Mark C. Ode

At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries, incandescent lamps and lighting were the new technology, and everyone was converting from natural gas lighting to electricity. By the beginning of the 1940s,...

With the advent of power over ethernet in the 2017 National Electrical Code (NEC) , in Article 393 of the 2014 NEC covering low-voltage ceiling grid power, and other applications dealing with power-limited circuits, there...

New lighting technology provides electrical contractors with a unique capability to redo an aging home and vastly improve the lighting system. At the same time, many aspects of an existing home, such as its construction, can...

Let’s assume a 120/208-volt (V), three-phase service was installed on a building a few years ago and the new owner of the building needs a standby generator for use during power outages. The electrical contractor installs a...

National Electrical Code (NEC) Panel 3 established the new Article 728 in the 2014 NEC. It deals with fire-resistive cabling systems, and it was marginally revised for the 2017 NEC . The article covers the installation of...

I have always been fascinated by cables and conductors—sometimes referred to as wires in the National Electrical Code (NEC) and other standards—and the insulation for these cables and conductors, as well as their multiple...

One of my passions, other than the National Electrical Code (NEC), has been fire alarm systems, as covered by NFPA 72, National Fire Alarm and Signaling Code. When I was a licensed electrical contractor in the Phoenix area in...

Both the National Electrical Code (NEC) and NFPA 70E, Standard for Electrical Safety in the Workplace, use the phrase “arcing current.” It is located in 240.87(B)(5) and (B)(6) in the NEC and in many places within NFPA 70E....

Can a manual transfer switch, a trapped key interlock system (commonly known as a Kirk Key system), an emergency automatic transfer switch and a permanently mounted generator be used at an industrial installation to provide...

Electrical systems age, usage increases and people upgrade their homes and offices. This combination is pushing many electrical systems to their limits. Enhancing a home or office’s electrical service requires an informed...

General requirements for conductor connections, terminations, splices and terminal temperatures are covered in 110.14 of the National Electrical Code (NEC). Since 1990, there have been some very substantial changes in 110.14...

I recently received an email from a homeowner who was installing a high-end media room and had questions about his home’s electrical system and the new circuits for the audio/video equipment. Before doing the installation,...