babyeatingpsychopath posted:

If your house was built anytime in the last ten years, that circuit was required by code. It was, in fact, part of the "bare minimum."

kid sinister posted:

Dragyn, even if it's older, still hit us up. You'd be surprised how well versed we are in "cheating", i.e. knowing how and where to legally hide wire in finished spaces if it turns out you do need a new outlet.

Also from experience, check everywhere in that room. I've caught one or two laundry rooms where the outlet was hidden behind the water heater or the utility sink.

Dragyn posted:

The townhome was built in 2010, so certainly not old.

Calling it a "room" is being gracious. It's a laundry closet, literally just large enough for a set of stackables. I crawled in there today and double and triple checked. There's only a 240v, no other boxes/faceplates.

There is one breaker in the panel labelled "Washer" but I'm fairly certain it's the dishwasher, since it's adjacent to the kitchen circuits.

Since the 120v/15a circuit in the nearby wall supports only 5 outlets total and nothing else, I'll probably just cheat in an outlet for the washer from that with a GFCI. It would be simple to remove when we move out, or switch back to a little unit for renters.

Any other suggestions, or should I just go ahead with that?

Dragyn posted:

The townhome was built in 2010, so certainly not old.

Calling it a "room" is being gracious. It's a laundry closet, literally just large enough for a set of stackables. I crawled in there today and double and triple checked. There's only a 240v, no other boxes/faceplates.

There is one breaker in the panel labelled "Washer" but I'm fairly certain it's the dishwasher, since it's adjacent to the kitchen circuits.

Since the 120v/15a circuit in the nearby wall supports only 5 outlets total and nothing else, I'll probably just cheat in an outlet for the washer from that with a GFCI. It would be simple to remove when we move out, or switch back to a little unit for renters.

Any other suggestions, or should I just go ahead with that?

Baronjutter posted:

I have a garage with no outlets. All the other garages do except for mine for some reason, in fact I'm kinda pissed because when I was looking at the place the landlord showed me a random other garage as an example and it had an outlet. It has a light though with a switch. Could I get one of those bulb splitter things with an outlet in it to use? I'd love to maybe vacuum my car or something some time.

Also how hard would it be to just install an outlet off the light switch?

Dragyn posted:

We're going to be getting a full sized electric washer/dryer combo, and get rid of our apartment style stacker.

The little one only runs on a single 240v, but I assume that the full size unit will need the 240 for the dryer and another 120 for the washer.

On the opposite side of the wall from the laundry is a bedroom outlet. Is it acceptable to run a line from that circuit to serve the 120v for the new washer?

Baronjutter posted:

Also how hard would it be to just install an outlet off the light switch?

shortspecialbus posted:

I don't know much but I do know that panel adjacency means squat. My panel is insane as far as what's next to each other. There's no rhyme or reason to it, so I wouldn't assume anything based on that.

kid sinister posted:

To be up to modern code, you would have to put in a separate 20A laundry circuit with GFCI. The GFCI was made mandatory in the 2014 code update. That circuit isn't also allowed to be shared with any other areas.

Also, I hope your washer is fairly recent. Older washers tend to trip GFCIs with false positives. YMMV

angryrobots posted:

Going back to this original question... I just looked up a LG washer/dryer all in one, and the specs on it were only 120v/20A. I believe you could convert your existing circuit for that.

Before you go adding GFIs and such, exactly what model are you looking at?

Hubis posted:

Hello, Wiring Thread.

This post begins what I anticipate will be a long, possibly tumultuous, but hopefully fruitful relationship. You see, I just bought a house that was built in 1951. It is, in general, in excellent condition -- no aluminum wiring, nice basement with a workshop and ready access to all the cable runs on the main floor, and the previous owners did a kitchen reno, so the breaker box was replaced and upgraded to 200A, which is more than I expect to ever need.

However, I'm the latest in what appears to be a long-running series of DIY homeowners in this property who have done work that, while mostly adequate and generally skillful (lots of nice carpentry in the reno), is striking me as somewhat "questionable" in the wiring department. I've rewired a few reversed-polarity outlets, fixed a bunch of outlets with no ground (doubly odd because it's largely MC cable) and added GFIs basically everywhere you're supposed to have them. Now that I've got the easy stuff knocked out, though, I'm starting to face a few head-scratchers. Rather than bombard you with everything at once, I figured I'd drop in with each task once I get around to it.

Anyways, first thing: Fan switches.

Right now I've got three functional ceiling fans, with some kind of weird digital control:


Top rocker controls the light, middle rocker controls the fan, the bottom is an on/off power cutoff switch. If you hold down either rocker, the fan "beeps" at a different tone and adjusts the speed/brightness higher (until you get to the max, at which point it resets). From what I can tell, this is a W-11 fan control:



... that is basically wired with a regular 2-wire cable to the fan and uses some kind of communication sequence to control the settings. Aside from being a little awkward, some of the fans buttons are starting to fail, so I want to replace them -- ideally with something more intuitive and modern, like this: http://www.homedepot.com/p/Lutron-M...79?N=5yc1vZbvmu

It's my understanding that that will require a 3-conductor cable. I'm anticipating that running new 14/3 won't be too hard, but I'm wondering if it can be that simple, or if there are other issues like compatibility or figuring out how to wire it fan-side that I haven't realized yet. One concern is that, since this might be an original fixture, the cable is actually a 2-conductor armored cable instead of something I can just use to pull my new cable through the wall. If that's the case, would it be kosher to just pull the old wires through and run my 14/3 straight through the armor sheath like a conduit? Looking at the rest of the house's wires, it seems like it might fit. Otherwise, does anyone have any suggestions? If it's the "old" (original) wiring, it's going to be solid copper wrapped in a sort of waxed cloth inside metal jackets.

Dragyn posted:

It's not an all-in-one, just a stackable set of front loaders.

It's a long strange story, but I don't know the make/model of them, as they are presently in operation in my neighbor's house and we'll be taking them when they sell the property to my father-in-law in November.

Hackan Slash posted:

I'm thinking of putting in some of those usb outlets in strategic places around the house, what is the best kind to get? Internet research turns up the fact that some have trouble charging certain devices, what specs should I be looking for, 2.1 amps?

Qwijib0 posted:

Congrats on owning the World's Finest Ceiling Fan (no joke, the motor in them is great). In order to use that controller, you're going to need to perform a lobotomy on the fan, but you don't need to run any new wires. I just did this on my own fan because the RMM (circuit board in the fan itself) finally died, and paying $150 for the replacement was absurd, given that that seem to have a 5-year life. The Ye-Olde RMM-I that talked to the W-11 was a bit more robust but will eventually die on you too. Good news though, there's plenty of room in the motor housing where the intellitouch circuitry was for you to put the lutron controller!

Open up the fan, and you'll see a board like this:



All you want off it is the giant capacitor. Snip or desolder it off, then disconnect all the wires connecting to it. You'll have some coming from the BFR (the resistive heatsink band that wraps around the motor housing) just chop those and tape it down. at this point you'll have a black and white coming down the hanging stem, (if light kit: black and white from the lower housing through the motor) and a red, brown and white from the motor.

Attach the black coming down the stem to the input of the canopy module, then the fan output of the canopy module to both red AND one side of the capacitor. Connect brown to the other side of the capacitor.

code:

(module)----(yellow/fan output)--------------------red----[     ]
                                 |----(capacitor)--brown--[Motor]
                                                          [     ]
(white)--------------------------------------------white--[     ]

If the fan turns the wrong direction, just swap brown and red.

The light kit just attaches to the red lead (or light output if they've changed colors), and white as well. I ended up zip-tying the canopy module to the old mounting bracket for the RMM circuit board and it fit pretty well.

You lose the ability to reverse from the wall control (press fan+light at the same time) and the home-safe where it'll turn on the light randomly so it looks like you're home (light, fan, light, fan).

Qwijib0 posted:

if you want combo outlets:

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Leviton-Decora-15-Amp-Combination-Duplex-Receptacle-and-USB-Charger-White-R02-T5632-0BW/205092277

slap me silly posted:

Says 3.6A right on there. I suppose that could be a total over both?

shortspecialbus posted:

Are those 2A or 1A for the usb? These would save me some hassles in a few places, but if they're not the fast-charging ones I'm much less interested unfortunately. The reviews seem unclear, although you'd think that someone with one could figure it out pretty easily based on how quick it charges.

Edit: Careful reading implies 2A. Missed that first go-around.

Edit 2: VVV

fknlo posted:

I'm probably just going to grab some shop lights from Home Depot with a standard plug. So my question is, how easy would it be to just switch both of those fixtures to an outlet? Seems like it should be something I can tackle myself, but since I don't know a ton about electrical stuff I figured I'd ask here first.

babyeatingpsychopath posted:

Really, just get some of the $20 4' fluorescent fixtures and mount them. FAR less hassle.

babyeatingpsychopath posted:

Trivial. But why not grab "real" fixtures while you're there? They're not very expensive, and they can mount directly to that round box.

But if you go the outlet route, take the round boxes off the ceiling and put single gang boxes up in their place. Also, make them GFCI because they're in a garage. Those two (or even one) GFCI outlets are probably going to be the cost difference between something with a plug and something without. Also, switching GFCI outlets on and off may have them reset to off, so you'd have to turn the switch on then manually push the reset button to get the lights to come on. Unless you installed your GFCI protection upstream of your switch, but then your switch can sometimes cause false trips.

Really, just get some of the $20 4' fluorescent fixtures and mount them. FAR less hassle.

PuTTY riot posted:

I don't think you're supposed to put gfci outlets on the ceiling of your garage, or anywhere not 'readily accessible'.

PuTTY riot posted:

I don't think you're supposed to put gfci outlets on the ceiling of your garage, or anywhere not 'readily accessible'.

fknlo posted:

Wiring some lights directly looks pretty easily doable. The reason I was going to go with shop lights is that for the best coverage I was going to hang them between the ceiling beams for the best light coverage. I guess it wouldn't be much more work to do four 2 bulb fixtures instead of two 4 bulb fixtures. A 20 amp breaker with nothing else on it should be fine for that, right?

fknlo posted:

Wiring some lights directly looks pretty easily doable. The reason I was going to go with shop lights is that for the best coverage I was going to hang them between the ceiling beams for the best light coverage. I guess it wouldn't be much more work to do four 2 bulb fixtures instead of two 4 bulb fixtures. A 20 amp breaker with nothing else on it should be fine for that, right?

fknlo posted:

Got 2 of the fixtures up today, I'll finish it up tomorrow. Could those things be built any more cheaply? One of the covers just won't stay on with any kind of vibration and is now unusable from hitting the floor a couple of times. Any reason they need to be on there outside of aesthetics?

fknlo posted:

Got 2 of the fixtures up today, I'll finish it up tomorrow. Could those things be built any more cheaply? One of the covers just won't stay on with any kind of vibration and is now unusable from hitting the floor a couple of times. Any reason they need to be on there outside of aesthetics?

fknlo posted:

kid sinister posted:

Could we see the right side of that fixture please? How does the NM enter the fixture?

And what is that cable hanging down in the 3rd picture? Is that live?

fknlo posted:

I'll try to get a picture. The cables are run in through a clamp and are stacked. The cable in the 3rd picture is where I gave up last night. It wasn't live.

slap me silly posted:

I think that everything after a 20 amp breaker has to be on 12 gauge wire.

fknlo posted:

Yeah, gonna check everything tomorrow. I know that it's 12/2 running from the house into the breaker box but I think everything coming out of the box is 14/2.