Help identifuing a wire

If you're licenced in ALBERTA what are you enquiring about BC Electriacal Code for? Working in BC are we? Unlicenced are we?

The unprotected secondary terminals are fine according to the BC Electriacal Code.

Juilan: I don't know how you manage to infer so much about myself and my business based on my simple questions.

I am not working in BC. This is a former AB customer of mine that's now had two local BC companies come to look at the prewire to attempt to ascertain what the wire in the closet could be for. I told them to email the pics and I would see what I can do.

Despite your rambling, you have yet to offer any solution.

Thanks to everyone else for your constructive replies.

The builder cant seem to find any record of the prewire being done, and they are suggesting the homeowner may have went in and did it on their own, just before the drywallers.

I think this is just a scapegoat, as the new homeowner has already suggested to the builder that they should be liable for bringing the wiring up to standard. Builders I have worked for here have their homes inspected consistently through every phase of construction. I doubt anyone could 'sneak' and unauthorized 24 pt prewire in under their nose.

Well how about providing information so I don't have to continually "infer".

See, now that you've actually taken a second to explain, I might actually be able to help.

Oh, wait, it's coming to me............. Sorry, my powers of wiring tracing via IP are not able ID that wire. It must be some alien design I'm not familiar with.

Ha! " inspected consistently through every phase of construction" Have you ever heard of the leaky condo crisis? Around BC, you're lucky to get an inspector on the site for anything, nevermind electrical. I haven't had an electrical inspector check work for a couple of years. Plus who's to say the wire isn't run correctly. Just because you don't know what it's for doesn't mean it's done wrong.

Based on the picture, it's obvious it was run for an alarm tranformer. Duh!

I received a solution from the builder today. They had no record of the work done, except a copy of a failed electrical inspection.

Apparently the cat5 was wired directly into the 120v gang boxes for home automation control. The set-up failed to pass electrical inspection, and the cat5 was ordered to be pulled from the boxes.

The low voltage contractor that prewired the automation intended to go back after it passed second inspection, and terminate the cat5. This got missed, and the drywallers simply pulled everything through where it sat.

CAT5 wired directly to 120V? Inside the box? Yikes! Just goes to show you that the AG needs to INCREASE the types of systems that fall under Alarm Service instead of decreasing them. Only someone who hasn't a clue would wire CAT5 directly to 120V.

But as most alarm people in BC now know, the only thing you need to prewire alarms is an electrical contractor's licence, knowledge of how to do it properly is optional. I've seen my share of prewires done by electricians who use 120V holes for alarm wire and don't see a problem with that. Same guys who run speaker wires through 120V holes and terminate the wires at switch level, but no volume control.

How exactly was the LV contractor intending to terminate the CAT5? And connect to what? If the intention is to use the CAT5 for a LV transformer, well, it can be done.

Julian