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Thursday, April 6, 2017
Question:
Re: CQD answer published Friday, March 31, 2017 -
I have a reply for the March 30th Thursday question. All the work electric described sounded fine and code compliant. As for the question: "Is Romex ever allowed in any pipe of any kind?"
The answer would be yes and you can usually choose your raceway. It's mentioned in more than one place in the code. A few would be 300.15, 312.5C, and 334.15.
Mr.Lynes mentioned outdoor receptacles also. He did not say anything about routing to a box with NMB within a raceway outdoors. So his installation is still ok. NMB is not permitted in an outdoor, below ground or above ground, raceway. 300.5B and 300.9 tell us these raceways are considered wet locations inside and out. The conductors in those raceways must be a 310.10C wet location rated conductor.
Here's what I think gets missed often - 300.5B and 300.9 tell us the raceways (inside and out) are considered wet locations. It does not say junction boxes. 314.15 tells us to use a wet location rated box in a wet location but it does not say the interior of those J boxes are to be considered wet locations. Interesting because you're permitted to put a 1/8" to 1/4'' hole for drainage in those boxes. So, it is permissible to enter the back of of an outdoor located J box with NM from an indoor location. The violation doesn't occur until you take off from that outdoor located J box with an outdoor raceway that contains conductors not rated for that wet location.
Norm Feck
A
Answer:
Hey Norm thanks for your comments. You are mostly correct but 300.5(B) does include the word "enclosures" so the interior of underground boxes is considered a wet location. We covered this in more detail in the CQD answer published Thursday, February 2, 2017.