Speaker 1: What's up, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Let's Ask Paul,
the podcast where you get to ask me Paul Abernathy
anything you want about the National Electrical Code and all
things electrically related. On today's episode, we are going to
talk about a Facebook post, and this was talking about
an air conditioning unit outdoor HVAC unit that a guy
did a service call on. Wasn't the original installer, but
he came back to solve an issue of a unit
that kept tripping the breaker and he came back and
actually did what he was supposed to do or whoever
the original person was supposed to do and fix the
day and posted that on Facebook and it literally got
two thousand and eight hundred comments. Dude, I post something
and I get hardly any comments. This guy posted this,
and you would not believe the sheer number of people
that have posted comments to this. And so that's what
our topic is going to be on today, So hopefully
you stay tuned for that. But before I do that,
I do have to mention that if you're trying to
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your patronage. All right, enough of that, let's get into
the day's topic. So this is a post, and it
was over on Facebook, of all places. I don't do
a whole lot of the social media thing anymore. I
try not to get engaged in it because again, it's
just very depressing for me to see the stuff that
gets posted. And I can't educate every everybody or try to,
and then everybody wants to pound their chest because nobody
wants to admit they're wrong. Even when I bring the
goods and I always bring the code work. I already
always bring the references. So anyway, I just it's it's discouraging,
although it kind of one of those things that make
you think, well, your your job as an educator's probably
never done because it just continues to be stuff all
over the internet. Sorry about that, fixed my mind. Okay,
So with that said, I kind of told you what
was what was going on. So the guy posted this
picture of a nameplate of an outside air conditioning unit
HVAC unit, and he said, originally it was installed with
a ten to two non metallic sheet cable into the
back of a disconnect. We'll just go with that. And
then it changed over to I guess liquid tight or
whatnot down to the unit, and it had thhhn thhwn
dash too ten gauge and that as well, so we
had ten to two n M and then after the
disconnect it changed over to thhn thhwn dash two ten
gauge down to the actual air conditioning unit. Okay, so
that was done originally, not by this person, but originally
the installer, and the customer was saying that it just
kept tripping off, kept tripping off, so probably when it
tried to start the end Russia just kept tripping off.
Why because the original installer put in thirty amp circuit
breaker and then instead of using it, pull out disconnect.
That sounds like they used to fuse disconnect. And he
had thirty ant fuses in there as well. A little
wasted money there, because all you needed was a disconnect.
You didn't need to have it be fusible. But that's
not for me to decide, and everybody's got to do
their own design, right. So anyway, that's what was going on.
So the installer was called out to determine why it
keeps tripping, and so when he got there, he happened
to look at the name plate, and the name plate
reads minimum circuit capacity of twenty nine point four ampiers,
maximum fuse or circuit breakers, so you have the choice
of fuses or circuit breaker involved here it said maximum
fuser circuit breaker fifty amps. And so he looked at
it and noticed that there was a thirty amp breaker
protecting the circuit, and so he switched it out for
a fifty amp over current protective device. In the course,
I think he had to put fifty ant fuses in
the disconnect because that's what was there. It wasn't just
a pullout disconnect, it was a fusible disconnect. So now
everything runs perfectly fine. Everything runs good, It handles the
in rush, and air conditioning runs like it's supposed to run,
because the gentleman that came out for the service call
actually followed the name plate. Whereas the original installer tells
me that he did not understand the concepts of two
forty dot four G for conductor size for conductor protection.
He didn't understand part three, part four in part six
of article four forty as referenced in two forty dot
four G under the small conductor rules. So he didn't
understand any of that. So all he saw was, Hey,
i've got a ten gage. Three ten dot sixteen says
it under the sixty degree column, which he knows that
non metallic chef cable was limited the sixty degree column.
Then three thirty four dot eighty says that no need
to use the ninety because there's no adjustment or corrections
taking place here, so they're just using the sixty degree column.
And so so he said, you know, there's that little asterix,
a little asterix in three ten sixteen says, go to
two forty four D and D says, if it's ten gage,
you protected with a thirty by the being by the boom, right,
And that's what he did. Well. Obviously that didn't handle
the the n rush and it kept causing the breaker
to trip on the air conditioning units. So this gentleman
went out there, looked at the name plate, astutely saw
that there was something wrong and fixed the day and
made everybody happy. So but here's the deal. Here's the deal.
Here everything up to this point. We can go look
at the code and dissect it out, and we will
just at the end of this podcast, because I don't
want to be a long one, but I want to
explain something. This is the problem with social media. Two thousand,
eight hundred people commented on this. This guy's picture of
his name plate that clearly shows minimum circuit ampacity twenty
nine point four amps, maximum fuser circuit breaker fifty amps.
So he had a ten to two non metallic sheet
cable and it's rated under the sixty degree column three
ten sixteen. It's good for thirty amps. He put a
fifty am breaker, that's what the name plate says. So
he's following the manufacturers and structures. It's perfectly fine. And
anybody that understands overcurrent protection knows that that fifty amp
is going to be short circuit ground fault protection, it's
perfectly fine. In fact, in a fault condition, the current
is going to go so much higher than that fifty
amp that you ain't got to worry that fifty is
going to trip. That's not a problem if you understand
the concepts of overcurrent protection and how it works, not
going to be a problem. In as far as circuit apacity,
we're allowed to deviate from the small conductor rules to
protect that ten gauge conductor. We're allowed to deviate from
that and to be able to do so. Now here's
the thing. That conductor is even sticking to the sixty
degree column, Like I said, even sticking to the sixty
because it's non metallic yet cable. A ten gage is
good for thirty amps, so it easily can handle the
twenty nine point four amps. Not a problem. When it
comes to the circuit opacity. It's not a continuous load.
You don't treat it as such. That doesn't even need
to come into play. So everything is considered okay. At
this point, and you look at the comments and again
over two thousand and eight hundred comments, and some of
the comments are quite embarrassing. They would be embarrassing for
an electrician to post some of the things that people
literally and they post it with such conviction, right like,
they post it with such bravado, you know, talking crap
to the person that originally come you know, the original
poster with such vibrato and and and disdain, only to
be wrong. And it's it. I'd be embarrassed to actually
do that. I really it's it's embarrassing to read half
of them, but they're there. Okay, So uh So anyway,
one of the things that that people ask me all
the time is they go, Paul, where do you get
the rules? Uh in the code here? Where do you
get the rules for the conductors for HVAC? Where do
they come up with the nameplate data? Where do they
get all this stuff from? Okay, so most of the
stuff that you'll see that you get from the data
is going to be back in four. And for example,
for brand circuit, short truck and ground off fault protection,
they have part three and you know what that starts
at full forty dot twenty one, and it goes through
full forty dot twenty two. Uh. And it continues on
and then you get to part four, which is the
circuit conductors, and you get that information there. Uh. And
all of this information uh in four forty dot thirty
two for single motor compressor. All of that is the
information that the manufacturer uses to determine and create their
data plate. And you got full forty dot thirty three
that talks about motor compressors. It's in four forty now,
which is for HVAC. Right, it's air conditioning refrigeration equipment
Article four forty It says motor compressors with or without
additional motor loads. So at the end of the day,
this is the information that's utilized, okay, in order to
create the name plate. Right, So think about it, folks,
the brand circuits and you're dealing with the listed air
conditioning refrigeration equipment that they have this name plate marked
with the brand circuit conductor size in the brand circuit
short circuit protective device size. Okay, And at the end
of the day, all of that is right there on
the name plate. And as I tell people, you're not
required to go using four three to do any sizing
because the product standard already has been done, and the
product standard is including an additional twenty five percent increase
for the largest motor or compressor in the group, plus
the other non motor or non compressor loads, so that
actual name plates full load ampere for the complete assembly
can be used to size the brand circuit conductors. You
don't have to do anything. It's done for you. So
you don't have to go to full forty dot thirty three.
You don't have to go looking up all those rules
that are in H Part four for forty. It's all
done for you. It's already there. Now, some of the
interesting comments that we see in this thread that's over
on Facebook, and I apologize. I would post in the
comments where it is, but I can't find it again,
so that's why i'm You know, I did take a
screen capture, but I didn't do enough of it to
get the actual original poster's name. Otherwise I'd go hunting
it down. But this is a Linux unit and it
is all the data information is there. And the comments
were saying things like, oh, well, you better call the
fire department because that's going to burn down the house
and all this kind of stuff, and it literally blows
my mind and it tells me that people don't understand
how HVAC systems work, the compressor works, the short circum
and ground fall protection. They don't understand the concepts here,
and they probably don't know the small conductor rule and
how you can deviate from it for like motors and
HVAC equipment and other applications. They probably don't understand that
that it's real common to see a fifty anp breaker
protecting a thirty amp rated wire and they get confused.
And the reason they get confused is when you look
at it, once you get past that sudden rush, it's
now going to drop back down and it's going to
be fine. And so I think that's where people just
look at these and they're so used to the small
conductor rules, right, which if you're just running a regular
brand circuit in the house and it's a fifteen AM circuit,
you know that's fourteen gauge. Your twelve gauge is good
for twenty ten for your dryers for example, good for thirty.
They see those type of things and they go, well,
that's what I'm used to. But when you see these
things like for HVAC applications and for forty or applications
for motors in for thirty, all of which when it
comes to protecting the conductors, you're allowed to deviate from
the small conductor rules based on two forty dot four D.
And then it's telling you to go to G if
the small conductor rules don't apply to your general application.
In other words, if you have motors, HVAC equipment and
all that kind then you can deviate from it. And
you have to understand how that works. And again, podcasts
is not a great way to do that. Again, I
encourage you to get in a program, a structured learning program.
If you're one of those one ones that posted something
in two thousand and eight hundred comments over on that Facebook,
then I encourage you. If you're in the trade and
you're licensed, those are some fundamental things. And I'm not
being mean. I'm just saying those are fundamental things. And
if you look into your deep, into your soul and
you don't understand how that works, you don't understand conductor opacities,
you don't understand the sixty seventy five and ninety degree.
If you don't understand how to do the ambient corrections
right and follow the rules in three ten dot fifteen
B one one. If you don't understand adjustments in how
to make an adjustment in three ten fifteen C one.
If all of that confuses you, you really do need
to take a step back, because instead of being just
an electrical worker, I need you to become an electrician.
And doing so means you're going to have to continue
your education. Okay, and continuing education is not free. It's
not something that you can go hunting for and try
to get the knowledge. You have to have people that
have put this together. And that's what I've done. I
put together a structured training program to teach you the
National Electrical Code. Now we have a course. It's called
Mastering the NEC. It's not for exam prep. It's to
simply learn the NEC. It's like putting an expert in
your pocket because that course never expires. You can access
it on your mobile phone, on a tablet. It's got
great illustrations, great call out. You can always use it
to go back and do a reference. I'm encouraging you
folks out there, if you're in social media, stop posting
the garbage about stuff you know nothing about, but you
know what, take it as an opportunity to learn, and
I'm here to teach you. Okay, okay, So hopefully you
got something out of today's episode. Again, this is a
post that was over on Facebook. Remember you, folks can
always send to me questions at Paul Abernathy dot com.
It's so easy to do. All you got to do
just go to you on your phone. If you have
our mobile app, there's an actual go down in the
down in the uh let me see here. I can't
remember where it is on the mobile app, but you
go down into the mobile app and you click on
the mobile app, and when that comes up, you actually
go down to a button it says resources. Click on
resources and it's the very top button. It says code questions.
You click it and you're right there and you just
fill out the form. It's that easy from your phone, dude.
I'm just looking at it though. Dude. We got calculators
for box fil Racewood feel arc Flash calculations. Dude. We
got everything in our mobile app. Huh. I didn't realize
I had all that crap in our mobile app. That's awesome. Anyway,
Until next time, folks, stay safe, God blessed. I hope
you learn something in today's lesson, and again be informative
and and learn the code the right way. Stop propagating
falsehoods or what you believe somebody said validated by asking
somebody and getting real knowledge on the NEC. That's the
only way we're going to make this trade better. Until
next time, folks, Stay safe, God bless