Ralphus posted:

I looked through some of this thread and didn’t see anything addressing this exact issue, my apologies if this has already been covered.

Almost 2 years ago we bought a 1950s ranch-style house in Duluth MN. It had never had any updates done to it so I’ve been doing some work to it as time permits. We found out *after* buying it that all of the 3-prong outlets in the house had a wire running from the neutral hole on the back to the ground lug/ screw, which means that the inspector’s circuit tester showed things as properly grounded when in reality they aren’t. We’re replacing these outlets with new 2-prong outlets that I bought at Menard’s as the majority of these outlets are just used for lamps and other 2-prong things. I ran some new wire through the basement and up through the walls and installed old-work boxes and properly grounded outlets for things like the stereo/ TV, our computers, things like that. I also installed some GFCIs where the refrigerator plugs in, in the basement, etc.

So, here’s the issue/ question at hand. The inspection report says the house is only grounded through the cold water plumbing and nowhere else. However, I replaced a big chunk of our galvanized plumbing with PEX because the galvanized was so corroded right where the water line enters the house that there was very little flow/ pressure. Obviously when I disconnected the cold water line there was no longer a ground path from the breaker box. I was going to run a heavy wire temporarily from the water line entry to the box and then have an electrician bond the box or whatever outside, but when I plug a circuit tester into the 3-prong outlets I installed it shows they’re grounded. The surge protectors I have plugged into these outlets also show grounded and my UPS does as well. There doesn’t appear to be anything going from the meter outside into the ground.

Am I overlooking something here? Is this correct or is something amiss? I don’t want our house to burn down so if necessary I’ll have an electrician take a look at it, I just wanted to see if I’m missing something obvious.

kid sinister posted:

In fact, ground and neutral are bonded in one place only: your main breaker panel.

kid sinister posted:

Good work on finding the grounding pass jury rig. As for the GFCIs, there are some appliances that you don't want to put on them, mostly stuff with big motors that were made before around 10 years ago: fridges, washing machines, etc.

As for your "phantom ground" question, your ground and neutral are basically the same: they provide a return path for the electricity from the hots. The difference between them is that neutral is intended as the main return path, while ground is for protection and is only supposed to be used during a short. In fact, ground and neutral are bonded in one place only: your main breaker panel. That's why your outlet testers show up as grounded when what you thought was the "only ground" was removed. Those testers are basically a little bulb between the hot and ground. If it lights up, then you know that both the hot and ground are on and unbroken all the way back to the panel. In your case, the power comes in, goes across the bulb, back down the ground wire, joins the neutral at the breaker panel, then... back down the neutral wire to the power company. So no, that water pipe bond wasn't the only way for electricity over the ground wire to escape your house.

That being said, if your water enters your house in a metal pipe, it has to be grounded within 6 feet of the entrance. You don't have to run it all the way outside though. You can just run it to your panel and tighten it down to the grounding busbar. Do whichever is closer.

Actually, nevermind what I said about grounding pipes. I looked things up and my knowledge is a bit out of date on grounding electrode methods.

A Proper Uppercut posted:

The power source I have is 230 three phase. Is there any way this will work without some major messing around?

A Proper Uppercut posted:

Not sure if this is exactly appropriate for this thread but hopefully you guys can help me out.

I work in a machine shop. I'm the go to "make poo poo work" guy.

I have a chiller that I need to hook up to a machine. The panel says it's 208/230 single phase. The power source I have is 230 three phase. Is there any way this will work without some major messing around?

A Proper Uppercut posted:

Not sure if this is exactly appropriate for this thread but hopefully you guys can help me out.

I work in a machine shop. I'm the go to "make poo poo work" guy.

I have a chiller that I need to hook up to a machine. The panel says it's 208/230 single phase. The power source I have is 230 three phase. Is there any way this will work without some major messing around?

zharmad posted:

Unless you have an open delta service, you should be able to get 230v single phase across any two legs of the 230v three phase. So long as the equipment isn't drawing massive amperage, it shouldn't create a huge phase imbalance (but this can be compensated for with a capacitor bank.)

Take a volt meter and check what voltages you get from phase to phase and from each phase to ground, which would give you an idea of if you have wye service or open delta. Open delta will have one phase that will show 230v from phase to neutral, the other two will show 115v from phase to neutral.

In the US, 3 phase can be 208v, 480v, 600v all the way up to 4kv distribution voltage.

A Proper Uppercut posted:

I am in the US, so it's probably 208v.

Unless I'm remembering wrong, I think we have a buck booster on this circuit so it's actually more like 220v instead of 208. I remember my old boss having to do some fuckery to get everything running the way it should.

So you're saying essentially if I have around 208v across two legs of the 3 phase I should be able to hook that up to the chiller? It's only pulling about 11 amps.

KnifeWrench posted:

Sorry if this question has been answered before, but it seems weirdly specific enough that I gave up hope of finding it.

I need to add an outlet for a fancy bidet toilet seat. The installation instructions call for a GFCI outlet, presumably since it's in proximity to water. That's fine and dandy, but this tutorial says "Most electrical codes now require outlets in kitchens and bathrooms to be on separate 20-amp GFCI circuits. So before using the method we show here to add an outlet in a kitchen or bathroom, check with an electrical inspector."

There is a super conveniently located outlet opposite the wall I'd want to install to, so I imagine the actual task will be very simple if I can use it, but it's in a bedroom, and this language gives me just enough pause that I thought I'd check. Am I stuck hiring a professional for this?

babyeatingpsychopath posted:

Yup. Any outlet in a bathroom must serve only bathrooms, and must be GFCI. Any circuit serving a bathroom must serve everything in that bathroom only, or JUST outlets for multiple bathrooms.

If your bathroom has an outlet in it already, then tap off of that. If your bathroom has a lighting circuit that runs other stuff that you could put on other circuits, use that, and make that one circuit bathroom-only. Tapping off the outlet in the room on the other side, especially if it's a bedroom, is no good at all.

KnifeWrench posted:

Bummer.

Here's what I'm working with:


You can probably see why I was tempted to use the bedroom outlet, but as the title of the thread suggests, I do not wish to burn my house down. So I'm left with a really bad location of the nearest bathroom outlet, or the fan and light fixture in the ceiling (on the same circuit -- I checked). Is this DIY-able? I want to be optimistic about fishing cable down into the wall from the ceiling, but it definitely seems hacky.

Uncle at Nintendo posted:

Here it is, as requested. This kind of took me all day so I am crossing my fingers it's fixable.

Where any of the numbers match, it means that I got a reading that it was connected to the other matching number. So yes, in the 3 gang box at the back of the garage, I am getting both wires marked 2 as having continuity between each other.



please help. I want to see in my garage and also see in my backyard, is that so much to ask in a world of virtual reality headsets and same day shipping

The box in the front of the garage can be hard to make out. Basically the wires that I did not label are just coming from the basement, so they aren't connected to any of the wires in the garage when everything is unhooked. All the other wires in that box in one way or another have continuity with the wires in the back of the garage/outside.

Phanatic posted:

If there's an attic above this bathroom fishing wire down into the wall is about the easiest thing you can do with home wiring. It's not hacky at all.

Uncle at Nintendo posted:

Here it is, as requested. This kind of took me all day so I am crossing my fingers it's fixable.

Where any of the numbers match, it means that I got a reading that it was connected to the other matching number. So yes, in the 3 gang box at the back of the garage, I am getting both wires marked 2 as having continuity between each other.



please help. I want to see in my garage and also see in my backyard, is that so much to ask in a world of virtual reality headsets and same day shipping

The box in the front of the garage can be hard to make out. Basically the wires that I did not label are just coming from the basement, so they aren't connected to any of the wires in the garage when everything is unhooked. All the other wires in that box in one way or another have continuity with the wires in the back of the garage/outside.

slap me silly posted:

What's going on in the ceiling fixture? Your picture is missing some things. There are three wires, only two are labeled, and it looks like you didn't disconnect them before you made your continuity measurements?

You are missing some other info too because it makes no sense for 2/3/5 in the front of the garage to go to 2/2/5 in the back of the garage with 3 somehow magically coming out at the flood light. So far 1/4 in the back to 1/4 in the flood makes sense, and the "from basement" pair makes sense. Everything else is still unclear. Sorry

Oh, and didn't you say before that 4 had power? Still true?

kid sinister posted:

Bad news, you have another box somewhere. The clues:

1. The box at the front of the garage has 1950s braided-sheath /3 NM in it, in a steel box. It goes from there to a much more recent plastic box at the back of the garage, shared by much more recent plastic sheathed NM.
2. Wire #3 is in braided-sheath cable at the front of garage box, yet changes to a plastic sheath by the time it gets to the floodlight box.

So you've got to find the other box where #3 changes cables and do your tests again. Do I see a run of NM just going into the back of the ceiling fixture? I'd try following where that goes. Also, it looks like some wires were swapped around from the original build out to also have that floodlight. That means that you might not have enough wires to have an outlet at that back of garage box. That's probably why it was removed. Still, we might still be able to hook you up with one there once you find that other box.

Uncle at Nintendo posted:

Thank you so much. OK yeah, the fact that there might be another box somewhere is possible. Remember that even when I turn off the breaker that kills power to everything in my photos, my garage door still gets power. So for whatever reason, there are two different places in my house that are giving my garage power.

As for me finding out where the NM going to the back of the ceiling fixture...the only way I would be able to find that out, as far as I know....would be if I ripped out all the sheetrock? I'm so fixated on solving this that I absolutely would resort to that, though of course I would love it if I didn't have to. I have off for a couple of days so whatever you tell me to do, I will.

Uncle at Nintendo posted:

In my ceiling fixture, there are only two wires coming into it.

Uncle at Nintendo posted:

As for number 4, that has power when I have the switch and outlet in front of the garage wired up.

Uncle at Nintendo posted:

With everything disconnected
in the front of the garage : only power is going to the black wire.
In the back of the garage : only power to the rightmost black wire.

slap me silly posted:

Jesus dude.

There are three wires in your picture. The third one is right there. Where is it going? If it's going to the light fixture, where is the other wire from the light fixture?

kid sinister posted:

What's above your garage?

Uncle at Nintendo posted:

I am not sure why it is important

Uncle at Nintendo posted:

I am not sure why it is important because it's not coming in from anything, and all it is going to is the 2nd ceiling light that is right next to it. It ends right there, at the 2nd light.



Nothing technically (you can sit on the roof of the garage if you wanted to, for example). But above the garage and to the right is our master bedroom. I'm guessing you'd like me to kill the power to the bedroom and see if the garage door loses power as well?

edit: I think you are onto something. This is like Perry Mason because I noticed there used to be a long rear end extension cord going from the garage door mechanism, across my ceiling, to the 3 gang box at the back of the garage. They left it dangling there. However, now there is an outlet in the ceiling right next to the garage door mechanism that it plugs right into. So previously, they just had a huge-rear end extension cord going across the ceiling to the 3 gang box to power the garage door mechanism. I am not sure what made them change it to an outlet right next to the mechanism in the ceiling; my guess is that it wasn't legal to sell the house that way so they had to have it added. And perhaps this is why the ceiling light and flood light worked when we first saw the house, then when we got the house those lights stopped working. They just needed it to pass inspection, and they weren't concerned with the flood light or garage ceiling light working. I am 100% sure that I remembered the 3 gang outlet having its wall plate on it and there being 2 switches and an outlet. I thought it was so strange it was two useless switches and no wall plate when we finally bought the house. So maybe I am onto something as well.

The outlet on the ceiling might be jumped from the bedroom (this is only an assumption because it's the closest room to the garage; it can be coming directly from the basement for all I know). Let me know what you need me to try.

Slugworth posted:

Yesterday I replaced a stove hood with a above range microwave. This entailed taking the existing electrical connection for the hood, and converting it to an outlet for the microwave. Everything seemed fine. This morning, I discovered my fridge wasn't running, the microwave was intermittently shutting off, and some lights in the house were super dim. My dad (former electrician) came over and discovered that one of the legs feeding the breaker is dead before the meter. I've got the power company coming out. Questions I failed to ask my dad while he was here -

There's no way I killed a leg by installing an outlet, right? I get that the timing strongly suggests I did, but I really can't figure out how I would have. The connections are secure in the new box and the box feeding it. I taped every connection and the outlet itself, there was never any indication of a short, etc.

Half my breakers are reading at like 60v or so. If the leg is dead, where are they getting this power? The only 240v breaker is turned off, so the live leg wouldn't be feeding the dead one through there, right? The main, maybe?

kid sinister posted:

Unless you rooted around inside your main panel while you were doing your microwave work, then you couldn't have caused a problem affecting all your circuits. It sounds like one of your split phases is out of whack. Is every other breaker vertically testing at 60V, while the ones between are fine? Test for voltage between both the hot lugs. That should be 240v.

What did you mean "only 240v breaker"? Does your panel have a main breaker, or are you talking about breaker for the AC or electric dryer?

kid sinister posted:

Bad news, you have another box somewhere.

2. Wire #3 is in braided-sheath cable at the front of garage box, yet changes to a plastic sheath by the time it gets to the floodlight box.

angryrobots posted:

....they aren't fixing it until Monday? That's loving insane.

Anyhow, was your kitchen designed for an above stove microwave? Minimum 66" from floor to top of the microwave. I ask because I see a lot of them retrofitted, and too close to the range.

H110Hawk posted:

angryrobots posted:

They always tell us to overestimate outage time when speaking to people

slap me silly posted:

It is clear from your posts that you have no clue what's important and what isn't. I specifically asked if that wire went to the light fixture, thank you for answering. I also asked two other questions, why are you ignoring those? And I have a new question now, what's happening at the second ceiling light that you never mentioned before? What the gently caress dude, you've been asked repeatedly to map out the whole system and told how, now step up your game and do it.

kid sinister posted:

That's only 1 cable bunch in that picture. If that is the first fixture and the power goes from there to the other fixture, then there should be 2 cables in that box: one from the switch and the second going to the second fixture. Remember when we said to untwist everything when doing tests? You have some really screwed up wiring going on. Assume nothing is right. Once we get everything separated, we can tell you how to reattach everything properly, or if you will need any more wire ran.

kid sinister posted:

Don't tear down the drywall, or at least you shouldn't have to. Boxes aren't supposed to be buried in drywall, but that doesn't mean that it hasn't happened before. Start investigating that garage door opener like you said. See what circuit it's on and tell us. It may be possible that it's on its own circuit. If your house is old enough to have 1950s wiring, then that garage was built before garage door openers were a thing. You need to find out how to turn that circuit off because you might need to investigate that box too. Your mystery junction might just take place inside that box.

kid sinister posted:

As for the garage, you said that there's just a roof over it, no rooms? I see a finished ceiling in there. Is there an attic? Do you see a access panel, or is there a little door in your house into there?

FogHelmut posted:

Is a box holding a dining room chandelier typically able to hold a ceiling fan, or would that need to be upgraded to something stronger?

Uncle at Nintendo posted:

Thanks again for replying!

KnifeWrench posted:

Yay! It's a pain in the rear end to get up there, and even harder to navigate, but I do indeed have an attic.

Thanks for the help, babyeatingpsychopath and Phanatic!

kid sinister posted:

Wow, that is some weird rear end conduit I've never seen before. Still, I can't figure out why the previous installer went back up into the roof and mounted a flush box when he could have just put in a surface mount box.

New instructions. Well, same instructions, find out which circuit the garage door is on. Is there a separate circuit just for it? It might share something with your basement. Next, turn it off, take out the garage opener outlet and peek inside that box. Post a picture of its insides. Hopefully that is your mystery box.

Which end is that hole at? Is there enough room to fit up there? Also, I can't tell from the pictures, but is your garage ceiling vaulted?

Uncle at Nintendo posted:

The hole is in the ceiling of the garage near the front; unfortunately there is literally no way to fit up there; there's only maybe a space of 8" between the sheetrock and the wood. My photo probably throws perspective off.

The ceiling isn't vaulted; it's a completely flat roof.

As for your other instructions; done!




So unfortunately nothing obvious going on in that box. It looks like it just goes down that plastic pipe right to my basement:



Also that was good assumption work on your part because yep, the garage door is on its own breaker.

Also I did a bit more "investigating" and I noticed a spot that had plaster of Paris on it and it looked suspiciously shaped so I ripped it open a bit:



This is directly above (near the ceiling) where the 3-gang box in the back is.

The older cable I was barely able to move. But the grey one moved just fine; if I move it below the staple, there is movement in my 3 gang box. And if I move it above the staple, I hear movement in the flood light box right out back.

I doubt this is some great discovery but I never know any more.

Thanks again for all your help. Let me know what else you need me to try.