you can wire tie it to the cold water pipe to get to the top of
the heater. *You do not need romex, uf, or conduit. *Or furring strips.

Maybe you should stick to answering questions on topics you actually know
something about. This isn't one of them. *Everything* you wrote here is wrong.

I don't see how. *I have two houses that both have unfinished crawl
spaces under them. *All the wiring for the lower floor is run there
and stapled to the bottom of the floor joists. *The only place holes
are made is the bottoms of the walls where the wire up into the
walls. *Ordinary house wire. *The hot water heat is in the crawl in
one of them. *Disconnect attached to the floor joist above it.
Ordinary 10/2 house wire to the disconnect, ordinary 10/2 house wire
from the disconnect to the wh. *Both houses were built by developers,
both houses had all the usual inspections. *You're saying both are
completely wrong?

Well, yes and no:

o Regarding stapling *cable* to the bottom of joists in a crawlspace,
this is technically a no-no according to the NEC. However, if this truly
is a crawlspace, and not part of the inhabitable or usable part of the
house, it's hard to see the harm in doing this, since it's unlikely
anyone's going to hang anything from the cable. Still not the way I
would have done it: would it have killed the "developer" to have bored
holes through the joists the way you're supposed to?

o You're a little vague there when you talk about what kind of wiring
you're using. When you say "ordinary wire", do you mean just insulated
wire (like THHN) without any kind of jacket or covering? If so, then
that really is wrong. You can't just run wires in midair. If you're
talking about 10/2 *Romex*, then that's OK.

It really helps to be clear about these things so people know what
you're referring to.

--
I am a Canadian who was born and raised in The Netherlands. I live on
Planet Earth on a spot of land called Canada. We have noisy neighbours.

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I'm talking about ordinary NM 14/2, 12/2, 12/3, etc w ground. If it's
a crawl space then it's not habitable. If it's habitable then it's a
basement. And I have been in the crawl of a LOT of houses around here
constructed within the last 20 years and none of them have holes in
the floor joists, they all have the wire staples to the bottom of the
joists. It's all about how fast you can complete the job and boring
holes where not required is not going to make it faster. I've also
never seen conduit used to connect a wh. Yes, there is a disconnect
if the breaker box can not be seen from the wh. But all I have ever
seen from the disconnect to the wh is more wire, not conduit. Usually
ziptied to the cold pipe. The only place I have seen conduit used is
on outside stuff like ac compressors or hot tubs. Now maybe someone
thinks they can interprete the nec to say this is wrong but there
ain't no inspectors failing it.

So, again, why does this guy need to do anything besides staple up
some NM 10/2 to a disconnect nailed to a floor joist by the wh? Cause
if he has a "wet" crawl then he's got way bigger problems than his wh
wire.