Thread: stove top tap box wiring

Question about tap box wiring for a kitchen electric stove top unit. Home built 1969, completly rewired about 5 years ago. Under the stove in the stove's tap box was an incoming newer 4 wire conductor from the panel, it was then connected to, what appears to be a 3 wire rag wire inside metallic conduit (flexible)-possible old wiring from 1969. Anyway, the feed wires (red/black) were connected to the red/black rag to stove, the white neutral and ground wire (from the 4 wire feed) were tied to a bare ground wire that ran through the BX conduit-all this in a metal J-box (not grounded). Question, since the 4 wire feed was used from the panel (and in the panel the commons and grounds were separated on different bus bars) the common and ground wires from the feed wires should not have been connected together??? correct? Or am I missing something? I think the common feed wire should just not have been used and connected to the ground wires...correct? See attached photo-if i can figure out how to do it....

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A few things to determine but I think the priority is determining if the stove top is strictly a 240 volt appliance. I would be concerned about the bare copper wire in the armored raceway being used as a neutral as it appears to be pigtailed to the white wire in the incoming power cable. If the stove top is 120/240 (some are and some are not) then an insulated neutral is going to be required from the jb to the appliance stove top.

At any rate what you have is not correct either. If the stove is 240 volts only the white in the 4 wire cable should be capped. The bare equipment grounds connected together and a pigtail to a green ground screw in the threaded hole in the back of the box or other listed grounding means.

There are some other issues also but you may already know what that is...the thing that always worries me when I see this type of installation is the installer thinks ground and neutral are one and the same so it doesn't matter if he connects them in the jb.

Mike,

Is the cook-top new and does it now require a four wire circuit feed?

Red tag this configuration.

If the branch-circuit at the panelboard, has been brought up to code then the entire circuit must be brought up to code.

Is there a connector for the BX to the box ? I am not seeing it.

Is the BX run to the stove top, meaning is it the manufacture supplied wiring?

If the BX is what came with the stove top, the BX cable is part of the grounding system and should be attached to the box with a connector. Making that hard connection utilizes the BX metal sheathing as a functional part of the wiring.

The BX sheathing is acting as the ground.
The copper unshielded wire inside the BX is acting as the neutral.
The new wire white is the neutral and should be wire nutted to the BX neutral.
The new wire ground (unshielded) should be screwed to the metal box.