Found a hidden rule in our city's building code about conduit bends

I was looking through the 2023 code book for Phoenix and saw a note about conduit fill that I'd never noticed before. It says if you have more than two 90-degree bends in a run, you have to drop the fill percentage by 10%. I found this buried in a footnote on page 47. Has anyone else run into this and had an inspector call it out?

2 comments

2 Comments

henry6046d ago

That footnote on page 47 is about total degrees of bend, not the number of 90s. If you have three 90s, that's 270 degrees, and the rule kicks in at 360. So two 90s and a sweep that adds up to 100 degrees would still be fine. I've never had an inspector count bends, they measure the total with a protractor.

andrew_hall326d ago

The footnote on page 47 of the Phoenix code specifically says "more than two 90 degree bends." It doesn't mention total degrees. I had an inspector fail a job last year for three 90s in a row, total 270 degrees. He said the rule is about the number of bends, not the math. After that, we just add a pull box if we hit three.