A receptacle connectiom I have never seen

Was helping neighbor install range. Had a 4 wire outlet so I installed a 4 wire cord. Had no control panel and oven did not work. They returned range and installed another one and did same thing. Open outlet box and found out somebody had put a 4 wire outlet on a 3 wire setup. No neutral connected. total new one for me. I would have never of checked that if 2 stoves didn't work.

 

Seems like it would have been simple to check with a meter.

 

It would have if I had thought of it. Never came to mind somebody would do that.

 

And there was probably a stove there before that worked so I can see it. Hindsight is better than foresight.

 

Mine was the clothes dryer and it was the reverse. It was only a few months after I moved in that I bought a new washer and dryer. It was delivered with a four-wire cordset but I had a three-wire (NEMA 10-30) receptacle. The delivery people had to change the cord.

One day I was doing some work in my service panel and discovered the dryer receptacle was wired with 10-3 type NM cable with a bare grounding conductor. It should have had a four-wire receptacle. My house was built in 1986 or '87 so I don't know if the receptacle may have been changed between the time it was built and the time I bought the place.

I have the four-wire receptacle and a four-wire cordset that I bought years ago. Maybe I'll change them before I die, maybe not.

 

I have seen that before, but in my case neutral was connected to neutral, then jump to ground.
So, it worked just fine. This is illegal, but still not any more dangerous than 3 wire connection.

I also see 4 wire cord attached to range without removing ground bonding strip. There is a instruction label right next to it, yet nobody reads or understands.

 

Sometime along the line an inspector probably told somebody they needed a four prong plug for the stove. They solve the problem very easily and didn't have to worry about running any new wire! We all know what inspector is going to bother to check if the outlet is wired correctly if it's installed.

 

I always check a range receptacle with a meter before installing a cord on the new appliance.
I also check the main panel to see if the cable appears to be a straight run from the panel to the appliance, i.e. the same cable and probably no junction boxes in between.

I had a case where the receptacle was 4-wire, with 3 conductor cable plus ground, but there was a J-box in the attic and the cable going back to panel was 2 hot wires and bare ground.

 

This would be incredibly dangerous, whereas two hots and a ground is code compliant.

 

Yes, it is dangerous by today's standard. But, not any more than old 3 wire system where neutral was used as both neutral and ground.
If it was 8-2 or 6-2 wire with 10 AWG ground, then it is incredibly dangerous as ground wire cannot be used and neutral and also in case 40 or 50 A flows through 10 AWG, the wire cannot take it.

 

There would never be 40 amperes, let alone 50 amperes flowing through the "neutral" on a range UNLESS it was a fault condition.The neutral is only used for the clock/timer, light(s), convenience receptacle (if any) and sometimes the lowest setting of the smaller surface burners.

 

True.

That was what I was actually referring to.
If it is a dead short, it would still trip the breaker, but strange things happen sometimes.

 

If the range was wired with three wires and the ground/neutral was a reduced size and an element shorted..... there would be full current thru that wire. Yes... the breaker should trip.

The three wire connection to ANY 120/240v appliance is dangerous and is like playing
Russian roulette. I have seen way too many neutral/grounds open and cause the frame of the appliance to become hot. I have personally witnessed many hot dryer frames.

 

I agree! hoiutgvfvtyghoip;muno8iftvrtloipytbr8v67e5d6i4rdf8