Electrical Codes: You show me Yours and I’ll show you Mine.

The oldest United States National Electric Code in my collection is from 1896. It begins on page 373 of the 1896 book authored by N. Hawkins entitled New Catechism of Electricity: A Practical Treatise by stating that the National Code is the “wiremen’s Bible.” I have four original hard copies of this book should anyone like one for their collection.

The 1896 Code, to my knowledge after reading it, says nothing about asbestos. Over the passage of years, the Code changed as many sections quickly became devoted to the use and handling of asbestos insulated and insulating material for very specific uses — such as dry high temperature applications. The below chart shows asbestos good only for dry applications up to 392 F / 200 C.

Finally, in 1996, 100 years after the first Code, asbestos was no longer commercially available for electrical wiring and, as such was deleted from the NEC asbestos insulation table.  See the National Electrical Code Handbook, McGraw-Hill’s Twenty-second Edition: based on the Current 1996 National Electric Code, at page 563.

Interestingly, the National Electric Code in the United States isn’t a one size fits all regulation or legal requirement. Rather, there are mini-electric codes adopted over the years by governmental units such as Chicago and St. Louis, merely as examples.

As such, when you are performing historical research on the applicable electrical code provisions, you need to ensure that you have the right book and time frame before flipping pages.

For your reading pleasure, I have a fairly complete library of electric codes and related books should anyone need to borrow or track down particular information.

I hope that you find the above information useful. Drop me a line in the comments or at TheAsbestosBlog@gmail.com, should you have anything to add about historical electrical documents dealing with asbestos. Thanks. Marty