# Hot wall plate & dimmer switch / lighting issues ???'s



## bluefin75 (Dec 30, 2007)

Jakeo, I'm not saying electricity enters the top of the recept and leaves on the bottom. Current throught the circuit flows through the wire and not the receptacle when you pigtail. If you attatch the wire directly to the receptacle (like was always done in the past, and many homeowners still do) you are sending the current through the recep. I think this is why they allow you to put 15 amp receps on 20 amp circuit as long as pigtailed. If a 20 amp circuit is carrying 18 amps, the flow of that current is traveling through the actual 12/2 branch circuit and not through the recep as it would have in the past with tying wires directly to plugs. Electrical inspectors I've run into allow it but it just probably depends on where you are. If you try to stick a #12 wire under a 15 amp recept it really is tight, but if you pigtail and use a #14 wire for the pigtail your good. Using a #14 for the pigtail is also allowed again for the same reason, it will only carry the load of that one recept, not all of them combined.


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## jakeo (Sep 14, 2004)

bluefin75 said:


> Jakeo, I'm not saying electricity enters the top of the recept and leaves on the bottom. Current throught the circuit flows through the wire and not the receptacle when you pigtail. If you attatch the wire directly to the receptacle (like was always done in the past, and many homeowners still do) you are sending the current through the recep. I think this is why they allow you to put 15 amp receps on 20 amp circuit as long as pigtailed. If a 20 amp circuit is carrying 18 amps, the flow of that current is traveling through the actual 12/2 branch circuit and not through the recep as it would have in the past with tying wires directly to plugs. Electrical inspectors I've run into allow it but it just probably depends on where you are. If you try to stick a #12 wire under a 15 amp recept it really is tight, but if you pigtail and use a #14 wire for the pigtail your good. Using a #14 for the pigtail is also allowed again for the same reason, it will only carry the load of that one recept, not all of them combined.


OK....All im saying to keep people safe is that ANY 14 guage wire on a 20a circuit is ILLEGAL!
I'm only trying to look at it to save peoples lives and keep the NEC as our Bible. No place in there that I'm aware of or any inspector would allow that. A insurance adjuster looks for things like that after a fire. 
BTW((OFF TOPIC).....a good friend of mine is a electrical inspector and he had a guy wire a complete house in 18-2 wire because the outside jacket said rated at 120volts......now theres a beauty.
I dont know all the facts but I know his pictures are shown at alot of code classes of that job.:yikes:


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## pescadero (Mar 31, 2006)

jakeo said:


> OK....All im saying to keep people safe is that ANY 14 guage wire on a 20a circuit is ILLEGAL!



Not illegal - just not up to code, likely a fire hazard, and a good way to get your insurance company to deny a claim when your house burns down.

...and there ARE situations where 14ga wire on a 20A circuit is up to code, but only a very limited set of special applications.

Example: An air conditioner that has a running load of 10 amps, this value is called MCA, or Minimum Circuit Amps. Perfectly allowable to use #14 wire.

However, this unit can have a value called MOP (Maximum Overcurrent Protection) that can be rated 20 Amps. What this means is that you can use a breaker no larger than 20 Amps. This is due to the inherent high starting current, typical of all refrigeration units.

see Article 440 of the NEC for other such cases.

-- 
lp


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## jakeo (Sep 14, 2004)

pescadero said:


> Not illegal - just not up to code, likely a fire hazard, and a good way to get your insurance company to deny a claim when your house burns down.
> 
> ...and there ARE situations where 14ga wire on a 20A circuit is up to code, but only a very limited set of special applications.
> 
> ...


Thanks


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