|
Splode posted:I live in an old apartment building, and I hear intermittent low frequency buzzing in most of my appliances. I'm not 100% sure it's mains hum but it could be, it's a very low frequency. Sounds like a ground loop. You don't happen to live nearby a radio tower, do you?
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2017 07:11
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 23, 2024 08:32 |
|
|
kid sinister posted:Sounds like a ground loop. I don't, but there is a powerpoint that I can't use as it has a ground leakage problem (hasn't been fixed yet because ~gently caress landlords~). Could that be causing it? Wouldn't explain the intermittent nature of it though. Oh right, and the pedestal fan and heater don't have ground connections, but I can still hear the buzz through them. Splode fucked around with this message at 08:32 on Feb 26, 2017 |
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2017 08:27
|
|
|
Splode posted:I don't, but there is a powerpoint that I can't use as it has a ground leakage problem (hasn't been fixed yet because ~gently caress landlords~). Could that be causing it? Wouldn't explain the intermittent nature of it though. Do you have your own breaker panel? Next time you notice it, start flipping breakers. That can help you track it down.
|
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2017 17:40
|
|
|
Splode posted:I don't, but there is a powerpoint that I can't use as it has a ground leakage problem (hasn't been fixed yet because ~gently caress landlords~). Could that be causing it? Wouldn't explain the intermittent nature of it though. Gotta love being stuck with lovely landlords. I know my city will eventually send an inspector out and force the landlords to make repairs if you call 311. Granted your name will be on the complaint and you might not get to renew your lease.
|
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2017 17:40
|
|
|
Kasan posted:I'll check that tomorrow during the day, but yeah I cycled every breaker and pulled every fuse and tested for continuity. I didn't think the breaker itself could have died, but I have some extras laying around so that's a good starting point I can do. I'll report findings tomorrow. What do you mean "pulled every fuse"? Is your place that old that it still has a fusebox?
|
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2017 17:56
|
|
|
kid sinister posted:Just because a breaker is switched on doesn't mean that it's passing power. The breaker could have died. Take off your electric panel. Test for voltage between the screw lug on each breaker and either the neutral or ground busbar. Are there any that are switched on, yet have no voltage? Trip Report: My fuse panel terrifies me because everything is wired funky through the fuses and power isn't traveling where I thought it was. of the 4 Double Fuse blocks, and 10 breakers. 11 pass 240v through them, while the remaining three pass 120v. On every circuit breaker my multi-meter on continuity mode beeped intermittently which I've never heard it do. Usually it just beeps continuously if there is power flowing. Nothing didn't beep at all. so there's power flowing everywhere. The way the whole shebang is wired, is mains runs into the fuse box, is wire nutted and mummified in duck-tape and fed into the circuit break box. Between the two there are 6 feeder wires exiting the fuse panel and breaker box all running under the house. There are two critical missing things. There is no mains shutoff (and I think that's why one of my fuses blows constantly, its the first stop mains takes on the heaviest load fuse), and there is no master breaker anywhere. My house is sucking down all the current in the world that it wants to suck down. Included is a picture of the fuse panel since it's wiring confuses me and I can't tell if poo poo is cross wired or not. I'll include a picture of the circuit breaker box if needed. Fuse Box (couldn't get any image tag to work so posted a link)
|
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2017 18:16
|
|
|
Kasan posted:Trip Report: My fuse panel terrifies me because everything is wired funky through the fuses and power isn't traveling where I thought it was. of the 4 Double Fuse blocks, and 10 breakers. 11 pass 240v through them, while the remaining three pass 120v. I said voltage, not continuity. Where did you put the probes?
|
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2017 22:59
|
|
|
kid sinister posted:I said voltage, not continuity. Where did you put the probes? I tested both, but for continuity I probed the hot side of the breaker and the neutral, or the seconardy output if it was a dual slot breaker. Everything has the voltages I listed.
|
|
#
?
Feb 27, 2017 01:41
|
|
|
honestly, your problem sounds like a loose wire/broken connection in another receptacle to me. in my experience the problem is USUALLY in a box/plug that is still working properly and the outgoing wire is loose or got disconnected somehow killing everything further down the line. you might have to start pulling stuff out that is working and checking on the wires.
|
|
#
?
Feb 27, 2017 03:16
|
|
|
^This, but also check voltage like Kid said. You want to check for voltage between the lugs that the #12 wires terminate on and the neutral/ground bar on the left, where the white and bare wires terminate. If this is like most fuse boxes, the top left pull-out fuses are the main and the top right pull-out fuses are protecting the other hazard cable (usually a sub-feed or range). If you have 120v between neutral bar and each hot, you'll have to take apart each non-working outlet until you find the bad wire run or junction and then replace it where you have access. You also have 30a fuses on wire that's rated for 20a, which is probably why it burned the wire somewhere along the line before burning the fuse.
Blackbeer fucked around with this message at 05:47 on Feb 27, 2017 |
|
#
?
Feb 27, 2017 05:37
|
|
|
How is electricity made to be "out of phase". From what I can tell the two phases are 120 degrees off from each other. How is this achieved?
|
|
#
?
Feb 27, 2017 23:30
|
|
|
knowonecanknow posted:How is electricity made to be "out of phase". From what I can tell the two phases are 120 degrees off from each other. How is this achieved? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-phase_electric_power
|
|
#
?
Feb 28, 2017 00:06
|
|
|
knowonecanknow posted:How is electricity made to be "out of phase". From what I can tell the two phases are 120 degrees off from each other. How is this achieved? Houses in the United States usually get single phase power. So on the utility side, you have 1 transformer connected to 1 phase. On the secondary side of the transformer, each hot leg coming into your house is connected at the ends of the coil. The neutral is connected in the middle. The effect is that you get two 120v-to-neutral legs , that are 180° apart (1/2 of 360°. Because they are on opposite ends of the coil, they are inverse relative to neutral), giving you 240v leg-to-leg. We call this "split phase power". angryrobots fucked around with this message at 00:22 on Feb 28, 2017 |
|
#
?
Feb 28, 2017 00:20
|
|
|
angryrobots posted:Power is generated, transmitted, and distributed as 3 phases 120° apart (1/3 of 360°). Industrial and other large loads get 3 phase power, as it's the most efficient way to run large motors. So their power comes from 3 transformers all banked together (or one large transformer with 3 internal windings) using all 3 phases. Fascinating. Thank you for the reply.
|
|
#
?
Feb 28, 2017 00:56
|
|
|
Hey guys- thanks a lot for your help with my "backwards" light switches. Everything's all good. But now I have another question. There's this plug in my master bathroom. It's a cheap, low quality outlet that constantly shorts out whenever we plug electric clippers or the vacuum into it. Just builders and their cheap fixtures. I'd like to upgrade it to a GFCI outlet just so our wiring/electrical setup is properly protected whenever appliance short the circuit (is that what's even happening? I know gently caress all about electricity) and, you know, so I don't die whenever we use appliances in the bathroom. My kitchen also doesn't have GFCI outlets, which kind of concerns me.    Given the existing setup, is there any reason why I can't upgrade it to a GFCI? And if I'm good to go ahead with it, how simple is it replace a plug with a GFCI plug? melon cat fucked around with this message at 02:07 on Mar 1, 2017 |
|
#
?
Mar 1, 2017 01:40
|
|
|
it's easy to swap in a GFCI, but are you sure that it's not protected somewhere else down the line? do you have another bathroom with a GFCI in it? also, what do you mean by "shorting out"? is it arcing when you plug stuff into it? do you have the appliances ON when you're plugging them in? if no it sounds like a bad internal connection on the plug because of the back-stabs, causing it to arc. you could try pulling the back-stabbed wires out and curling them around the screws and seeing if that stops the arcing. if it doesn't you need to change out the receptacle anyway. any GFCI you buy from your local big box retailer is going to have very clear instructions inside of the box and it's even simpler because there's only one wire in the box. how old is the house and how recently was it remodeled? that LOOKS like 12 gauge wire but i can't tell for sure from these pictures if those are the type of receptacles that have a clamp+back-stab sort of set up.
|
|
#
?
Mar 1, 2017 03:00
|
|
|
Hi crocodile! No other bathroom has a GFCI in it. And when I say "shorting out" I mean that appliances like vacuums and electric clippers suddenly shut off when plugged into that outlet, then the outlet won't work until I flip the appropriate fuse box panel switch. And no, the appliances aren't "on" when I plug them in. The house isn't old at all. It was only built 7 years ago. No recent remodeling, either. The builder seems to have just gone cheap with everything (thanks, Mattamy Homes!). And the existing plug seems to be backstab only- no clamps. All of the fixtures I've replaced so far in this house have been backstabbed. Would there be anything wrong with going GFCI for all of the plug outlets in my kitchen + bathrooms, or is one all you generally need? melon cat fucked around with this message at 13:40 on Mar 1, 2017 |
|
#
?
Mar 1, 2017 13:33
|
|
|
Is there anything else on the circuit for that outlet? Have you checked your see if you have GFCI breakers at your panel?
|
|
#
?
Mar 1, 2017 15:09
|
|
|
melon cat posted:Hi crocodile! No other bathroom has a GFCI in it. And when I say "shorting out" I mean that appliances like vacuums and electric clippers suddenly shut off when plugged into that outlet, then the outlet won't work until I flip the appropriate fuse box panel switch. If the breaker is tripping, that means there's too much current flowing through the breaker. The problem might be at the receptacle, but it might not. The breaker itself might be defective, the breaker might be the wrong amperage for the wire connected to it, there might be something going on in your wall somewhere that is trying to start a fire. melon cat posted:Would there be anything wrong with going GFCI for all of the plug outlets in my kitchen + bathrooms, or is one all you generally need? A GFCI receptacle has input terminals and output terminals, so one receptacle can protect everything that's "downstream" of it. So you generally only need one for a given circuit.
|
|
#
?
Mar 1, 2017 15:24
|
|
|
Had a bit of a scare last night when my kids came upstairs terrified, telling me that the baseboard heater was "throwing blue light" after one of them put their foot on the top of it. Went downstairs and sure enough, found the baseboard heater in their room sparking spontaneously. There is a small brass bracket that snaps into the housing that keeps the element in place, and somehow (probably years ago before I bought the house) it got knocked loose, and over time and with the kids jostling in the room, it slipped to the right farther and farther, until last night when I found it resting on the hot lead, and draped back towards the housing, arcing the hot to the ground.  I was able to fix it back in place (and vacuum that thing out, good lord), but I still don't trust this heater now. If my kids hadn't noticed that, it could have easily sparked a fire onto the rug in their room. And I really dislike that the wires, even if behind the vent, are exposed. So I have two issues here. One, I could not find the proper breaker to turn this thing off. Had the wife flip each one, but none of them dropped the voltage to zero. Instead, we found one breaker that would drop the voltage of the heater from 120 down to 80, but not to zero. (This is a 240v unit) Each room in the basement has its own set of baseboard heaters. Is it possible that there's more than one breaker ganged into a daisy chain of heaters, or something like that? Second, I want to replace this old unit with something newer and more safe. This unit is listed at 1000W, but it's around 50 inches in length. The only new baseboard units that I'm finding at that length are almost double the wattage, and I'm wondering if it would be overkill for their bedroom. I don't mind a smaller length unit in there, but I can't exactly extend the wall wires with a junction box or caps. Is it ok to put a higher wattage heater in there so as to match the length needed? Anything I should know about regarding that?
|
|
#
?
Mar 1, 2017 19:41
|
|
|
While tracking down electrical problems in my house, I finally took the cover off the breaker panel (not easy since two of the screws are behind a stud) and discovered that several circuits have the white wire on the breaker and black on neutral. I guess I know what the neighbors meant when they said "old Miller used to drink when he was working on the house."
|
|
#
?
Mar 1, 2017 22:50
|
|
|
Re: the baseboard heater. I don't know what's going on with not killing power completely and getting weird voltage. Like you said, it's 240V, so a 2-pole (double) breaker should run it. Was the breaker that you shut off single or double pole? Almost makes me think this 240V heat circuit is protected by single pole breakers and shutting one off gave you the odd backfeed voltage. As far as sizing your new heaters goes, you want about 10 watts of heat per square foot. You can get by with as little as 6 or so watts/ft if it's in a basement or room with good insulation. This circuit could def be on with another room's heat, but that shouldn't affect the weird voltage. If you figure say a 16a load on your heat circuit using 240V, that means you can have 3840 watts of heat on a single 240V circuit; it's common to feed from one heater/thermostat to another instead of making home runs for each room. It's okay to go overboard with the replacement heater size, but you'll need to figure out which rooms are together and add them up to make sure you won't be tripping breakers. Keep in mind Current*Voltage=Watts and that #12 wire is rated for 20a. I don't think you'd have to derate the wire, but don't plan on trying to get a full 20 amps out of each heat circuit. Blackbeer fucked around with this message at 23:06 on Mar 1, 2017 |
|
#
?
Mar 1, 2017 22:54
|
|
|
Hazed_blue posted:Had a bit of a scare last night when my kids came upstairs terrified, telling me that the baseboard heater was "throwing blue light" after one of them put their foot on the top of it. Went downstairs and sure enough, found the baseboard heater in their room sparking spontaneously. There is a small brass bracket that snaps into the housing that keeps the element in place, and somehow (probably years ago before I bought the house) it got knocked loose, and over time and with the kids jostling in the room, it slipped to the right farther and farther, until last night when I found it resting on the hot lead, and draped back towards the housing, arcing the hot to the ground. That's... improbable that the heater can't be killed completely. Start flipping breakers off and keep them off. Start with the one that brought it down to 80v. Eventually you will find what else is keeping it alive. By the way, where were your probes when you discovered 80v? That's probably a 48" heater. 1KW 48" baseboard heater. GWBBQ posted:While tracking down electrical problems in my house, I finally took the cover off the breaker panel (not easy since two of the screws are behind a stud) and discovered that several circuits have the white wire on the breaker and black on neutral. I guess I know what the neighbors meant when they said "old Miller used to drink when he was working on the house." Wow, even the breaker box itself is against code. You need a 30" minimum of empty space directly in front of the entire panel. Also, you do realize that you will have to verify every single box in this house just to be safe, right?
|
|
#
?
Mar 2, 2017 03:11
|
|
|
melon cat posted:Hi crocodile! No other bathroom has a GFCI in it. And when I say "shorting out" I mean that appliances like vacuums and electric clippers suddenly shut off when plugged into that outlet, then the outlet won't work until I flip the appropriate fuse box panel switch. And no, the appliances aren't "on" when I plug them in. this post raises a couple of red flags for me. are you the first and only owner of the house? for a house to have been built 7 years ago and have NO GFCI protection is very weird. unless you're not the first owner and the previous one went thru and changed out all the receptacles and didn't replace the GFCIs...unless there are GFCI breakers like hubis suggested.. my next concern is the fact that the wire is backstabbed into that plug. i looked at the pictures again and still can't tell for sure which style they are. if you turn off the circuit can you loosen the side screws and remove the wires from the back easily? if so then it's fine..if not, you might have a potentially larger problem. regardless of all that, if there is no GFCI protection anywhere, it absolutely needs to be changed out. if you want to bring it up to the code from at least when your house was built all of your other bathrooms, your kitchen, your outside plugs, and your garage also need to have GFCI protection. your kitchen will typically have two separate countertop circuits, your bath one (depending on how many bathrooms), same with the garage and then the outside plugs may vary. the GFI only needs to be placed at the beginning of any given circuit, whether that's at the breaker or where the home run is (or in specialized locations such as if your outside receptacles are just tapped off of a living room or bedroom...then they need their own GFI.) if you want to bring it up to modern code, well...that's a different ballpark. last but not least, when you're tripping the circuit what else turns off with it? does it happen every time or just sporadically? are there any other potential loads on the circuit while you're running any of these appliances?
|
|
#
?
Mar 2, 2017 04:56
|
|
|
kid sinister posted:That's... improbable that the heater can't be killed completely. Start flipping breakers off and keep them off. Start with the one that brought it down to 80v. Eventually you will find what else is keeping it alive. By the way, where were your probes when you discovered 80v? The problem is that this house has been expanded multiple times in the last 40 years, so some of the descriptions on the panel notes are not always 100% accurate. And they're in French. And cursive.
|
|
#
?
Mar 2, 2017 15:42
|
|
|
melon cat posted:Hi crocodile! No other bathroom has a GFCI in it. And when I say "shorting out" I mean that appliances like vacuums and electric clippers suddenly shut off when plugged into that outlet, then the outlet won't work until I flip the appropriate fuse box panel switch. And no, the appliances aren't "on" when I plug them in. When I lived in Las Vegas I was shocked when my bathroom didn't have a GFCI (newly built). Turns out the bathroom GFCI was an outlet in the garage and apparently that was common in the area. Just a story for you to consider some random places you'd normally wouldn't think of.
|
|
#
?
Mar 2, 2017 15:48
|
|
|
Hazed_blue posted:I had the probes between the hot lead and the metal housing (ground), and had a voltage detector wand to double check. Initially I had been flipping off double breakers that were paired since the heater was marked as 240v, but then afterwards I tried single breakers since the voltage was reading at 120v. I'm wondering though, perhaps there is a pair of breakers for this heater that have mistakenly not been physically linked together like some of the other double breakers on the panel. I'll do what you said though and just keep shutting off breakers as I go until it shuts off. If it's 240V there are two hot leads. Read the voltage between the two of them.
|
|
#
?
Mar 2, 2017 17:16
|
|
|
It's okay to check voltage of each hot leg to ground, but yeah, you'll have 120V to ground and 240V between your two hots.
|
|
#
?
Mar 2, 2017 18:52
|
|
|
I have a ceiling junction box that has (or rather had) a light fixture hanging from it. I've already replaced the fixture once and was able to reassemble the whole thing, but this time I'm having a ton of problems with the box being pushed back into the ceiling. I'm fairly sure the box is one of these as it's an octagonal metal box and it seems to push up as if it were mostly hinged on one side. My question is: is there a better style box or reinforcement to make this more solid? I have access to the back side of the ceiling through the attic, so I can replace it with anything. Would something like this be better or is there something else I should be looking at?
|
|
#
?
Mar 4, 2017 07:48
|
|
|
The second one is better, but if you have access to the attic anyways, you may find you can simply reinforce the existing box with some blocking, or simply throwing a couple more screws in the box or its flanges.
|
|
#
?
Mar 4, 2017 14:42
|
|
|
Am I understanding the dedicated circuits for fixed kitchen appliances correctly? If I do a full kitchen gut and remodel, do I need a minimum of:code:
|
|
#
?
Mar 4, 2017 15:06
|
|
|
I can't speak with authority about which outlets can be put on the same circuit, but for GFCI, the trend has been to GFCI basically everything that isn't liable to create a lot of nuisance trips. I think for a kitchen, that'd be everything except maybe the refrigerator. It might not be a code requirement yet, but it'll probably happen within the next 5-10 years.
|
|
#
?
Mar 4, 2017 16:42
|
|
|
I'm not up to date on 2017 code which changes some kitchen things, but if I understand correctly you can have an appliance on with 20a counter circuit as long as it'd use less than half of the circuit amps. I've always put gas ranges on with a counter outlet, but I've heard lately that new ones draw more than a person might think, so check on yours. Def keep the microwave and disposal on their own circuits. I think 2017 changes 15a dedicated appliance kitchen circuit GFI rules, but I'd still GFI protect everything in the kitchen that has metal housing like the disposal and dishwasher if it were my kitchen. Don't short yourself on counter top circuits; if you like to cook or entertain don't limit yourself to just two. edit: microwave should be a 20a run. Blackbeer fucked around with this message at 17:02 on Mar 4, 2017 |
|
#
?
Mar 4, 2017 16:44
|
|
|
Yeah, it's a wee little microwave but I'll run a 20 for it. So I could probably run 3 20 amp counter top circuits, attach the range to one and the hood to another, provided they are both low draw? Oh- is there something typically done with under cabinet lighting, which would probably be plugged in to an outlet hidden in a cabinet? Appreciate the advise, will be running this all past our inspector but I don't want to propose anything too stupid.
|
|
#
?
Mar 4, 2017 17:42
|
|
|
 is this OK for grounding? not sure how else to do it. also found out the hard way that this switch wasn't on the circuit as the rest of the room, ow edit: also, the ace hardware folks talked me into buying a 3 way dimmer+switch switch instead of just a normal one and after turning the circuit back on the light is on regardless of the switch position. dimmer works though. so now I don't know if its a hardware issue or me being a bad electrician (probably the latter) mastershakeman fucked around with this message at 18:13 on Mar 4, 2017 |
|
#
?
Mar 4, 2017 17:49
|
|
|
mastershakeman posted:also found out the hard way that this switch wasn't on the circuit as the rest of the room, ow Hubis posted:IANAE but
|
|
#
?
Mar 4, 2017 18:13
|
|
|
mastershakeman posted:
Sounds like you've got the lights connected to both poles of the switch somewhere. The 3-way is intended to make a logical XOR with a second switch, usually at the other door to the room, so the lights are on when the two switches are in opposite positions. That way the lights change state when you flip either of the switches.
|
|
#
?
Mar 4, 2017 18:29
|
|
|
ManlyWeevil posted:I have a ceiling junction box that has (or rather had) a light fixture hanging from it. I've already replaced the fixture once and was able to reassemble the whole thing, but this time I'm having a ton of problems with the box being pushed back into the ceiling. I'm fairly sure the box is one of these as it's an octagonal metal box and it seems to push up as if it were mostly hinged on one side. New construction ceiling fan boxes don't quite work in old construction. Look at the 3rd picture on that site. Do you see that little tab that goes under the joist? That can be hard to wrestle under, plus consider that your existing box is already against the joist. Most boxes poke through the hole in the drywall slightly. How would you screw in those screws with the new box on that rail right there? I saw go to the hardware store and see what they have. You should find one or two boxes that could work. mastershakeman posted:
No, that's not okay for grounding. Look closer. Is there a threaded hole in the back of the box? If there is, use a grounding screw. If not, you can use a grounding clip. Can you post a picture of this switch?
|
|
#
?
Mar 4, 2017 18:32
|
|
|
kid sinister posted:
Thanks. I saw the holes but didn't have a screw to put into them. This is why I've always resisted doing household projects - the repeated trips to the store. The original switch+dimmer was a single pole lutron w/ just two black cables. The one I was convinced to buy is a lutron that does 3 way and has a red, red+white, black and green wire. I was told that the 3 way could be wired up as a single pole for now and converted later if needed. Should I just be going back to the hardware store for single pole switch + grounding screw + non contact voltage tester?
|
|
#
?
Mar 4, 2017 18:39
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 23, 2024 08:32 |
|
|
DIY & Hobbies - Don't burn your house down: Get a non-contact voltage detector.
|
|
#
?
Mar 4, 2017 18:56
|
|
