PDF of 2011 National Electrical Code posted

Thanks. How do I download it? Using Thunderbird. Bob

I didn't find it. What was the title in the subject line?

"National Electric Code" (in part). Easy to find by time & date: 12:18 today. 26 parts

Bob

Never mind, I got it. If anyone else wants to know:

Bob

Oops that's "National Electrical Code".

"TSA Supervisor" on Sat, 23 Apr 2011

12:22:52 -0400 typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:

ASST NEW MTLS 22 APR 2011 A - National Electrical Code (U.S.A.) [NFPA-70] 2011 Edition (NFPA, 2010) WW.pdf (01/26)

And everyone ought to rush right over there to steal a copy, right?

seeing as how it is not a giganews carried group, probably not many people flocking over there.

It is actually a pretty useful group for tech stuff. Lots of Win7 info

?st=1&gid=4821

What's the deal with building related codes being proprietary? Never thought anything that could be "law" and enforced by government should have to be purchased, except paying for the printing cost. What does "National" mean in "2011 National Electrical Code?" I've got no problem buying auto shop manuals, but I don't have to buy their cars, and they're not holding code violations over me. These proprietary codes never smelled right to me.

--Vic

Why should the taxpayer subsidize YOUR business?

So whose standards are you going to use? Make up your own as you go along?

I don't have a business. Thought codes were about public safety, not business.

As I said, codes are about public safety. It's government workers enforcing codes, not businesses. I pay their salaries. Laws are public knowledge, and codes should be too, since they are enforced like law. Simple as that. Already said I'd pay for costs. I don't like paying profits to a company to see codes that can be used by government workers to have me in court and fine me. It's not a big deal to me, since I don't plan on doing any work needing code inspection, and I can always find somebody to do it. It's more about philosophy. If a cop gave me ticket for breaking a law I never heard of, and told me I had to pay a private for-profit company to get the book of laws, I wouldn't like that at all. Greg Fretwell was a city or county inspector. I'd like to hear his views on this.

--Vic

Codes apply to the businesses that do the work.

No, you don't. The NEC is researched, tested, organized and written by volunteers, who hire professionals to do the professional parts of it.

If the people who wrote the law are going to make the NEC free to you, it will cost your state or local taxpayers money. The legislators don't write the NEC.

No, you said you'd pay for printing, or something like that. Printing is just the tip of the iceberg.

Vic, the Code is not produced by government. It's produced by the National Fire Protection Association. Do you want to pay them with taxpayer's money?

Really? I see over 4 million new headers in that group.

RE: the ethics of downloading the code.

No harm, no foul. I would never buy a hard copy, 'cause I just don't need one. Nor will I ever likely need one. My downloading the PDF does not cause the loss of a sale to the NFPA & hence does them no harm.

Having it available for online reading is (almost) exactly equivalent to downloading it. The only difference being the ability to print the downloaded version. But maybe you can print it online, too. If the NFPA provides it online for reading, how could they care if it's available for downloading?

Bob

Volunteers that are employed by who?

Wes

You can look up the organization of the NFPA on their website, Wes.

Codes apply to homeowners too. Let's break for a story. Not because it's too relevant, but just because. A neighbor across the alley lit his garage up using gasoline to clean his motorcycle. Don't know all the details, but the fire took out my electric service legs and blistered the big doors on both my garages. The city (Chicago) required I get a new service with outside meter. Okay, made sense, but I wasn't exactly flush. And I'm now connected to inspectors. On their list. First electric contractor I had out for an estimate wanted about $1000 to do the meter and leg hookup. Told him I would call him. Let's call him McCoy. (Estimated numbers just to show relative cost. I don't remember exact numbers, and don't even remember what we did for power. Probably ComEd hooked it up without a meter, but that's dim.)

Second guy came out the same day, and said $500. Even putting price aside, I liked him better. Told him I would call him, but he probably had the job. I called the first guy , McCoy, and told him I was getting the job done at half his price. He was surprised and asked who. I told him Fifth Avenue Electric. FAE for short. He hit the roof, and told me they weren't licensed, they buy their permits, just call the city inspection office, blah, blah. Anyway, I bought it. Last thing I want is unlicensed work, and inspectors on my ass. So I told McCoy to come out and finalize the deal.

I called the "unlicensed" guy back and told him that I was told his company wasn't licensed, and I couldn't go with him. He told me any work he did would be legal, but I told him I didn't want to take any chances. He didn't press me. I was actually a little disappointed in him, but that was because I didn't know "the system."

Now in the meantime I had a visit from the city inspector. He walked through the basement and told me fix this and fix that. A ceiling light over the laundry tub needed a porcelain fixture, and a junction box needed a cover. He looked at me and pointedly said, "I'm not going upstairs." That made me happy, and I asked him to repeat it. My house was a 2-flat, built in the 1920's, with original electrics. Imagine the code violations.

So McCoy comes riding in on a new Honda Gold Wing to do a contract. I won't get into this except to say I'm a Harley guy. Not that I ride, but that's what I would ride. First thing McCoy wants to do is inspect the entire house to see what has to be done. I tell him I talked to the inspector and he won't go past the basement. McCoy made a mistake and wanted to argue about that. "My reputation" bullshit. And he wouldn't back down, and stuck to that line. Instead of getting the service job and minor fixes, he pissed me off so badly I almost hit him. I basically ran him back to his bike. I was so pissed I went right to the phone and called FAE. Just told him to come out and do the job. Mostly to get back at that asshole McCoy, since I still had concerns about permitting, but it worked out anyway.

When FAE came out first thing he said was "I really thought I lost you. What happened?" I told him about my run-in with McCoy. Anyway, we became friendly fast, and he told me the city pulled his company's license because they wouldn't kick back to inspectors. His dad owned the company, was a long time electric contractor and would never swing that way. This guy was my age, about 30 then, and had 10 brothers! I met about 5 of them as they worked on my place. He explained that they had so many friends in the business to pull permits for them that it hardly slowed them down. And it was all legal, so no worry about the inspector. You don't have to be licensed to do the work, just to pull the permit. Think about that. He told me I really needed some more circuits, switches and outlets upstairs and he would run them for 25 bucks each if I did the re-plastering. I told him I was short on money, and he said don't worry, pay me when you can. Owed him about $500 when he was done, paid him in a couple months. No problem with the inspector, and he didn't go upstairs.

A few months later FAE dropped by to return some camping/outdoors books he had borrowed from me and told me the whole story. His dad was wearing a wire for the feds while he and his brothers worked on my house. Mike Royko wrote a column about his dad wearing the wire. I read that column once, on the internet I think, but can't find it now. 1978. Feds indicted one third of the city electrical inspectors. Big scandal. Mostly for taking bribes to overlook violations I think, but taking kickbacks from electrical contractors was part of the mix. That's my maybe boring story about codes, inspectors and electricians. I like it anyway.

I meant I pay the inspector's salaries. They have a book they can use to hammer me with, no different than law.

snip

Since you can get free access to it according to law, it's no big deal. I didn't know that. That almost takes care of my "philosophical" objections. I take your point about who pays, and what's the most efficient way of getting code created in one place. I'm not foaming at the mouth about this. Ed, if I wanted the entire NEC I would just pay the 60-70 bucks for it. What got me going on this is I do my own plumbing and simple electrical work. I always want to follow code. You made me look harder on my town's website. The plumbing code for my town is the Illinois Plumbing Code, 2004 Edition (with local amendments.) I can order that for 40 bucks. From the Illinois Department of Public Health! Electrical is Chicago Electrical Code, 2007 edition with local amendments. That's on-line. Clumsy to use, but it's there. I also found the amendments to those two on the town website with a little digging. Here's a plumbing amendment that's relevant to a discussion of floor drains here a while back,

"890.1370a). Add a new subparagraph 6): In addition to the above, at least one vented floor drain is required in the vicinity of all washing machines, furnaces, hot water heaters, boilers, reduced pressure backflow preventers, and water meters."

Another plumbing amendment is the addition of some chapters of the

2003 International Plumbing Code. That book has to be bought. HVAC codes are covered by International Mechanical Code, 2003. That one has to be bought.

For the sake of comparison I looked at how Ohio villages do it. The examples I saw all referenced the Ohio Building Code, with no amendments. That's easy, just look up the Ohio code. But the Ohio code essentially says read the 2006 International Building Code. Looks like that has to be bought. Anyway, my head is spinning, but now I know how to find codes, whether they're free or not. The electrical code is all online, so I don't even care about the NEC. But after wading through some of the code, I might just ask the guy at Home Depot what he thinks. Nah. I'll just ask here. If I was in a trade, I'd just buy the books, like I did many times for doing my IT work.

--Vic

So is the code available on the web site, and what is the web site if it is available for reading???