Ask Paul. Paul, Ask Paul? What Up? What Up? Everybody?
Welcome to another episode of Let's Ask Paul, the podcast where I,
Paul Abernathy, answer all of your pressing electrical code related questions using an online
portal that is one hundred percent free. That's right, you heard me.
It's one hundred percent free. Anybody can use it very discreet. All you
go is to Paul Abernathy dot com. That's Paul aber nat Hy dot com
and it's sponsored by WIS. You go there, You put in your information,
you put in your question, you click that submit button and it will
come to me and I will answer your question either in an email response or
an upcoming podcast. And starting on June twenty eighth of twenty twenty three,
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as well as fast tracks Tube and Rumble Do. You can actually watch the
episodes and I will answer your questions live on the air and hopefully you tune
in and get the answer you need. But that's something that's starting on June
twenty eighth of twenty twenty three. In case you're listening to this podcast at
a later date, be sure to go check those social media channels and search
for it. I'm sure you'll find the recording of the episode and you can
go back and watch it. Yeah, awesome learning experience because we're going to
do code questions, we're going to be looking at the fast tracks, going
to be answering questions, many lessons. Guest of individuals may come on the
show from time to time, so it's going to be a really neat,
fresh platform, whole new look. If you've been to any of our stuff
before, it's a whole new look and we're really excited about it. And
it allows me to interact with everybody on multiple platforms at one time, and
so that's what's beautiful thing about it. So hopefully you'll check it out now.
This episode here is sponsored by Electrical Code Academy and we are the supplier
of electrical training, whether it's continuing education. We have report for that.
If you need to get your CEU credits, just go check out our website.
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for you, So check goes out. They're all available on our website at
fast tracks system dot com, and of course there'll be links down in the
description to take you to that website if you're interested. All right, today's
episode is talking mainly about ungrounded conductors and grounded conductors and color coordinating and all
that kind of stuff. And I recently did a podcast and I think it
is episode one thirty four of the Let's Ask Paul that I talked about phasing
and whether or not you take a black, red, blue and reidentify it
as a brown, orange, yellow, or whatever. And I talked about
that in that episode, so make sure you go back and listen to that.
This one's a little different. This one is kind of talking about the
grounded conductor and maybe and the neutral maybe, and they're not the same,
right, So every neutral is a grounded conductor, but not every grounded conductor
is a neutral. If that complexes you, then you definitely want to make
sure you get into our Purple program on the fast tracks, because that's when
we go into the difference between grounded conductors and ungrounded conductors and equipment ground of
conductors, and we talk about what a neutral is, and it's important to
understand that not all systems will be neutrals, but they will have a grounded
conductor for a grounded system, and that conductor may or may not be a
neutral, depending on its orientation to the other phase conductors in the setup.
So, again a little beyond the scope of this podcast, because I'd rather
show you visuals for that, And of course that's where our fast Tracks Purple
comes into play if you're interested in that. But we probably will have a
visual lesson on fast Tracks Live. So again, check out the episodes and
maybe you'll Starting June twenty eighth, maybe you'll get something you like on those
episodes. Also, remember that you can submit questions up to twenty four hours
in advance to our shows on Wednesday night. If you have a question that
you want addressed during the Wednesday night show, just go to Paul Abernathy dot
com and submit it that way, or you could send it in by using
support Suppo RT at fast tracks system dot com and we will try to get
your question answered on the upcoming episode or a following episode of fast Tracks Live.
Okay, all right, so let me read today's question. All right,
So let's get into the day's question. It says, hey, Paul
love the podcast. I have a question about a recent job that I just
did. The specifications call for two seventy seven four eighty volt systems to have
a color coding of brown orange yellow, and it calls for a white grounded
neutral conductor. I've always assumed that the white is for a one twenty two
forty one twenty two eight volt system, and that gray had to be used
as the neutral for a two seventy seven four eighty volt system? Does the
code permit a white neutral to be used for two seventy seven four eighty volt
system? Thanks in advance again, love the podcast and look forward to hearing
your answers. Okay, great, Thank you for sending this question to me,
because it's a question that people ask all the time. And again the
confusion seems to be color coding. That does the ANC mandates certain color codes,
whether it's un grounded conductors, grounded conductors and neutrals and equipment grounds.
So the code does give us some identification rules. For example, in two
hundred dots six, it gives us our neutral identification rules for the grounded neutral
conductor. And then of course in equipment grounds it gives us our requirements and
two fifty one nineteen, so you can go check that out. It gives
us our bare green green with the yellow stripes. It gives us all those
rules for color. And then we got this thing about the ungrounded conductors the
hot conductors. And basically the code does not mandate whether or not what color
scheme you want to use. Now, engineers do So if you have an
engineering specification, and on that engineering specification the engineer calls for brown, orange,
yellow, then that's what they expect. If they call for black,
red, blue, that's what they expect when it comes to the neutral.
If they identified as white, then that's perfectly fine. If they identified in
a two seventy seven four evolt system as gray, that's perfect acceptable because under
two hundred dot six, white and gray are also acceptable to be utilized that
way. So to answer your question IM in a short if you look under
two hundred dot six, it requires certain colors for the grounded neutral conductor.
It's either gray or white are permitted, right, So either one would be
okay. So it doesn't matter if I'm using one twenty two a weight volt
system and I'm using black, gray, blue, and I want to use
gray, that's fine. If I'm having a two seventy seven four evolt system
and i have two different voltage classes in the building. So that's why we
often always remember to ten dot five C one when it comes to identification of
gum grounded conductors and all this kind of stuff. If I'm going to identify
the conductors another voltage class in the same building. Then I would identify those
colors differently. So if I'm using gray for the neutral, let's say for
the one twenty two forty or one twenty two O eight, then I would
use them. If I'm using white for that, then I would use gray
for the two seventy seven for eighty right, and vice versa. Those type
of things. To identify the systems is what you're going to do. But
the code allows you to use white or gray, and again it will also
let you use any other color other than green or three white or gray stripes.
So again it's very flexible in the National Electrical Code. Now, when
we're talking about orange, and people bring up all the time, that's a
high leg rule. So if you're going to use colors to identify ungrounded conductors
and it happens to be a high leg delta, high leg system will either
be phase is going to be two o eight. Then if you're going to
use colors to identify things, then it has to be orange. But it
doesn't. You don't have to use colors, right, I can use other
things like marking tape. And if you're using marking tape and it's a color,
then it's going to be orange. I can use numbering system, tagging
system, whatever the HJA. It proves I'm able to do that. But
if you're going to use color, then it would be orange. That's going
to be the signifier for that system. But since the question is really just
kind of talking about the grounded neutral, it can be white or gray,
whatever you want it to be. Just remember, if you have two different
distinct systems in a building, then one system is use one color because you're
going to have to do identification of the two systems. So the one color
uses white and then the other system, voltage uses gray, and you're going
to be okay. But doesn't matter which one you use. You can put
one twenty two eight one, you could use white, the two seventy seven
four eighty. In a building, you could use gray or use gray on
the one twenty two eight if you want, and then use white on the
two seventy seven four eighty. That's totally up to you. And it's also
if the engineer called it out, then you're just going to follow what the
engineer says and that's what they want. Now, if you want to deviate
from that, then you just have to reach out to your engineer accordingly and
discuss it. And again maybe they're going to be some kind of modification that
can take place to the engineering specification. But hopefully that answers your question on
that one. So let's see if we have another question. Let's see here
it says, Hey, Paul, I know you work in the wire and
cable industry, so I've got a question for you. Type MC cable can
be used in parallel sets for feeder applications. I believe that to be true
because I've seen it done on a daily basis. It says, in doing
so, the equipment ground and conductor is sized based on the MC cable that
is designed at the factory. So what do I gotta do when I'm running
MC cable in parallel and what does the code about sizing the equipment ground and
conductor as a result of that parallel setup considering the factory does not take that
into consideration. Thanks in advance and look forward to your answer. Great question.
This gets done all the time people that do installations. And you're trying
to get more current, then you're going to run a parallel application. Right
If a conductor's good for two hundred amps, but your parallel three times.
Now you've got six hundred amps. So basically all three of those conductors are
acting as one conductor because you're connecting them together at each end. It's basically
just like a stranded conductor if you will the different strands. Well, here
we have the different legs that you're connecting together at both ends parallels, and
you're taking the benefit of the more current that can be carried equally distributed across
those three conductors. Right, So that's done all the time. Now,
the problem with the manufacturing process is when manufacturers of wire or cable produce an
MC cable metal clad cable UL fifteen sixty nine. By the way, for
those that want to look up the UL standard for that product. It comes
with the size equipment ground in there that's designed for those ungrounded conductors and whatever
overcurrent device they're going to terminate into. Right, So there's a table in
two fifty one twenty two that says, whatever the size of the overcurrent device
is, this is what the size has to be of your equipment grounding conductor
makes sense, right, Well, if you parallel conductors, then you're going
to have a larger overcurrent protected device and you're running them in parallel. So
the standard equipment ground that is built into the metal clad cable is not large
enough to handle a parallel application because instead of sizing the overcurrent for the single
ungrounded conductors that are inside one cable, now you're sizing the overcurrent device for
the parallel sets of let's say three MC cables, And a good example,
just to throw it out, if one of them was a two hundred amp
conductor in there and you ran it in parallel two hundred each, then you're
getting six hundred amps. Then the overcurrent is six hundred amps. Then you
would go to two fifty dot one twenty two the table and you can see
what size the equipment ground of conductor has to be. Now. At the
same time, you also want to make sure that since you're dealing in this
case you're asking about an MC cable, it sounds like a feeder application.
You also want to look at two fifty dot one twenty two f two as
well, which gives you guidance on this, and it's going to tell you
that that equipment ground of conductor in each one of those parallel MC cables is
to be size and accordance with Table two. Fifty dot one twenty two,
and it's going to be based on the overcurrent protected device protecting that cable,
those cables that you're running in parallel. So you're going to go back and
look at the overcurrent device. If it was one cable, say a two
hundred, you would size your equipment ground. But now you're running a mid
parallel, so it's two fourc it's six hundred amp rated. So you have
a six hundred amp rated over current device with parallel sets three of them,
let's say. And so now that equipment grounding conductor inside of each one of
those mcs has to be increased full sized in every one of those mcs.
Well, that's the problem, right because MC comes with a standard size.
Now you do get some relaxation if you're running them in a cable tray,
then you could run them in a cable tray and then one one single equipment
ground that's properly sized, and as long as they're all connected together, all
equipment grounds are connected together at both ends, then you can use standard off
the shelf MC and basically they're running all in parallel and connecting to that one
full sized equipment ground, and that's an allowance in the code, okay,
and that's under the two fifty one twenty two f to do that. But
a lot of times what people will do is they will purchase specially made MC
with an oversized equipment ground to accommodate a parallel application. Right, so you
can parallel the hot conductors, you can parallel the neutral conductors. We all
get that in the paralleling rules. That's perfectly fine. But we can't parallel
equipment ground and conductors and use the circular mills to our advantage. Right,
So a hot conductor, if you have a certain circular mill and each for
each conductor delicious save a two fifty kc mill, then if you have three
sets of that, that's two fifty plus two fifty plus two fifty Okay,
then that works in your advantage because you're able to run them in parallel and
you're using the full value of each one of the Casey mills. Well,
that doesn't work the same way for the equipment ground. The equipment ground has
to be full size in each raceway because a fault could take place into visually
in each separate cable or raceway that has to clear the overcurrent device. You
with me so if you were to parallel that like you can do neutrals and
hot conductors, then you have a smaller size equipment ground in each raceway that
if it's needed, if it's called upon in a ground fault to clear the
overcurrent device, which is obviously based on the parallel sets, it may not
be adequate to clear the overcurrent device. And that's the whole point of that
equipment ground. It's the main point. So that's why the code says it
has to be full size in each raceway or cable. You know, like
the question said, when you buy an MC cable off the shelf, it
wasn't designed to be run in parallel, although it can be, but that
wasn't what it was designed for. So your equipment ground is going to be
undersized. So you would have to get specialty made MC cable for this parallel
application or you're gonna have to use the allowances by putting it in a cable
tray and following the rules. And two fifty one twenty two f when it
talks about putting a single full size in there and making connection at each end,
so it acts like one with the conductors that come, the standard size
that come in all the MC cables, so basically they're all connected together.
There's an allowance for that. But if you're not going to do that and
you're just running an MC cable just on hangars, then again in parallel,
the equipment ground would be undersized and you have to have specialty made. You
couldn't just use off the shelf MC for that. Okay, So hopefully that
answers your question. Again, if you put it in a cable tray,
you do get some allowances and two fifty one twenty two f but at the
end of the day, the equipment ground that's inside an MC cable is made
for those conductors that are inside that cable. Whatever the overcurrent device would be
to protect those conductors in that one size cable, that's what that equipment ground
is sized for. If you do it in parallel, then you're gonna have
a larger overcurrent device. Then that's gonna mean your equipment ground inside of each
one of those cables is too small. And no, they can't be connected
and acted like the hot conductors or grounded conductors. You can't cumulatively add up
the circular middle of each one of those equipment grounds. It doesn't work that
way. It has to be full sized equipment ground and conductor in each one
of those cable assemblies. You're not gonna get that off the shelf. You're
gonna have to have it custom made, right, all right, So hopefully
I painted a picture that a little easier to understand. Again, you do
have some allowances if you're going to do this in a cable tray, you're
gonna put your MC in a cable trade, you do have some allowances,
some breaks that'll maybe help you out a little bit so that you can use
standard MC. But anywhere else when you're not in a tray, then you're
running MC. Then you have to realize that when you do it in parallel,
the equipment ground is going to be too small and you have to have
custom made MC with an oversized equipment ground to be able to accommodate a parallel
application. All right, all right, folks. Hopefully that wasn't too difficult
for folks to grasp. So we'll catch you on the next episode. Make
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Till next time, Stay safe, God bless its open open