Ek's Home   |   Forum   |   Chat   |   Electrical Links   |
	Subject - Improper cord connections kbsparky It seems that lately, I have encountered many electric dryers and ranges that have been improperly wired. Or, should I state that their line cords have been improperly connected. Now, most of us know the importance of using a 4-wire cord on these appliances these days. To keep the grounded frame of the appliance away from the current-carrying neutral conductor, and eliminate any potential difference between the appliance and adjacent equipment, and such. But since the manufacturers do not supply nor install the line cords on both dryers and ranges, it is left up to the store selling the appliance, the customer, or the delivery man to accomplish this task. The violation I most often have found is the failure to remove that bonding jumper from the neutral terminal inside the back of the appliance. Both ranges and dryers seem to suffer from this affliction. Many of them have a green-colored wire terminated on a green screw just to the side of the terminal strip. Most folks simply place the green wire from the cordset together with that existing wire on the green screw and tighten. And that is the problem here in that if you trace out that existing green wire, it goes right back to the neutral terminal! That green wire needs to be removed from the grounding terminal, and either wrapped with insulating tape, or cut out and completely removed from the appliance. The second most disturbing violation I find is the failure to properly install the line cord connector, either the one that comes with the cordset, or a decent "romex connector" complete with lockring. Too often the piece of junk that comes with the cordset can not be properly installed unless you modify it in some way so the danged thing will fit into the hole. I prefer to throw those away, and use a real romex connector ---> 3/4" for dryer, and 1" for range. kringles Good point kbsparky, after reading your post I checked the hook-up for my dryer. It was installed in 2002 with a four wire receptacle and cord set. Don't know who did the hook-up, most likely the delivery men. They had left the bonding jumper inplace, it was a green/yellow wire connected to the frame and connected the fourth (green/ground) wire on the cordset to the neutral terminal. The dryer worked ok but they had effectively converted the four wire hook-up to a three wire hook-up. This is not per code at the time of connection as far as I understand and creates addition hazzard as you mentioned. Corrected this per your post and now have a correct 4 wire connection. In my case the cordset had a heavy duty (nylon?) romex type strain relief. It seemed to be of good quality so I left it in place. kbsparky Amazing, isn't it? I'd be willing to bet that over 75% of 4-wire dryer cords are improperly installed. You have confirmed my suspicions. lctrc789 I am sure if we went in to 100 homes and we inspected them we could find 95 problems out of 100 that are not code and we could all be millionaires LOL To bad we can not make people upgrade services and wire homes every three years as the code changes LOL stedder Thank god Ken I thought it was just me that couldn't get those crummy strain reliefs to work, yea I throw'em away too.