NIMA 14-50 FAQ

Chicago: No, but I live in a suburb. Don't know why he wanted to use the 1/2". Probably because it was already on site. I will suggest using 3/4" and see what he says.

I do know other people that have told me that Romex is approved in this area. May not be a great idea for wiring up a Tesla ?

There is nothing wrong with Romex as long as you can protect it from physical damage, like inside a wall. Most of the country uses it with no problems. I do hear some of the burbs around Chicago have loosened up their rules but electricians are slow to change. The 1/2" is probably not going to work for you tho. This is a continuous load (>3 hours) so you want to err on the safe side when you are sizing conductors. You certainly want to use #6 on the ungrounded conductors and the inspector probably wants to see that on the neutral although the neutral load is minimal on a vehicle charger if present at all. I see a lot of people saying they are using a 6-50 or 10-50 receptacle for a Tesla. That is 2#6s and a 10. It still needs a 3/4" pipe tho. If you hold your nose, say the terminals are all rated 75c so you can use that column, 2 #8s and a 10 fit in a 1/2". I am not sure what the I2R losses would add up to over the years. It won't burn your house down tho.

Just playing devil's advocate. Is there something else you might want 220 vac for close to that spot? Welder? What does a charger for a battery lawn mower need? Something you'll wish for right after that wall is closed? There must be some kind of law about such things. The I wish I woulda.....................................rule.

If it is a receptacle, you can plug anything in. That is why we like full size conductors.

EMT can be the ground, but for most residential work, at least around here, PVC is typically used, for obvious reasons. For a short, easy run in the garage EMT sounds fine. Pitty the Tesla crowd with a panel on the opposite side of the house.

I ask the contractor about using 3/4" conduit and he stated that the radius was too big to hide in the wall. He said he may use 3/4" but use a 1/2" piece to get around the corner.

The 90 is the hard part to pull through.

You really should be sure you can't just use a cable wiring method. Maybe you should talk to another contractor.

That works if you can get to the hole (outside corner) but it isn't legal to bury it in the wall. If you never thought you would want to pull the wire out, it isn't necessarily unsafe but just not legal.

But it's a short run from a panel in the garage to a receptacle for his Tesla and the contractor is going to do it. If he's got an agreed price, it's the contractor's chore to deal with it.

Unless local code prohibits it, I agree. Faster, easier, cheaper.

If you are tossing the code, just use one of those pull elbows Bowman linked and use the bigger pipe.

It is worth looking into because I think everywhere but downtown Chicago has tossed the "metal only" rules

Call your local building inspector office and check that you can't just run Romex...

Then you'll know if the contractor is just stuck in old Chicago or your jurisdiction hasn't changed to match the times yet, either.

I'd guess odds are > 50:50 it would meet your locality's code and eliminate all the hassle.

Or, if it's so difficult a run to make a bend in the wall (and I can't see why that should be so -- he might have to make a bigger hole to feed one end through a joist if it won't fit in one 16" joist bay, but that shouldn't be any big deal), just do the overhead to the joist cavity that wants to hit and come in the top of the box and the elbow is above or could use the pull box in the attic in Code as wouldn't be covered there.

But, going Romex is the smart thing to do -- check with your municipality to find out what the pertinent Code really is.

Or "BX" if protection is rerquired?

The work was supposed to be done this wknd, but the contractor called on the day of and said he had a family emergency. If we start having problems like that , I will look around for another contractor.

The corner is an inside corner. Here is a pic from Menards:

Here is the HD link:

Any thoughts ?

There's at least a possibility that the conduit will be routinely carrying current. The elbow isn't threaded. That would make it easier to get a bad connection. I'd vote no. I'm curious what Fretwell has to say.

Using the conduit as a neutral is dangerous.  I'd fire that clowntractor and do it right.

That about sums that up. After all the discussion here about how to do it right, this is how it winds up. It's a clear and major code violation to be using the conduit as the neutral, surprising a licensed electrician would ever do it.