Break In Romex Wire?

woodchuck2

I stopped at my local hardware store yesterday and they asked me if i had ever seen or heard of a splice in romex wire from the manufacturer. They then showed me a small section of 10-2 that a reputable customer had brought to them and it appears that the manufacturer had indeed spliced it and it had come apart. The customer had ran a new circuit and had no power on one leg when turned on. He then checked the wire itself and found this splice. The heat shrink is over the insulation on both ends and neither ends of the copper appear to have been cut, rather the copper appears to have a lip around the exterior edge and may have pulled apart. There are no signs of soldering or any tools marks on the copper itself either. It makes sense that the manufacturer would splice the copper for long runs during processing but you would think they would do a better job of it somehow. Makes you wonder how many electricians have been blamed for fires when it most likely may have been a faulty wire like this.

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Celtic

Haven't seen it in NM, have seen the bond wire MIA in a roll of 12/2 AC...breaks in neutrals/hots in 12/2 AC ~ although I seem to have been "lucky" that these anomalies seem to "always" occur at a point where I am cutting into the cable.

Like chuck said: Makes you wonder....

...and it does for me.

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Speedy Petey

Heat shrinked with a brazed end-to-end butt splice. Yup, I have seen it first hand!

Same trouble, power at the breaker, not power at the end, the WHOLE run visible. Running a tic-tracer along the wire the beeping suddenly stopped. I almost sh*t when I cut the sheathing open.

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Chris Johnson

Would it be wrong of me to ASSUME the manufacturer ran a continuity test before wrapping it up and shipping it out?

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Chris

mdshunk

I've seen it, and I've seen the machine that makes the splice. They call it a "butt welder" and it basically spot welds the ends of the copper together with electrical current through the wire, and they heat shrink over it. I found my first one when I just so happened to skin out a wire in a box where one such splice was. I've found one or two more while pulling cable through bored holes, and I felt an odd lump from the heat shrink.

woodchuck2

Must be either the spot weld didnt take well and/or the contractor pulled it apart when pulling the wire. I myself have had the problem of no power or no neutral on 2 different occasions but i never took the time to cut the wire open and inspect it. I always just ran a new circuit and either capped off the bad wire due to being drywalled already "1st time" or removed the wire and replaced "2nd time".
I spoke to another friend of mine about it and he also told me that he has felt a bump in the casing before due to splices. I will be trying to pay more attention to this from now on as foolish as it sounds. If i do find a splice then i will be removing it if at all possible. Thanks for the info guys.

MSSI

seen it... I sometimes wish there was a way WE could do that and get away with it. (provided its a good connection)

Celtic

There is ...but I wouldn't use the splice device made for the application

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woodchuck2

I am thinking i will just cut out the splice and toss it, i would rather throw away a little bit of wire than risk a problem down the road. Of course i would have to stumble acrossed the splice first. Peronally i would never splice a wire inside a home with the exception of a junction box. Only time i ever splice wires are direct burial situations.

MSSI

which is called what?

Celtic

It's called an "Amp Connect":


Made by Tyco


Here is thread from 12/07 that addresses this product in detail ~ the thread is still OPEN and can be revived for further discussion IF necessary after reading it in it's entirety.

http://www.contractortalk.com/f5/amp-no-junction-box-connectors-30448/

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macmikeman

I have done some federal jobs before where the romex was required to be locked in containers at the jobsite with the fed inspectors lock on it. Any rolls of romex removed from said container had to be megger tested in the sight of the inspector and results recorded prior to allowance for usage in the project. The first time I ran across this, I asked why the fuss? I was shown one of those manufacturer weld splices for my answer in a meeting about a month later.

JohnJ0906

I've seen it a couple of times as well.

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John from Baltimore
"One Day at a Time"
All replies based on the 2008 NEC

mdshunk

Another thing I've also seen is where both conductors of the cable are white, and the manufacturer made one black with a really thin heat shrink or coating of some sort... and vice-versa.

Celtic

Can you imagine the light show if they crossed the Black - White splice

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