Are more electrical fires caused by bad romex and bx rather than wire in conduit? Will conduit even allow the fire to get through the pipe? Just curious as in a few months I intend to start tearing out all my plaster to do an extensive rehab of my home. In the walls right now is the old cloth romex. Since I will have access in all the walls like new construction I was thinking of going with conduit. Once complete I am having the expanding foam insulation blown in my walls before I drywall. I'm still not sold on the fact that this insulation is not flammable at this time. I'm still doing extensive research on this subject. I would like to make my home as safe as possible. I was figuring that the only place fire could escape from a pipe is at the joints. I have access to a fire retardant putty that we use in the telco industry to put over the joints if needed. Let me know what you guys think.

 

Aside from the safety issues, another good reason to install conduit is the ease of pulling additional wires in the future.

You should also consider installing PVC conduit for telco, cable and control wiring. You never know what the house of the future might need.

 

I think you may find more electrical fires are started by bad wiring and overloading then the actual method of wiring. If the codes are followed and care is taken the chances of fire are greatly reduced

 

Somebody who actually knows needs to chime in here, but I think Illinois requires wiring to be in conduit.

 

I know Chicago requires all wiring to be in metallic conduit, I'm not sure how it is out of the Chicago area, all the work I do is either in Chicago or close to it.
I always run conduit or metallic BX. I'm building a house in Wisconisn and while Romex is allowed, I won't use it. I feel its safer not during normal use, but if something may pinch/damage the wire somehow in the future. Plus, it makes it much easier to add/replace wires after the walls have been closed.

 

Chicago code is only in Chicago, most of the rest of Illinois follows the basic NEC. Which means the choice of conduit or wire is up to the homeowner. There are advantages to conduit especially in the future, but as for the origional question of fire saftey I don't think you will find many statistics saying one is responsible for more fires then the other. If the work is done properly and the circuits are not overload or subject to extreme heat the chances of fire in the wires is about the same. Containing a fire that is another storey. Metal conduit can be sealed better and will take longer to spread but it will spread.

 

Another plus for conduit is if one one the wires goes bad, it will have a greater chance of shorting to the conduit itself. This is a good thing.

If you have the time, money, and patience to work with conduit, then use it. The advantages of conduit over romex is great. There are some drawbacks.

Remember that there can only be a total of 360 degrees of bends in conduit between pull points. This requirement can be a pain when working in an old house.

Tony

 

Proper wiring practices along with smoke detectors are your best protection against fires. Proper wire and breaker sizing, proper extension cord use, secure connections, quality devices and most of all proper grounding. Consider adding AFCI breakers in your upgrade. Make sure all your wall cavities are properly fire sealed and your garage wall and door are fire rated(If garage is attached). Most electrical fires that I have heard of were from people using small guage extension cords on heavy loads such as portable heaters or holiday lighting. The cord can't handle the amperage but the breaker can so it doesn't ever trip and the cord burns up. I once saw a house burn when the homeowner added an addition and ran romex off the main lugs for power! The fire dept fined him although I don't know how much, he was lucky no one got hurt! Improper/inadequate grounding can start a fire since a poor ground will have high resistance and will heat up on a short (kind of like a toaster) instead of tripping the breaker. This can happen with the old armored cable (without the bonding strip)from the resistance built up on long runs failing to clear the fault. This is why no ground at all is better than a poor ground.

 

I'm curious, what exactly is a poor ground?

 

A ground with high impedence. For equipment grounding, it's caused by poor connections (e.g., the old practice of just twisting the wires, or using unbonded plumbing for an equipment ground). For service grounding, it's caused by insufficient earth contact, or insufficient moisture in the soil.