What Up? What Up? Everybody? Welcome to another podcast where I,
Paul Abernathy, answer all of your questions related to the National Electrical Code.
And I give you the opportunity to ask me questions by simply going to Paul
Abernathy dot com and you can submit questions to me here at that Let's Ask
Paul podcasts, and I would do my best to answer those questions for you
either in an email or where selected on an upcoming podcast, much like to
day's podcast. So we're in the studio. Hopefully everybody had a wonderful Thanksgiving
with the family and you're ready to get back into it, remembering we're starting
the season of giving and caring and you know, the holiday season. For
years, I didn't really like to celebrate Christmas that much because I had lost
my mother during December and it just left a bad taste in my mouth.
But I realized after a couple of years that she would. She loved Christmas,
so she's like, you know what it is, what it is,
move on and celebrate with your family. So we have doing so. And
so one of our traditions is the Christmas tree went up on Thanksgiving Day.
That's just what we do, and it's a brand new tree. My wife
wanted a new tree this year, artificial still, but as the LEDs on
it, that's what she wanted. So she got what she wanted and it's
a beautiful little tree. And yeah, so we're moving on and getting the
season of celebrating in and that's always a good thing. So all right,
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in any of those things. All right, So today's episode, I had
somebody submit a question, and I guess the question was based on something I
had posted or something that's out there. On a public input that's talking about
clarifying what an outlet is. And so I guess there is confusion out there
by folks on what an outlet is. Uh. And so you know,
the talk is, well, if you have this rule with GFCI requirements in
two ten dot eight F, is that really an outlet? If there's just
a disconnect outside and it's supplying a piece of equipment HVAC equipment or something like
that, is that an outlet? In understanding the concepts of it. And
so that's kind of what we're going to talk about today. And again I'm
not here to bash anybody's opinion on it. They're entitled to their opinion.
I'm just going to kind of give my take on it and how I believe
the NEEC looks at it and how other people look at it, and I
believe how Code panelty will ultimately I look at it. Is when we're talking
about an outlet now in the Nationalgical Code, and again we're talking twenty twenty
three edition because that's the most recently published. If you go look up the
definition of outlet and I'm going to read it to you, and I want
you to understand that when I look at something like this and I look at
a definition of outlet. I'm not reading this as any one thing, right,
I'm not reading this as a box. I'm not reading this as a
cabinet. I'm not read I'm looking at it and saying, Okay, an
outlet can be many things. Now, we don't have to call something because
this is this is really when you look at the definition of outlet, it's
really talking about an action from a point where we're taking you know, supplying
power from the electrical system, the wiring of the system to supply a piece
of utilization equipment. Okay, of course we have a definition of utilization equipment
as well in an article one hundred. He'd behooves you to go look that
up. Well, we're just we're talking about taking power and so you know,
I would argue that an HVAC unit utilization equipment an example of that.
So anyway, so when it says outlet, here's what it's defined as.
It says a point. It doesn't say a box, it doesn't say a
cabinet, it doesn't say an enclosure. It just says a point on the
wiring system at which current is taken to supply utilization equipment, right, And
I think what happens a lot of times is we get really lost in the
term outlet. And again there is this big confusion where people call receptacles outlets.
Receptacles another defined term is actually a device, which is also a defined
term an Article one hundred. So, but the receptacles will go in a
box, and ultimately when it goes into that box, then what you end
up having people say, Okay, well, if you're going to mount that
device in a box, right, then you're going to put it in and
that's called a receptacle outlet. Now, it doesn't necessarily say that it's a
box, right, but it does say recept goal. It says an outlet
where one or more receptacles are installed. So you're installing the device in the
outlet. Although if you look in the National Electrical Code, and we typically
would install this device in what an outlet box, right, and that's typically
what we would call it. Well, if you look in it, and
you'll notice that under the definitions, there isn't anything for outlet box, right,
there's an outlet box hood right, Well, there's nothing for outlet box,
and we do refer to that a lot and so there's nothing really there.
So if you actually go and look under box just for craps giggles,
and you go look and try to find something specific to that, and I
go look under it, and I'm just looking in the article one hundred right
now, which you could do the same thing is I'm looking in there and
I'm not seeing any definition of a box. Okay, So then you could
look under the definition of enclosure, and a lot of times people will cite
that is okay, Well, what about if it's an enclosure? Okay,
if you look under enclosure and the definition of enclosure, it says a case
or housing of apparatus or a fence or wall surrounding an installation to prevent personnel
from accidentally contacting energized parts. Typically what you would get an application where you
know, over a thousand volt applications you might have this fencing protect personnel or
even greater than that higher voltage levels, things like that. But again,
a closure, a case, or a housing that type of thing, and
it's protective things, but it doesn't necessarily If I were to have an enclosure
and the enclosure had incorporated in it a receptacle, then that would be an
outlet in that enclosure that the device is mounted into. I mean, you
see where I'm going with this. It kind of gets into one of those
things about semantics and trying to possibly create something that is really not there,
right, And it does cause confusion when you go down that rabbit hole type
of things. Now, I fully understand there's people that believe that that,
for example, the disconnect to an outside air conditioning unit is not an outlet
because they cite the definition of disconnect right. A disconnect means right, and
so disconnecting means says that it is a device or group of devices, or
other means by which the conductors of a circuit can be disconnected from their source
of supply. So you have to understand that the disconnecting means if it's an
exterior disconnect that's there for the air conditioning unit, let's say HVAC unit,
then if you look at it this way, the source of power comes to
the disconnect on the line side. The disconnect breaks that that is an enclosure
to which this disconnect, this device breakers, uses whatever switch is installed inside
of it, but that is the source of power to that point. From
there, it's supplying power to the unit from the system, which classically would
be how we would come up with it being also an outlet. Why because
of the definition of an outlet. See, the definition of an outlet didn't
put itself in a nice little package of just boxes or just cabinets or just
enclosures. It literally can be a point on the system where you take power
to supply utilization equipment. You have a lighting outlets, okay, the defined
term, you have receptacle outlets, define term. It just so happens that
those devices could be mounted into a box, right, And so trying to
put outlet in one thing and say that, okay, well, since it
comes from the source which is the panel and runs through the dwelling, goes
to a disconnect, which is a enclosure that has devices in it to disconnect
power from the utilization equipment, it's hard to say that at that point that
is not under the definition considered an outlet for all intensive purposes. And that
is kind of where they have gotten at in the rules that changed for example
and two ten dot a F And that's why they had to put the informational
notes. That's why they had to make reference to that. It started all
this in Texas again with the GFCIs not functioning properly for like mini splits and
things like that. So they were worried more in Texas that the GFCIs would
trip and of course then it would cause people to die of heat strokes.
So they ended up coming up with this thing saying, you know what,
manufacturers of GFCIs and the manufacturers of HVAC equipment, y'all need to get together
because there obviously is a certain level of leakage current that exceeds the rating of
UL nine forty three. And of course there's a lot of work going on
right now in those UL standards. There's a lot of talk right now because
we did have a major expansion when it came to think kitchens like ranges and
dryers and and all microwave. All this stuff now requiring to be GFCI protection,
the ranges and things like that. We're causing a problems now down here
in Texas that have caused quite a bit of problems with the gfci's tripping.
So the UL standard is underway and they're trying to bring clarity and change the
standard a little bit to accommodate this. But the code is what it is.
Now there's a lot of us that serve on various code panels that do
not believe that we should be expanding gfci's for things like these ranges and dryers
and all that without a little more study by the UL standard nine forty three.
And again I'm in that camp as well. I yes, I believe
GFCIs do save lives. I mean, it's it's proven fact. They've been
around since the sixties, right. But at the end of the day,
we are rapidly expanding these things and we're not necessarily sure they're going to work
very well on these two hundred and forty vold appliances that that potentially could have
some leakage current and maybe it's above the threshold or not. I don't know.
There's more testing that needs to be done, okay, And so at
this point, I don't know where we're going to be when it comes to
pushing more expansion until all of this gets done by the UL folks and the
different people that are on those committees. But what what I'm kind of getting
back to the topic. I think the term outlet is, you know,
a pretty loose In other words, it can be used in many different applications
and many different pieces of equipment. We're not saying that an outlet is a
box. We're not seeing an outlet is an enclosure. We're not seeing an
outlet is a cabinet. We're not saying any of that. In fact,
the only one that we haven't looked at, I guess at this point is
that you know the definition of a cabinet in what that says. So if
you look at a cabinet, the definition of cabinet, basically, it's an
enclosure that is designed for either surface mounting or flesh mounting, and is provided
with a frame, matt or trim to which a swinging door. So you
have a cabinet which can be again argue that the cabinet is also an enclosure
depending on what you're working with, and you have a door that's hung on
it and it swings right. So a panel board, for example, is
an electrical assembly designed and that is placed in a cabinet or in a cutout
box. A cutout box again is designed to be surface mounted and that has
a swinging door on it, and a panel board can be surface mounted or
recessed that type of thing. So I think that any of those applications,
you know, is something that we have to be very aware of that the
term outlet doesn't get pigeonholed, if you will, into any one definition,
right, And I think that's important, and sometimes we lose sight of that.
Now, healthy debate is fine, right, Healthy debate is fine.
But I'll give you any I'll give you another example. If you look at
attachment fittings in the definition and you start looking at everything that's that's involved in
that, and you start looking at it and it says, okay, what
are some of the language that's in it, and say okay, so these
are receptacles, right, and these receptacles are going to get mounted obviously in
a box, right, And so at the end of the day, it's
still a outlet to which these devices, these little round interconnected devices plug into.
So you know, I think it's it's again and to close it out.
Let's go in and look at receptacles just so we can see what we're
talking about. And I'll get there in a second. You have your codebook,
you can you can turn beat me to it. Probably let's see here,
Okay, So at receptacles, we have receptacle outlet. As I saw
earlier, told you earlier, And it's basically just says an outlet. It
doesn't say it's a box. It just says an outlet is where one or
more receptacles, which is are devices get installed into. If you look at
the definition of receptacle, it says a contact device installed at the outlet for
the connection of an attachment plug. So what if you have an exterior disconnect
for an HVAC unit And what about the new ones that actually actually integrate a
receptacle actually in the disconnects pretty cool. You're required to have a receptacle within
twenty five feet for servicing right of this air conditioning unit. And so in
this case it's integrated into the enclosure, which is the disconnecting means, does
that change what it is at that point? Is it still Is it no
longer an outlet? Of course, it's an outlet that happens to have a
device installed in it. So I think the one thing that we have to
realize when it comes to the NEEC is not to get so dug deep into
things that to more problems than what's there. It's not broken, right,
And the use of the term outlet is very broad. It is anywhere that
you take power from the system to supply utilization equipment. I just so happened
to take it for an exterior unit. I take it from the disconnect.
That's just happens to be where I take it from. Right, So it's
you know, I could have a box mounted outside with an actual receptacle,
right, and that is mounted in the box, which would be a receptacle
outlet box, and that rule would still apply to that as well to ten
dout eight F would apply to that as well. GFCI protection of course,
all receptacles outside GFCI protection. Right. You know the concepts here, So
I think again trying to really understand, and I'll wrap it up here for
the episode. I think it's important to understand that we do not want to
take the term outlet and lock it in because the term outlet can be broadly
used in many for many things. And there's many situations where we create an
outlet and that's where we get power from the building's wiring system to supply utilization
equipment. And so the term outlet is not locked to any one thing like
a box, or any one thing like a cabinet or an enclosure or a
cutout box or disconnecting means or all those type of things. I think it's
the nature of the definition that speaks volumes. Okay, all right, but
that's enough of this episode. I just wanted to thank everybody for listening to
our podcast. For those that are listening to this podcast to disagree with my
position and want to do their own podcast on it, you know, snippet
little pieces of it, because they can't do anything original of their own.
Well, at least I had twenty minutes of your time. Maybe you learned
something today. Okay, all right, until next time, folks, Stay
safe, God bless