Conduit Questions

I was planning on adding two or three convenience receptacles in the unfinished portion of my basement and enclosing all of the wiring in conduit that runs down the walls. Before I started I just had a few questions.

1)Can I just staple the romex to the floor joists and start the conduit at the top of the walls and enter them there? Of course I would use an appropriate fitting where the romex meets the pipe. Can two romex cables be secured under this fitting?

2)Should I remove the outer sheathing on the romex where the wires will travel through the conduit?

3)What size conduit is required to fit the contents of two 12/2 cables? One white, black, and bare will feed the receptacles from the service panel and one white, black, and bare will go back up the pipe and continue to the next receptacle. This will be a 20 amp 120V circuit.

4)One of the home wiring books I read said to use offset fittings to connect the conduit to the boxes. Is this really necessary?

Any responses will be appreciated. Thanks

 

I have been an electrician for 10 years and I really do not like to run romex down a conduit on a permanant installationdue to potential heat build up. If it were me I would spend an extra 2 dollars and put a 4 square box on top of your conduits and use #12 thhn wir down a 1/2" conduit. I am assuming that you are running down a concrete wall so I would use half straps to support my conduit. As far as bending the conduit for the offset, it may not look pretty, but since it is 1/2 inch conduit you could just put your straps about 18" from the boxes and you will not hardly notice the bow from the box to the wall. Now since this is an unfinished basement you also have to make sure your receps are GFCI protected.

As far as conduit fill goes you can put 9 #12 wires in a 1/2" emt conduit(table C-1 appendix c). As far as stapling the romex to your joists the code does permit it in damp locations such as your basement(article 336).
I am not a fan of #14 wire so if I were you I would use #12 wire for your romex.

 

If you can find them, they make an offset connector to use on top of your outlet boxes. It has a slight bend that lets the conduit rest back against the wall really neat. I think they cost a dollar apiece, but it might be worth it if you don't have a bender. You can buy a 1/2 bender for about 35 bucks and book for $15 a bundle of 1/2 emt for $18 and spend a rewarding weekend on your basement.

 

Thanks for the replies. Okay, now I see why it is important to use the offset fittings. Since I've never had any conduit experience, it didn't just occur to me right off the bat like it probably did with everybody else. I would go with the bender, but I just don't think I would use it too much.

What about the romex thing? Is it okay for me to just strip the outermost sheathing off and just run the individual wires down into the conduit, using one of those special fittings on top? My gas furnace appears to be done in this manner and I just wanted to make sure it is an appropriate method.