# high resistance?



## JohnJ0906 (Jan 22, 2007)

No connector or strain relief on that cord?

Just wire it up and shove it into the unit?



> This is the third unit failure and is very concerning. The wiring practice of the previous employee worries us.


Yes, you should be concerned, and worried. Was this employee an electrician?



I wonder why the PTACs didn't come with a factory connected cord.

And welcome to the forum. :thumbsup:


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## 3tigerz (Apr 9, 2009)

No he was not an electrician just a maintenance guy. These units do come with a manufacture cord, but the end is cut and hard wired to the building wiring. When I saw this it blew me away so I called GE and their tec said that the hard wire was accepted. Ok I bought it, but some of these connections where made OUTSIDE the sub base!


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## JohnJ0906 (Jan 22, 2007)

3tigerz said:


> No he was not an electrician just a maintenance guy.


He shouldn't be touching electrical then. It is obvious he only knows enough to do bad things. 


> These units do come with a manufacture cord, but the end is cut and hard wired to the building wiring.


 Dumb.


> When I saw this it blew me away so I called GE and their tec said that the hard wire was accepted. Ok I bought it, but some of these connections where made OUTSIDE the sub base!


If the cord caps are cut off and hard wired, where is the disconnecting means?


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## 3tigerz (Apr 9, 2009)

There is a pigtail with a connector that is original to the 23 year old GE Zoneline units & he just used wire nuts to connect the cord to the pigtail. If you look in the pictures you could make out the white connector in the back ground. Do you agree that this is a point of high resistance by the photos? The manufacture now has a hard wire j-box that we can buy and yes we are.


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## JohnJ0906 (Jan 22, 2007)

It certainly looks as if one of the wirenut connections was loose, causing heat.

The white connector might have been affected by the heat from the loose wirenut connection.

I would check *every *unit, for a start. Then check any other electrical connection this guy made.


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## MDShunk (Jan 7, 2007)

You are not allowed to remove the factory cord cap and wire that attachment cord directly. You were sorely misinformed. To do so bypasses the LCDI feature of the cordset. 

You can hardwire some PTAC's, but the cord is totally eliminated to do so. You splice inside the unit to the factory harness, and the cordset entirely.


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## 3tigerz (Apr 9, 2009)

John, I must agree with you, I think it would be in the best interest for safety sake to do as you suggested.Thank you.

MDshunk-GE now has the direct connections & J-box you mentioned, they are being installed with all the new units. I will inspect the older units myself and make the corrections. Thank you for your input.

JUST A THOUGHT-These maintenance guy scare me!


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## mattsilkwood (Sep 21, 2008)

sadly that kind of stuff is pretty much par for the course in any nursing home ive ever been in. the problem is they get these $8/hr guys in there that dont have a clue.
about a year ago they had one catch fire and kill quite a few residents south of here because of this kind of work.


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