On Sunday, November 3, 2013 6:35:56 PM UTC-5, Pete C. wrote:
wrote:



On Sun, 03 Nov 2013 15:56:54 -0500, "Pete C."

wrote:





woodchucker wrote:



On 11/2/2013 12:26 PM, Stormin Mormon wrote:

On 11/2/2013 10:43 AM, wrote:



Have you seen air conditioners plugged into 50A circuits? I didn't

think so.



Yes, actually, I have. I did so, once. No, thinking about it, twice.

Would you like to hear the details?



I would.



Twenty or so years ago, I heard of apartment complex that was pitching

out a load of old 220 VAC air conditioners. I asked, and was given them.

Hauled a bunch, and stored them behind a friend's house. Find out these

don't sell very well. That summer was hot, and humid. A couple of the

LDS missionaries were really miserable in the heat. I tapped a wire off

their 50 amp range socket, to power the wall AC which I put in the

window. Ran a 14-2 WG wire from his range socket, and put the necessary

socket on the end of that. Did a similar thing for another friend, who

was not LDS. I'm sure it's not to code, but it did make for some more

comfortable people. These have long since been taken apart, and you

can't prove a thing!



Definetly not to code. That 14-2 wire is 15 amp, your 50amp range means

that the breaker would never trip.



--

Jeff



No different than the 18ga zip cord from your table lamp to the 15A

receptacle possibly on a 20A circuit - the breaker will never trip. The

circuit breaker in the panel is sized to protect the circuit wiring,

*not* the appliance that may be plugged into the receptacle.



Wrong! Code doesn't cover your "18ga zip cord"; beyond its scope. The

outlet is part of the "wiring". It *is* covered by the fire code.



If I put a 50A plug on the cordset to my A/C and plug it into that 50A

circuit it's entirely to code. The permanent wiring and receptacle are

appropriately protected by their 50A breaker, and the cordset to my A/C

is protected by it's internal circuit breaker. There is no code

requirement that an appliance must utilize the full Ampacity of the

circuit it's plugged into.

No but there can be requirements as to the max allowed breaker size.
Take a central air conditioning unit. Look at the install instructions
and/or rating plate on the unit and it will typically spec both a
min breaker size and maximum, like min 30A, max 50A. If that
is part of the manufacturers install instructions I believe it would
be a code violation to use a breaker exceeding 50A, no matter
what size wire you use.

Also, I don't think it's kosher to change the cord and plug on
any listed appliance to accomodate being able to be plugged into
a higher amp receptacle. I think that is the point gfre was
making with his citation of the code.