Electrical wiring challenge

[hitekcountry]

You can see why I would want to min. the number of wires at 250 ft each. If I had to run 8 wires that would have been 1000 ft of #10.

 

[quicksandfarmer]

I see no reason why it would not be legal.

The light fixture is polarized, it's not legal to switch between hot and neutral. Any sort of switched neutral is not code.

I do applaud your creativity though.

 

[BobRip]

If you are only running a few lights (say 200 watts on each switch, or about 2 amps) you would only have about 1.65 volts of drop on a 12 guage wire. (1.65 milliohms per foot X 500 feet X 2 amps = 1.65 volts). Even twice that would not be too much. So it looks to me like 12 guage would be used for lighting and 10 guage for the outlet. Of course you might want more ligthning. I don't know the size of the shed. You would have about 9 volts on the 10 guage wire at 18 amps (the highest continous load allowed on a 20 amp circuit. I would use a 15 amp breaker on the lighting circuit.

 

[Tig]

The light fixture is polarized, it's not legal to switch between hot and neutral. Any sort of switched neutral is not code.

I think you are right about that. You could have the light off and the wires to the bulb still "hot".

 

[kennyd]

Or to put it another way lets just say weæ±*e running through metal conduit that provides the ground.

Using the conduit as the ground would not pass code here in my area!

And I do not think your 4 conductor wiring method would either...

 

[MossRoad]

Oh and also no radio/remote control or internet connection or computer anything. Just straight wiring.

You could do it with three wires if you stepped into this century and used remotes. They would definately cost less than the additional wire wire, too.

 

[hitekcountry]

Using the conduit as the ground would not pass code here in my area!

And I do not think your 4 conductor wiring method would either...

I was just trying to avoid getting hung up on the ongoing discussion of grounding that can go on forever, maybe that's just not possible. Don't get me wrong, I'm the first to stress the importance of understanding proper grounding, it's just for this discussion I hoped to not get sidetracked by it.

Now as to this wiring method meeting code or not I am quite interested. It was mentioned the light fixture is polarized I see that 410.23 speaks to that. Is there anywhere else in the code I can look? And "it's not legal to switch between hot and neutral. Any sort of switched neutral is not code." Where can I find that in the code? I couldn't find it, any help is appreciated. I can always learn something new from others. Thanks

 

[kenmac]

I don't have electrical code on hand. I'm not an electrician ,but I do install & repair HVAC & I have found folkes that have energized the netural. If RAT were here (I think he's an electrician) he could probably tell you where to find it .

 

[Inspector507]

And "it's not legal to switch between hot and neutral. Any sort of switched neutral is not code." Where can I find that in the code? I couldn't find it, any help is appreciated.

NEC® 404.2(A) and 200.11

 

[hitekcountry]

Inspector Thanks

So what we have is the least number of current carrying conductors to make it all work is 4 but does not meet code, and to meet code you need 6 conductors +GND.

TIG called it right all along.