Appliance Repair Wisdom for the Ages

Thursday, July 22, 2004

Congratulations! Your range cord is equipped with the new, four-cord pigtail, which is required by the latest National Electrical Code (NEC). Your outlet, however, is out-of-code and should be upgraded to the new four-prong style.

Ok, here's whatcha do. Feast your Vulcan squinties on this anatomy of your existing three-prong range outlet. If you were to remove the cover of that outlet, you'd see that the outlet box itself was tied to the neutral wire. This is a bozo no-no and is ezzacly what the new four-prong outlets are eliminating 'cause they require that the ground wire be separated from the neutral wire. Here's the basic anatomy of a typical four-conductor range outlet.

One other thang. Since your existing outlet is out of code, the electrical cable from the circuit breaker box to the outlet will need to be upgraded, too. Your existing cable is probably 6-3W, meaning is has three, #6-gauge wires sheathed inside the cable. You'll need to upgrade to 6-3W/G which includes a separate grounding conductor.

Still got questions? We got answers in the Appliantology Group. Come see us. Fix y'up. Whatever.

2 Comments:

The links to MSN are broken,
because MSN groups are gone.

By  pachai, at February 14, 2010 4:02 PM  

Indeed they are... on this page. Although we stopped using Blogger aeons ago, Google and Yahoo insist on listing this page in their search results. Use ye the new, improved Wordpress page wherein ye shall find that the links have been corrected. Can I hear an, "Amen?"

By  Samurai Appliance Repair Man, at February 14, 2010 4:06 PM  

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