| phil-news-nospam@ipal.net 2005-06-17, 11:31 pm |
| When was a grounding wire first required by the NEC in the USA?
When were grounding plugs first used?
I've heard it said that electric stove and clothes dryer circuits were
allowed to combine neutral and ground during World War 2's copper and
wire shortage. But I've seen homes built both before and after that
time frame with absolutely no separate grounding wire anywhere, much
less on these particular circuits. As I understand it, the first NEC
requirement for any grounding in a home was to a laundry circuit. My
parents built a house when I was young in the 1960's. The washing
machine had receptacle (NEMA 5-15R or 5-20R I cannot remember) with a
separate grounding wire. The stove had a separate grounding wire, too
(NEMA 14-50R) even though I understand the code did not require this
until 1996 (I think the manufacturer of the stove required it). The
dryer just had 3 wire (NEMA 10-30R). The rest of the house was wired
with no separate ground (except for my bedroom because I asked for
that radio purposes).
--
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| Phil Howard KA9WGN | http://linuxhomepage.com/ http://ham.org/ |
| (first name) at ipal.net | http://phil.ipal.org/ http://ka9wgn.ham.org/ |
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