Texas Electrician ExamTexas journeyman & master

Checked against primary sources 2026-08-24

Secured and supported are two separate obligations

Every Chapter 3 method carries both. The distances are not the same, they change with what the run passes through, and an item can be built on either one.

On this page
  1. The two words do different jobs
  2. Where the number lives, and why it is never in one place
  3. Two distances per method, measured between different things
  4. What moves the number
  5. The relaxations are where the exam lives
  6. What the code declines to accept as support
  7. A worked shape, with invented numbers
  8. The box is a support question too
  9. Under the clock
  10. What this page cites

The two words do different jobs

Securing means fastening the wiring method so it stays where you put it. Supporting means carrying its weight. A run can have one and not the other, which is why the code names them separately and why an item can be built on either.

Picture a conduit dropped into open hangers on a trapeze. The hangers carry its weight. Nothing stops it sliding along them. That run is supported and it is not secured. Now picture the same conduit strapped at each hanger. One fastener is doing both jobs at once, which is the ordinary case on a job site and the reason the distinction goes unnoticed in the field.

On paper the distinction is the entire point. An item that describes an installation and asks whether it complies is usually asking which of the two obligations went missing, and the wrong answers are written so that the installation looks fine on the obligation you happened to check.

Where the number lives, and why it is never in one place

Article 300 carries the general obligation and the general prohibitions for wiring methods. The distance itself sits in the article for the method you were handed.

That makes every support item a two-step lookup, and a candidate who tabbed Article 300 and stopped there stalls on the second step. Article 300 establishes that a run gets secured and gets supported. It does not tell you how far apart.

Article 300 was reworked for the 2026 book and the general securing and supporting material does not sit at the section number it sat at in the 2023 book (NEC 300.13). If your tabs came off an older copy, find it by its title in the article contents instead of by the number you memorized.

Inside a method article, the relevant section is normally titled for both words at once. Treat that joint title as a warning. There is more than one figure underneath it, and reading the first sentence and turning the page is how people arrive at a number that belongs to the other obligation.

Two distances per method, measured between different things

Each method article gives an interval measured along the run, and a separate distance measured from a box, cabinet, conduit body, fitting or other termination. They answer different questions and they are not interchangeable.

Do not assume which of the two is the smaller number. On the cable methods the termination distance is a fraction of the interval. On a raceway whose interval comes from a trade-size table, the interval grows with the pipe while the termination distance stays where it is, so the gap between them is not fixed either. The figure on its own will not tell you which obligation an item is testing. The surfaces will. One runs fastener to fastener. The other runs fastener to enclosure.

The termination figure exists because the fastener nearest a termination takes the mechanical abuse. Everything that pulls, sags or gets stepped on transfers into the connector, and the connector is the part that fails. That is worth understanding rather than memorizing, because it tells you which of the two numbers a scenario is aimed at.

Both figures sit in the same section, which makes them easy to drop into the same list of options. A candidate who reads the first sentence, lifts the number and moves on is answering a coin flip and does not know it.

What moves the number

The distance is not a property of the method alone. Several things shift it.

That last one catches good candidates. An item about a riser in a high-rise that mentions conductor size is not asking about straps. It is asking about the weight of conductor hanging in a pipe.

One 2026 change here is not a distance at all. The cable articles now carry a listing requirement for the hardware, so cable ties, staples, straps and hangers used to secure or support the cable are listed products identified for that use, sitting alongside the cable and its fittings. An item that describes what the fastener is rather than how far apart the fasteners are is asking about that.

The relaxations are where the exam lives

Method articles carry sentences that suspend securing under stated conditions. They come in two shapes, and telling them apart decides whether you are looking for a number or for a condition.

The consequence for technique is specific. An answer option reading along the lines of "the installation does not comply" is often wrong precisely because a relaxation covers the exact arrangement described. If a scenario mentions finished construction, existing walls, or a short run to a luminaire, go looking for the relaxation before you decide the installation fails.

The reverse trap exists too. Where a relaxation does set a length, a scenario built to exceed it by a little looks identical to one built to sit inside it, so a distance in the stem is there to be used rather than to set the scene.

What the code declines to accept as support

These prohibitions are as testable as the distances and far shorter to read, which makes them cheap points if you have read them once.

Read the sentence about independent support wires carefully, because a scenario will describe grid wires and purpose-installed wires in language that sounds like either one. The tell is whether the wires were added for this and secured at both ends, not what they look like from a ladder.

A worked shape, with invented numbers

Take a method whose article gives an interval of eight feet along the run and a distance of two feet from each box. Both figures are invented for this example. Read the real ones for your method in your own code book.

The scenario: a run leaves a junction box, the first strap is at three feet, and the straps after that are at seven feet.

The seven-foot spacing satisfies the eight-foot interval. The three-foot first strap fails the two-foot termination distance. One installation, two obligations, and only one of them broken. A candidate who checks the interval and stops answers that the installation complies, which is what the item was built to produce.

The habit worth building is to check both obligations every time, in the same order, so you never find out halfway through that you only checked one.

The box is a support question too

Support items do not all live in Chapter 3. A large share of them are about what a box can carry, and those sit in Article 314.

The weight thresholds there are the tested part, and they are easy to run together, because the section handles luminaires and ceiling-suspended paddle fans with different limits and marks some cases by what the box is listed for rather than by a fixed figure (NEC 314.27).

A luminaire heavier than the section allows on an ordinary outlet box is supported independently of the box unless the box itself is listed for the weight (NEC 314.27). Read which of the two objects the scenario is describing before you reach for a number, because a fan and a luminaire of identical weight are not answered by the same sentence.

A box acting as the sole support of a ceiling-suspended paddle fan is a listing question before it is a weight question. It has to be listed for that use and marked on the interior to say so, and the marking is where the weight it is good for comes from (NEC 314.27).

Article 314 also caps how large an enclosure can be when the raceways entering it are the only thing holding it up, and names the short list of enclosures a single conduit is allowed to support (NEC 314.23). That is a support rule living in the box article, which is why it gets missed.

Under the clock

  1. Name the method. The article follows from the method, and nothing else in the item matters until you have it.
  2. Go to that article and find the section titled for securing and supporting.
  3. Read both distances, and note the two surfaces each one is measured between.
  4. Check the scenario for a condition that changes the figure: trade size, fished, concealed, run through framing, or a short length to a luminaire or to equipment.
  5. Only then compare against the numbers in the options.

Wiring methods and materials carry ten of the fifty-six scored items on the journeyman knowledge portion, tied for the largest single area on that paper, and support shows up across all of them because every method has a section for it.

What this page cites

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