Termination Of Unused Conductor

[Dave123]

Based on rule 12-114 I gather simply cutting off both ends of an unused conductor (e.g., cutting the red in 14/3 BX) would not be acceptable... or is this what is normally done?

[electric-ed]

Cutting off the unused wire, as you described, is often done, but I believe that it would be in violation of 12-114, as you suggested.

Why cut it off? Who knows, you might need that extra wire someday in the future. Perhaps you were over your box fill limit. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Ed

[t-tiger]

When I was apprenticing with a company doing light industrial work if ran a 14/3 or 12/3 tech cable and only two of the three conductors were used - the spare conductor was folded back onto itself and then taped off - to used at a later date if needed. It's too bad that some actually cut it off.