Factory tight radius 90 elbows inside wall

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acrwc10

Master Code Professional
Location
CA
Occupation
Building inspector
I am seeing a lot of these buried in walls on solar & battery installations and I know they will never be able to pull the wire through them without damaging it later. Section 300.18 requires the raceway to be complete before the installation of conductors. but since they are not field bent elbows I am having a hard time finding a code section to not allow them.
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infinity

Moderator
Staff member
Location
New Jersey
Occupation
Journeyman Electrician
I don't think that the NEC even mentions these fittings. You might have to go to the listing of the fitting to find out if there are installation limitations like they can only be used in exposed locations, etc.
 

LarryFine

Master Electrician Electric Contractor Richmond VA
Location
Henrico County, VA
Occupation
Electrical Contractor
I wouldn't want to have one in the middle of a run, but I could see it at a box or panel where you can feed wire into it.

There's no removable cover like an angle MC or FMC connector, so there's no advantage to requiring it to be exposed.
 
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Dell3c

Guest
Reading your post assuming when you saying raceway, installed as 90 degree fitting on conduit or tubing run, covered-up inside a finished wall.. Chapter 3, Article 300, Section 1(A) : for wiring methods and materials for all wiring installations unless modified by other articles in Chapter 3.. For instance Chapter 3, Article 358, Section 24 (Bends - How Made) refers to Table 2 Chapter 9... It's only thing that sticking out @ me.
 

acrwc10

Master Code Professional
Location
CA
Occupation
Building inspector
Reading your post assuming when you saying raceway, installed as 90 degree fitting on conduit or tubing run, covered-up inside a finished wall.. Chapter 3, Article 300, Section 1(A) : for wiring methods and materials for all wiring installations unless modified by other articles in Chapter 3.. For instance Chapter 3, Article 358, Section 24 (Bends - How Made) refers to Table 2 Chapter 9... It's only thing that sticking out @ me.
I was looking at that too, my thought was the tension being applied to the wire while pulling it would be excessive.
 
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Dell3c

Guest
This would be a fitting, not a made bend
In that definition sir.. I'll point to Chapter 3, Article 300, Section15(F) The fitting shall be accessible after installation unless listed for concealed installation.
 

acrwc10

Master Code Professional
Location
CA
Occupation
Building inspector
Looking at the a dimension (bottom of the chart)
It looks like a 4” radius until you subtract the “C” from each end, because they are straight. It appears to have a 3” radius.
with the required 8x the wire diameter 2/0 wire looks like it is a not violation. (2/0 being 0.3648” x 8 = 2.9184” ) the radius is 2.94”.
This looks close but there are several conductors in the elbow, other than the 2/0. The entire run is just under 24” too.
 

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jaggedben

Senior Member
Location
Northern California
Occupation
Solar and Energy Storage Installer
I think it's a stretch to describe these as buried in the wall, and I don't think that matters. The photo in post #9 is the common use of these that I've seen in the field. Note that both ends of the fitting are directly accessible to a pull point. In that installation, for the purposes of pulling wire through them it doesn't matter whether it's in a wall or not. Correspondingly, I can tell you from experience (not my mistake, but I had to deal with fixing it) that it is indeed a terrible idea - whether or not it's technically prohibited - to put these anywhere a fishtape will be needed. But again, that makes no difference whether it's in a wall or exposed.

For what it's worth, one distributor referred to them as 'telephone 90s'. Which made me wonder if they're listed to use for power and lighting circuits. The 'explosion proof' part makes me think perhaps they are totally legit.

My guys would ask for these and I was kind of like "not sure these are legit, but okay, use them for this one purpose only" (i.e. where there's a box or conduit body more or less directly on both sides, with no more than one close nipple to mate on the female side). The more I thought about it, the more I came to think they are really not so different from offset nipples.
 

acrwc10

Master Code Professional
Location
CA
Occupation
Building inspector
I think it's a stretch to describe these as buried in the wall, and I don't think that matters. The photo in post #9 is the common use of these that I've seen in the field. Note that both ends of the fitting are directly accessible to a pull point. In that installation, for the purposes of pulling wire through them it doesn't matter whether it's in a wall or not. Correspondingly, I can tell you from experience (not my mistake, but I had to deal with fixing it) that it is indeed a terrible idea - whether or not it's technically prohibited - to put these anywhere a fishtape will be needed. But again, that makes no difference whether it's in a wall or exposed.

For what it's worth, one distributor referred to them as 'telephone 90s'. Which made me wonder if they're listed to use for power and lighting circuits. The 'explosion proof' part makes me think perhaps they are totally legit.

My guys would ask for these and I was kind of like "not sure these are legit, but okay, use them for this one purpose only" (i.e. where there's a box or conduit body more or less directly on both sides, with no more than one close nipple to mate on the female side). The more I thought about it, the more I came to think they are really not so different from offset nipples.
I’m in agreement with you, I don’t particularly like them but I don’t write the code so who really cares if I would do that or not, I just want to be sure it is code compliant, period. I was taught the field bending radius was always the minimum radius and it is sometimes harder to un-learn something than you would think. I have no trouble forgetting what I should know, that’s easy.
 

LarryFine

Master Electrician Electric Contractor Richmond VA
Location
Henrico County, VA
Occupation
Electrical Contractor
I wonder how the EMT angle connector, the EMT offset connector, or the non-metallic angle connector would fare?

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Dell3c

Guest
In reviewing and following this question up, in previous additions NFPA 70 (Article 300, Section15(F) this wording change took affect into the 2020 addition. In following it up further, quoting the wording in 2020 text of "Analysis of Change" from Page#177...

Quote: For the 2020 NEC, 300. 15(F) was revised to indicate that a fitting identified for the use is permitted in lieu of a box or conduit body where the conductors are not spliced or terminated within the fitting and the fitting is accessible after installation "unless the fitting is listed for concealed installation". This added text will make it clear that the transition fitting (Type AC cable to EMT, etc.) are not required to be accessible after installation as they are designed to be installed concealed and are really no different than coupling used to join to join consecutive pieces of the same raceway which are not required to be accessible. Some in the enforcement community were requiring these transition fittings to be installed accessible after installation (which is literally what the Code required), yet there was no benefit in requiring these fitting to be accessible.

For it's worth, having sent Email to International Association of Electrical Inspectors (I. A. E. I.) for additional information into "fitting listed for concealed installation". Currently, I can't find information of the fitting product(s) shown in Larry Fine's posting above, that it wouldn't be acceptable in this denoted installation as described.
 
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jap

Senior Member
Occupation
Electrician
I wouldn't want to have one in the middle of a run, but I could see it at a box or panel where you can feed wire into it.

There's no removable cover like an angle MC or FMC connector, so there's no advantage to requiring it to be exposed.

Sure there is,,,, it wouldn't be in the middle of a run buried in the wall where you couldn't see it. :)

JAP>
 
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