While this may not be the prettiest splicing job I have ever seen, without being able to trace the wiring down and see what load it is carrying and what it is supplying, this IS within NEC Guidelines. As long as the big lumps under the tape are wire nuts, there's nothing wrong with this, and it is actually a pretty secure splice job. All the wires have the proper strain relief and the only exposed copper is the ground wire running down the back of the breaker box.
My only real concern is that the wires coming from the bottom of the picture appear to have circa 1950 asbestos insulation. But believe it or not, this will pass 99% of all local building codes in force today.
Wish I had a picture to share but...on a side job remodel we were gutting a bathroom in a raised ranch. The wall with the faucets/water supply, on the opposite side of that wall was the entry landing, with a gang box for lights for outside, hall, upstairs and downstairs. When we opened the bathroom side of that wall we saw two things: thing 1 wiring from the light switch gang box ran around the copper cold water feed to the bathroom, not just around it, but wrapped around it; thing 2 the diverter for the shower/tub was not only perfectly in line with the gang box but was all of about 3 1/2" from it. Had a leak ever occurred in the wall there could have been some interesting electrical issues.
Permalink Reply by Doug on January 11, 2010 at 10:03pm
Wow! That's pretty reminiscent of what a friend of mine just found throughout the ceiling of a restaurant he just purchased and remodeled. It was a fire trap waiting to happen. He rightfully brought it up to code.
You're right about the Romex, but I didn't mention it because it wasn't in the primary batch with the splices. And you are also correct in stating that they "should" be in junction boxes, but junction boxes in in-line splices are not "required". I would guess the pass/fail on this one would depend on how well you knew(or paid) the inspector.
You are also correct on the sheathing, but in a lot of that old style wiring, there is a sheath around the individual wires, wrapped in brown paper, covered by an outside, asbestos sheath, so you would have to inspect the wiring a lot closer to determine if this particular violation exists. But we DO agree that there is a MUCH better way to do this job!