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melon cat posted:It's my understanding that all I have to do is cut off the old plug, strip off the insulation, and for the new plug connect green wire to green screw, white wire to silver screw, black wire to brass screw. Is that all there is to it? Yep! Make sure that you don't do what lots of people do with replacement plugs and strip the outer insulation so far back that you can see the wires once you put the new plug housing back together. melon cat posted:What you're actually seeing is the plug after I fiddled with it and tried to straighten it out (I should've mentioned that). It was in pretty bad shape prior to that- all 3 prongs were touching. That's... I've never seen all 3 touching before. Hmm.
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Apr 12, 2016 22:14
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kid sinister posted:Yep! Make sure that you don't do what lots of people do with replacement plugs and strip the outer insulation so far back that you can see the wires once you put the new plug housing back together. 
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Apr 16, 2016 17:27
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That's the optical ground. You have to connect it to the shell of the new plug with the correct size crimping iron.
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Apr 16, 2016 17:52
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slap me silly posted:That's the optical ground. You have to connect it to the shell of the new plug with the correct size crimping iron.  I'm going to bug you for more details, only because I didn't expect to see anything other than the usual black, white, and green wires. Here's an inside view of the plug that I bought. Not sure how to properly connect the optical ground to it, though (  ) And here's my wire stripper/crimper. I've used it plenty of times, but not for anything relating to optical ground.  I really do apologize for all of these questions. I'm keen on learning how to do this properly.
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Apr 16, 2016 18:11
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melon cat posted:
Dude's messing with you. It's just rope to make the cable round. You can safely cut and discard it.
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Apr 16, 2016 18:23
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Yeah, I was just messing with you. I uh, actually can't tell if you took me seriously or are just messing back, but if the former I apologize 
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Apr 16, 2016 18:39
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slap me silly posted:Yeah, I was just messing with you. I uh, actually can't tell if you took me seriously or are just messing back, but if the former I apologize And yet you don't supply a link. For optical ground you need a fusion splicer. http://www.thefoa.org/tech/ref/termination/fusion.html
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Apr 16, 2016 18:48
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slap me silly posted:Yeah, I was just messing with you. I uh, actually can't tell if you took me seriously or are just messing back, but if the former I apologize babyeatingpsychopath posted:Dude's messing with you. It's just rope to make the cable round. You can safely cut and discard it.  Alright. Laugh it up. I have some blinker fluid to change out.
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Apr 16, 2016 19:02
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my dad comes to me for electrical help and then ignores my advice. today he ignored my suggestion that he purchase proper two-pole 220v breakers instead of two single pole breakers. as you want them both to trip if either shorts, because Fire Is Bad. honestly i don't know why he asks me this poo poo if he's just gonna ignore me. i am extremely frustrated with the paradox of wanting to help him vs not wanting to put up with his stubborn bullshit. EDIT: this was a lil more E/N than I intended. i am sorry. persuading people to not cut corners is a difficult part of the biz for me, and i wish i were better at it.
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Apr 16, 2016 19:17
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froward posted:my dad comes to me for electrical help and then ignores my advice. today he ignored my suggestion that he purchase proper two-pole 220v breakers instead of two single pole breakers. as you want them both to trip if either shorts, because Fire Is Bad. Did he at least put them on separate buses? Also, keep throwing around the word "illegal" and phrase "stop trying to kill mom!"
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Apr 16, 2016 21:58
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If you read the crappy construction thread, you know my current residence is...quirky, to say the least. I realized yesterday that one of my outlets (the one next to the door that also has the switch that controls the light outside) has a breeze going through it. It's not just a cold spot or drafty, there's a solid wind you can feel moving through the outlet. How did this happen and how can I fix it? The wiring is from the '40s.
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Apr 17, 2016 20:06
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Brennanite posted:If you read the crappy construction thread, you know my current residence is...quirky, to say the least. I realized yesterday that one of my outlets (the one next to the door that also has the switch that controls the light outside) has a breeze going through it. It's not just a cold spot or drafty, there's a solid wind you can feel moving through the outlet. How did this happen and how can I fix it? The wiring is from the '40s. Since you mentioned the crappy construction thread, the obvious answer to your problem is, of course, expanding foam.
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Apr 17, 2016 20:45
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Hi Wiring thread! We recently took down drywall in the basement (family room + a hallway ceiling) of our early-80's split level; the previous owners obviously did it themselves and it looked lovely. I'm to the point of wiring up some pot lights and had a few questions. There were previously two fluorescent lights in the family room - power came in to the room via a line from a ceiling box in the utility room, and ran to the light, then over to the other light, with separate lines from each light going to a box with switches by the hallway. My understanding of this is the two lights shared the hot, but used the separate lines to control the lights via the neutral in each line? Is that a common way to wire lighting for a room? We're replacing those two lights with a total of eight pot lights (65w incandescent) - my intention was to take the line from the utility room down to the box with the switches, and then run two lines out to each set of four lights, and then wire them up in series (in the box would be shared neutral, splitting the hot between the two switches and the hot of the two lines to the lights on the load side of each switch). Does that sound like a dumb thing to do? If I'm asking a dumb question and it's obvious I should get an electrician - would they need to update anything else they saw that wasn't up to code if they noticed it, with the drywall down (I guess it'd be easy to do since it is). We're in Rochester, MN if that'd make any difference. This seems like an easy thing to do... so I thought it best to ask some experts first 
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Apr 17, 2016 22:36
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Brennanite posted:If you read the crappy construction thread, you know my current residence is...quirky, to say the least. I realized yesterday that one of my outlets (the one next to the door that also has the switch that controls the light outside) has a breeze going through it. It's not just a cold spot or drafty, there's a solid wind you can feel moving through the outlet. How did this happen and how can I fix it? The wiring is from the '40s. Assuming it always does that, and not just when your forced air system is running, it's called the "stack effect". Your house effectively functions as a chimney (more so the colder it is outside), sucking air in the bottom, heating it up, and exhausting it out the top. That wall cavity has a clear opening to the outdoors, where the wiring for the outdoor light runs through, so it's an effective opening for air to get sucked in. You can address it both by sealing that wall cavity as best you can with caulk and/or foam from either (or both) sides. You can also weaken the stack effect by making your house less chimney-like, by going up into the attic and sealing all the gaps/cracks/holes in your ceiling. If it makes you feel better though, my home is fairly high quality '90s construction and I have two light switches for exterior lights that do the same thing.
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Apr 17, 2016 23:51
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Turns out it's just when the forced-air system is running. I don't know how that affects your answer. This house is just so poorly to not-at-all insulated, I'm terrified the heating bill will be unholy if I don't fix everything I can.
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Apr 18, 2016 04:26
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In that case, it means that your supply ducts are leaking and blowing air into the attic/crawlspace and it's sucking air in through holes to make up for it. The cost of the air leaking in through your switch is probably trivial. The ducts blowing air out of your house on the other hand can be quite expensive, so you should find and fix that. All seams in your duct work should be sealed with aluminum tape or mastic.
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Apr 18, 2016 05:53
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dedian posted:My understanding of this is the two lights shared the hot, but used the separate lines to control the lights via the neutral in each line? Is that a common way to wire lighting for a room? If that's actually what happening it's totally wrong. You switch hots, never neutrals. (well, not never....but as far as you're concerned NEVER) dedian posted:pot lights Canadian spotted. dedian posted:my intention was to take the line from the utility room down to the box with the switches, and then run two lines out to each set of four lights Pigtail to each switch. Fine. dedian posted:, and then wire them up in series (in the box would be shared neutral, splitting the hot between the two switches and the hot of the two lines to the lights on the load side of each switch). Also fine, but know that your cans are likely to have stuff ready to go for this. You connect your switch hot and NOT SWITCHED neutral of the first can and you should have additional terminals in there to go to the next can. All in a nice, safe rated enclosure designed exactly for that purpose. Of course you'll also be running your ground to the first one properly and continuing it on the rest......right?
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Apr 18, 2016 09:08
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Motronic posted:If that's actually what happening it's totally wrong. You switch hots, never neutrals. (well, not never....but as far as you're concerned NEVER) Thanks! Yeah I'm probably misinterpreting how things were wired (or just misremembering, it's been almost a year since we started tearing stuff down - slowest DIY ever). And yeah, not mentioned but obviously important, grounding connected all along the way. From what I remember I don't think the switches were grounded (probably wired a long time ago) but I'll be grounding those too of course.
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Apr 18, 2016 13:38
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Zhentar posted:In that case, it means that your supply ducts are leaking and blowing air into the attic/crawlspace and it's sucking air in through holes to make up for it. Oh goody. Down to the creepy cellar for me this weekend. I swear, I wish we would just buy the house, gut it and fix everything once and for all. DO NEVER RENT and also DO NEVER BUY.
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Apr 19, 2016 15:46
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Hi friends. I just bought a house and it looks like all my household outlets are ungrounded since this is an oldass house and most everything is two prong. The previous HO put GFCIs in random locations out of what I assume is a desire to protect tvs and whatnot. Long term I'll probably get this rewired but I need some short term advice on how to protect my desktop pc, tv/consoles/hometheater and a Plex server in three separate locations. I assume the GFCIs are great for not getting me killed but maybe not so great at protecting my toys? What is the best way to go for the next couple of years?
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Apr 21, 2016 16:34
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Raymn posted:Hi friends. I just bought a house and it looks like all my household outlets are ungrounded since this is an oldass house and most everything is two prong. The previous HO put GFCIs in random locations out of what I assume is a desire to protect tvs and whatnot. Long term I'll probably get this rewired but I need some short term advice on how to protect my desktop pc, tv/consoles/hometheater and a Plex server in three separate locations. I assume the GFCIs are great for not getting me killed but maybe not so great at protecting my toys? What is the best way to go for the next couple of years? Are the enclosures for the outlets metal? One way they did it a while ago was run a wire between them that was grounded. My house is 126 years old, and I found out that several of the outlets I've replaced so far were done that way.
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Apr 21, 2016 18:37
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uapyro posted:Are the enclosures for the outlets metal? One way they did it a while ago was run a wire between them that was grounded. My house is 126 years old, and I found out that several of the outlets I've replaced so far were done that way. Yeah, I'm aware that this is one way that it could have been done but it does not appear that this is the case in my house. How would I test this for sure? Multimeter to the hot and the enclosure? The only three prong outlets are the GFCI in the kitchen, the W/D/Refrigerator/Range and the random GFCI I found in the living room behind where the previous guy had his tv. My inspector didn't think it was wired for it either.
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Apr 21, 2016 18:51
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My detached garage has a three wire branch circuit going to it. It's above ground and ugly and I would like to bury it before I have my landscaping redone. If possible I would like to future proof the buried wire in case I decide to put a sub panel in the garage in the future. It sounds like I can use THWN-2 for either a 3 wire branch circuit or a 4 wire feeder. And it also sounds like I can either bury it 6" and use metal conduit or bury it 18" and use PVC Conduit. https://www.bloomingtonmn.gov/sites/default/files/handouts-b%26i-fffdetach.pdf http://www.familyhandyman.com/electrical/wiring/how-to-bury-underground-cable/view-all Am I reading things correctly?
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Apr 21, 2016 19:21
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Raymn posted:Yeah, I'm aware that this is one way that it could have been done but it does not appear that this is the case in my house. How would I test this for sure? Multimeter to the hot and the enclosure? The only three prong outlets are the GFCI in the kitchen, the W/D/Refrigerator/Range and the random GFCI I found in the living room behind where the previous guy had his tv. My inspector didn't think it was wired for it either. I can't remember if I recalled seeing a way; since the outlet was falling apart I just tried it. And the outlet tester I tried said it was wired correctly and grounded, which surprised me.
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Apr 21, 2016 19:23
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Hashtag Banterzone posted:My detached garage has a three wire branch circuit going to it. It's above ground and ugly and I would like to bury it before I have my landscaping redone. If possible I would like to future proof the buried wire in case I decide to put a sub panel in the garage in the future. It sounds like I can use THWN-2 for either a 3 wire branch circuit or a 4 wire feeder. And it also sounds like I can either bury it 6" and use metal conduit or bury it 18" and use PVC Conduit. For future-proofing, bury it 24" deep and run a pair of 2" PVC conduits with metal elbows and sch80 pvc risers. I can't think of anything residential that wouldn't fit in that.
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Apr 21, 2016 23:05
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Raymn posted:Yeah, I'm aware that this is one way that it could have been done but it does not appear that this is the case in my house. How would I test this for sure? Multimeter to the hot and the enclosure? The only three prong outlets are the GFCI in the kitchen, the W/D/Refrigerator/Range and the random GFCI I found in the living room behind where the previous guy had his tv. My inspector didn't think it was wired for it either. I wrote a 3 prong upgrade post that's linked in the OP. Check that out regarding your situation. It includes tests to perform.
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Apr 22, 2016 01:35
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From osha.jpg WOW.
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Apr 22, 2016 15:20
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tater_salad posted:From osha.jpg I can't believe they were so lazy; I'd never use backstabs like that in my house.
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Apr 22, 2016 16:50
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I know.. use the posts like a real man, it doesn't' really take that much longer to do. Edit, also they didn't ground it, needs a sticker. tater_salad fucked around with this message at 18:07 on Apr 22, 2016 |
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Apr 22, 2016 17:29
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kid sinister posted:I wrote a 3 prong upgrade post that's linked in the OP. Check that out regarding your situation. It includes tests to perform. Oh poo poo, sorry! I browsed the OP but totally missed the link to your post. Thanks for the great write up! My only followup question was sort of touched on in your post. The secondary concern beyond not dying is protecting my gear. It doesn't sound like a GFCI receptacle (assuming this is the route I need to go) is really designed to prevent damage to equipment but a good quality surge protector that can work without a functional ground can? Did I understand that correctly?
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Apr 22, 2016 17:34
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Raymn posted:Oh poo poo, sorry! I browsed the OP but totally missed the link to your post. Thanks for the great write up! My only followup question was sort of touched on in your post. The secondary concern beyond not dying is protecting my gear. It doesn't sound like a GFCI receptacle (assuming this is the route I need to go) is really designed to prevent damage to equipment but a good quality surge protector that can work without a functional ground can? Did I understand that correctly? GFCIs first and foremost are designed to protect people, not electronics. That being said, I'm sure that there is some overlap of protection there. I would get a surge protector that protects without a ground if I were you. Unfortunately, that will mean that you will need to do some research, becuase my knowledge of them is pretty out of date.
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Apr 22, 2016 22:08
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Raymn posted:Oh poo poo, sorry! I browsed the OP but totally missed the link to your post. Thanks for the great write up! My only followup question was sort of touched on in your post. The secondary concern beyond not dying is protecting my gear. It doesn't sound like a GFCI receptacle (assuming this is the route I need to go) is really designed to prevent damage to equipment but a good quality surge protector that can work without a functional ground can? Did I understand that correctly? Not a good quality one, so much as one specifically intended to not use ground. I don't know if these are good but they're an example of how they're expensive. I'm also not sure if they're truly a replacement for ground. $139+ http://www.zerosurge.com/residential/residential-products/2-outlet-models/ http://www.brickwall.com/pages/the-worlds-best-surge-protectors
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Apr 23, 2016 02:17
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WeaselWeaz posted:Not a good quality one, so much as one specifically intended to not use ground. I don't know if these are good but they're an example of how they're expensive. I'm also not sure if they're truly a replacement for ground. I was actually looking at those after seeing them mentioned in a wirecutter review for surge protectors. I emailed zerosurge and they said they are appropriate for use on ungrounded outlets so after doing some more research I may end up going this route.
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Apr 23, 2016 18:47
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babyeatingpsychopath posted:For future-proofing, bury it 24" deep and run a pair of 2" PVC conduits with metal elbows and sch80 pvc risers. I can't think of anything residential that wouldn't fit in that. That seems like overkill. Is going 24" deep really necessary? I'd rather not rent a trencher if I don't have to.
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Apr 24, 2016 14:50
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Hashtag Banterzone posted:That seems like overkill. Is going 24" deep really necessary? I'd rather not rent a trencher if I don't have to. I asked the local building department here in California how deep the trench had to be for my conduit to electrify my workshop; they said 24".
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Apr 24, 2016 15:10
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Hashtag Banterzone posted:That seems like overkill. Is going 24" deep really necessary? I'd rather not rent a trencher if I don't have to. Most of the code is overkill. The depth is to protect anyone digging nearby. There are several circumstances where you don't need to dig down the entire 24" though. Look up table 300.5 in the NEC. Still, 24" is the maximum depth.
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Apr 24, 2016 21:11
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This is a long story, but I just wanted to get a confirmation from the experts before forging ahead here. I finally managed to get the wire run through the ceiling and down to the light switch box I'm planning on tapping to power a ceiling fan I installed last night. Using the fiberglass rods to run the wire worked much better than the fish tape, which kept hitting old knob and tube wiring causing the tape to coil in on itself. After having the project on hiatus for several weeks, I was able to knock most everything out in an hour or two. Except, I was just about to connect everything up to the power and finish up when I realized that there's no neutral in the box, because the existing switch is a three way switch. I was thinking I could just get rid of the three way switches entirely, since there's no reason to have two switches controlling the front porch light, especially when it's already on a smart home motion sensor. Essentially replace the main switch with a single pole and reconnect the intermediary run of 14-3 to the appropriate hots/neutrals to supply the box I want to use for the fan switches. Does all that sound kosher?
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Apr 25, 2016 04:28
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OSU_Matthew posted:I was thinking I could just get rid of the three way switches entirely, since there's no reason to have two switches controlling the front porch light, especially when it's already on a smart home motion sensor. Essentially replace the main switch with a single pole and reconnect the intermediary run of 14-3 to the appropriate hots/neutrals to supply the box I want to use for the fan switches. There are a handful of methods for wiring 3 way switches, only a few of which are "kosher" anymore since the code update that all switch boxes must have neutrals. You would need to show us a wiring diagram of what you want to do for us to say if it's OK or not.
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Apr 25, 2016 05:50
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OSU_Matthew posted:I was thinking I could just get rid of the three way switches entirely, since there's no reason to have two switches controlling the front porch light, especially when it's already on a smart home motion sensor. Essentially replace the main switch with a single pole and reconnect the intermediary run of 14-3 to the appropriate hots/neutrals to supply the box I want to use for the fan switches. It sounds like what you want to do is OK, but I agree, a wiring diagram would be necessary to ensure you're doing the Right Thing.
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Apr 25, 2016 10:15
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kid sinister posted:There are a handful of methods for wiring 3 way switches, only a few of which are "kosher" anymore since the code update that all switch boxes must have neutrals. You would need to show us a wiring diagram of what you want to do for us to say if it's OK or not. Wilco! I'll pop the cover off tonight and sketch that out.
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Apr 25, 2016 13:48
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