I saw this today on an inspection. I’ve never seen this before, so I wanted to ask. I’m thinking it’s not right, but I don’t know. I can defer to an electrician, but I’d prefer to learn something as well! Thank you in advance!
The strands would not fit beneath one screw. It’s fine.
Not code compliant. The holes in that terminal bar are listed for specific size conductors which does not include splitting a larger conductor into two smaller conductors. They do make lugs that fit into those terminals for larger conductors.
The code requires the neutrals to terminate in a single terminal. It is not compliant.
My bad. At first glance I thought it was a grounding conductor.
Even if it was it should still be only in one terminal.
It is not code, but what is the actual problem?
The split is too small for the ampacity that may be imposed on it. The “conductors” are too small to be paralleled.
In reality there probably never will be a problem.
I’m not here to argue the point, but I don’t see it that way. In actuality there is more surface connection with the wire split.
Just trying to understand the Code perspective of the issue.
I would never call it out unless I could prove a problem (IR) was present.
New construction would be another case as they are supposed to follow the standard of the code. The only perfect house should be a new house.
Suppose you had 50/amps on the intact conductor. The current will split in proportion to the smaller portion of the conductor. What is the capacity of the split branches? Will it safely carry the load?
#1 All conductors must be installed on an appropriate terminal. Lets get that out of the way.
My take on this is that there is a 200% chance of a bad connection at the terminals.
A bad connection on one terminal causes overheating of the good connection = failure.
This wire size is similar to double tapping on these small terminals = loose or poor connection across the connection.
A small buss terminal can not be torqued properly to a large conductor without possible damage to the terminal.
Installing the proper terminal to the buss will insure a proper connection.
This is better than trying to stuff 5lbs of stuff in a 3lb sack.
Worse yet is when they trim off the excess that does not fit.
There is not reason to defer anything to an electrician. You should know it is wrong and what it takes to make it right. An electrician did this in the first place and you want to defer judgement back to them?