Talk:Electrical wiring (United States)

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Articles for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on 9 February 2008. The result of the discussion was keep.

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Electrical wiring (United States) article.
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[edit] Comment

With the last comment from January, I'm going to assume the development mentioned in the article block is done or stalled, and go ahead and start editing. --Robmonk 04:22, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Voltage and cable size

what voltage is that dc distribution you mentioned. Cable gauge has nothing to do with DC or AC just with expected current

I'm not really sure about the physics behind it but DC looses "energy" as it travels along a wire more than AC. Purhaps it generates more heat? I know the use of alternating current is what made centralized electrical generation possible. Edison sold DC generators to individuals before AC generators were used at central generating stations. Gbleem 20:32, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)
well the first part of that is BS indeed dc often loses less under the same wiring conditions and at the same voltage as is mentioned in the article HVDC. The problem with DC is its hard to convert voltage (near impossible in edisons day not too hard with modern SMPSU technology). Practical off grid DC systems may run at lower voltages and hence need larger wires but the generalisation in the article is meaningless on
gbleem is right, but for all the wrong reasons. Consider a 120W load in a 120V circut and a 12V circuit, through wires that have 1 ohms of resistance. The 120V circuit will deliver 1A. 1A across 1 ohms means it drops 1V due to the resistance of the supply lines. 119V shows up at the load. No biggie. Now consider 12V. That's 10A. 10A across 1 ohm is a 10V drop, and your 12V supply now suddenly is a 2V supply, and nothing works. It's not a matter of DC vs AC. It's a matter of 120V supply vs 12V. This is the same reason that power gets stepped up to 100,000 volts to go miles and miles from the power plant. If it didn't, you'd need wires the size of trees to keep from dropping voltage. Twredfish 02:13, 18 January 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Points are contriductory

the following points are contriductory

  1. minimum 14 gauge wire, solid for 15 amp circuits (some local codes require a minimum of 12 gauge for 15 amp circuits, except for switch legs - that is, circuit portions that are strictly between a light switch and the light that it serves; stranded may also be used, and is of greater ampacity, but is more expensive and requires slightly different techniques)
  2. all wiring in a circuit except for the leads that are part of a device or fixture must be the same gauge.

i don't live in the us so i don't know about your codes but this article seems very vague and in at least one place self contridictory--Plugwash 11:34, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The part about using a different guage for switch legs refers to local codes which sometimes contradict the NEC. Usually a locality will adopt the NEC codes and then add a few exceptions. The NEC requires all wire in the same circuit to be the same gauge. Gbleem 20:23, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)


[edit] Comments about moving page

also this page is in dire need of deamericanisation i think this article should be moved to another name like north american electrical wiring (i think practices are very similar in the USA and canada) and then general information should be moved back to the electrical wiring page. if there are no objections to this in the next few days then i :It looks like the move was already done, although incorrectly to (US) instead of (U.S.) as is preferred. I fixed that. Much of the content of this article is a discourse on the NEC which has its own article. I think I'll thin that stuff down, and broaden the article a bit. --Theodore Kloba 19:09, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Redirect

I have removed the redirect from Talk:Electrical wiring to here. If you posted comments above that really belong there, feel free to move them, so this talkpage can concentrate on issues relating to the U.S. article. --Theodore Kloba 19:33, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Spelling

Have updated the spelling within a link, but there is still a discrepancy in the terminologies! Was: arc fault interuptor (sic, with one "r"!), but article to which it links is entitled "Arc-fault circuit interruptEr" (i.e., with hyphenated "arc-fault" and misspelled interruptor (as is used in the "Ground-fault circuit interruptor" link, which itself redirects to "Residual-current device"). All bit of a mess! Eilthireach 18:59, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] SEU & SER

Could someone please add a discussion on service entrance cables and define SEU and SER? Thanks!!

[edit] Conduit

There should be a mention of the difference in areas that use electrical conduit such as EMT pipe, BX etc. and those that use NM such as Romex. I know Romex is used in most of the US, but pipe and BX are used around here where I live. (Hammond, Indiana) and the Chicago area. --Kalmia 04:37, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] AFCIs

This article needs to be updated to include references to AFCIs and combination AFCI/GFCIs.

Atlant 19:27, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Broken link

The link The NEC at NFPA.org at the bottom is broken.

129.79.195.29 22:12, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Salvageable article

Please don't add any more tags suggesting deletion of this article without a very good explanation. It is at least as encyclopedia-worthy as many other articles here. It's about a *real* subject, not just some throw-away background item in some interminable chain of epic novels. It is reasearchable. The topic of electrical wiring in the United States is of interest especially if contrasted to wiring methods elsewhere, and especially if some of the rationale for the wiring practices is given. --Wtshymanski (talk) 18:07, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] scope?

This article appears to focus on residential wiring. Should its title be changed to "Residential wiring (United States)" ? -- Mikeblas (talk) 00:53, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

I think we can usefully broaden the scope to cover industrial and commercial wiring - provided an admin doesn't delete the article first. The problem with the focus is that few contributors know about industrial, overhead, etc. systems where as everyone has a copy of "The Dummy's Guide to House Wiring" and watched an uncle wire a light switch once. --Wtshymanski (talk) 02:38, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] References

You know, just how many references does an article need? To some extent every article relies on a subject matter expert paraphrasing what he/she knows and summarizing it, often without a particular reference in mind at all. We really shouldn't demand every sentence have a reference if the sentences are generally describing things well-known to those familiar with the subject. My goodness, the History of England article only has one reference...does anyone seriously doubt that Vikings existed and invaded coastal English villages? I know, I know, this is Wikipedia, where credentials mean nothing, and if enough teenagers raised on TV contribute somehow the result will be a reliable and authoritative encylopedia. --Wtshymanski (talk) 02:38, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Your questions are answered at WP:V and WP:RS. -- Mikeblas (talk) 05:49, 17 February 2008 (UTC)