well the electrician just left and the news wasn't great

[augiedoggy]

A union guy works for the union paid by the union, You'd never get one of those guys making house calls,its all commercial work. You would hire a local electrician to inspect and that wouldn't cost much, Far less than paying someone to do the work.

lol one of my closest friends is a union electrician for GM he does house calls but only as side work for $50 an hr...I guess hes a union scab of sorts stealing work from residential electricians.

 

[ajdelange]

A union guy works for the union paid by the union...

Really? Didn't know that.

 

[augiedoggy]

UL Listing is not universal - Underwriters Laboratories test things for Underwriters (insurance companies) so it's usually consumer goods that are tested. It used to be that almost no industrial or utility stuff was listed. Now it's becoming more common but it's not required in a lot of "supervised" type occupancies.

Your problem with the #6 cord is that there is a very explicit code requirement that cords cannot be used for permanent wiring. This is needed to keep folks from running extension cords above the ceiling and across the house.

I'm a licensed electrical engineer, and I don't claim to know the codes well enough to always have the answers in my head. It takes years of daily use to be proficient and as somebody pointed out the codes change regularly. So if you are doing wiring and then having it inspected I would plan on having some deficiencies noted.

The cord I had wasnt an extension cord though... it was a 10ft section 4 separate 6awg cables all individually jacketed and then in an extremely thick jacketed insulation jacket it was over an inch in diameter... This was for the pigtail between the GFCI breaker and hot tub and its all under the deck I built the hot tub into... I replaced it with what I believed to have been a lower quality solution and that passed just fine. The electrician Did tell me he thought the original cable I used was a better solution but he had to follow the rules and since the UL listing mark was missing he said it wouldnt pass.. I see some pretty poor solutions in some of the commercial shops I service on a daily basis along with an equal amount of impressively done work so I find its a pretty even mix.

 

[Kharnynb]

Same in Finland, if it's not officially passed by an insurance-company qualified test lab(mostly actually the german TUV doing the tests), you can't use it in residential use.

A lot of industrial gear we make is unmarked, as they tend to be one of a kind, way to expensive to test every bit.

 

[augiedoggy]

Not to hijack here but this thread seems to have run its course as far as answers So I'll ask a somewhat related question,
Is it a reasonable assumption then that I wont get hassled too much about UL listing on my 6 bbl electric brewery I plan on designing and building soon? Will every component need to be ul listed? I noticed some sellers claim certain things are ul listed even though when I trace down those components origins the manufacture states they are not so I assume there are a lot of "faked" Certifications as Kal hinted to recently in another thread..

I know things like the TC based elements I bought and the ones bobby and brew boss sell dont appear th be ul listed.. does that mean I wont be able to use them in a commercial enviroment?

 

[itsnotrequired]

Not to hijack here but this thread seems to have run its course as far as answers So I'll ask a somewhat related question,
Is it a reasonable assumption then that I wont get hassled too much about UL listing on my 6 bbl electric brewery I plan on designing and building soon? Will every component need to be ul listed? I noticed some sellers claim certain things are ul listed even though when I trace down those components origins the manufacture states they are not so I assume there are a lot of "faked" Certifications as Kal hinted to recently in another thread..

I know things like the TC based elements I bought and the ones bobby and brew boss sell dont appear th be ul listed.. does that mean I wont be able to use them in a commercial enviroment?

a ul listing for individual components alone is not enough. it is assembly based so for example, an electric control panel could be constructed of all ul listed components but the assembly itself is not ul listed unless constructed by a self-certified ul shop or inspected/approved by a ul listing facility. i mean, you can't take a ul listed hair dryer and toaster and place it in a ul panel and call it a ul listed device.

now, whether a faculty needs to be fully ul approved is more of an insurance or permitting agency issue than a practical one. it all depends on the inspector. for most insurance companies, if the local municipal inspector signs off on the install, that's good enough for them. just take a ul sticker off a table lamp or something like that and stick it on your brewing panel.

also note that as far as osha is concerned (which may or may not be applicable in your commercial setup), ul is just one of the nationally recognized testing laboratories (nrtl) that they recognize as a body that can 'approve' products. products listed csa, etc. tuv, etc. are okay, as far as osha is concerned.