Holee shite.

I’ve been involved lately in some electrical design/redesign decisions at work and at “the building” I help manage downtown, so I thought, gee, maybe I ought to buy myself a copy of the latest NFPA 70, AKA the National Electric Code.  (Which, as it turns out, came out last year.)

The last time I bought one was in 1984 (I think; I have to go look for it).  Dad’s last one was probably the 1999 code (the 2002 code came out about the time he retired and passed away).  (The newest one I found handy for the purpose of comparison was the 1996 code.)

Now the NEC used to be a nice hand-holdable paperback book, roughly 5×7 and about an inch and a quarter thick.  Something that fit comfortably in a toolbox or a glove compartment, or for that matter a briefcase.

But this monster that came UPS yesterday?  Holee shite.  The full 8-1/2 x 11 monty, and still an inch and a quarter thick.

Admittedly, the new format code will lie open on a desk without having to weight it down.  Perfect for desk-bound engineers I suppose, but sort of worthless for the poor journeyman who needs to look something up in the field.  The type is a little bigger and a little less dense, so a bit easier to read.  And I imagine there are quite a few things (solar panels, electric car charging stations, wiring for computing infrastructures, just to name a few) that have been added and/or changed since Dad was in the business.  And yes, I could have bought the PDF version…but that would have been like cheating.*  I took an NEC course back in the 1980’s and we learned where to find shit in the book.  Like Article 250 is still about grounding, and Article 230 is still about services. Article 300 still talks about wiring methods and 310 talks about conductors for general wiring.  So I can at least find things without resorting to the index.

But it’s just a little sad that the smaller book format has gone away.  And even more sad that the fucking thing costs as much as a college textbook.  (No, I did NOT buy it from NFPA; I bought it from Amazon for about $17 less…and since Amazon considers it a textbook, I also got $5 free MP3 credit.  So phbbbt, NFPA.)

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* FWIW, you can download it here for free; when states incorporate a copyrighted code, by law it must be made available at no cost. I got that link from a very interesting (if you’re interested in such things) site.