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the per pole rating is the same as the total amperage, it's not cumulative. V 30A per pole and 30A total, all good. kecske fucked around with this message at 20:35 on Jul 14, 2020 |
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Jul 14, 2020 20:27
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so i'm fine then?
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Jul 14, 2020 20:30
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speaking of hot shower mods.. Capt Splendid are you alive?
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Jul 14, 2020 20:34
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A 50S RAYGUN posted:hi I'm back If it's marked as a 30A breaker, it's going to be 30A per pole. Functionally it's just two 1-pole breakers mechanically interlocked so that if either pole trips, it takes the other one with it. I would think that a 15A breaker will trip in less than an hour at nearly 2x current, but I don't know what the trip curve for residential breakers looks like. A 50S RAYGUN posted:so i'm fine then? As long as the wire is rated for 30A, yup. If the breaker is under-sized, it'll just trip if it sees too much current. That's its job. Wire, on the other hand, will start a fire.
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Jul 14, 2020 20:43
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tater_salad posted:speaking of hot shower mods.. He's chatting on discord so either he's alive or his corpse has learned how to use the internet. 
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Jul 14, 2020 20:46
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corgski posted:He's chatting on discord so either he's alive or his corpse has learned how to use the internet. Or the landlord figured they'd just assume his life!
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Jul 14, 2020 23:31
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sharkytm posted:Or the landlord figured they'd just assume his life! Who'd want a life where you have to wear rubber gloves in the shower?
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Jul 15, 2020 00:52
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Nevets posted:Who'd want a life where you have to wear rubber gloves in the shower? Don't kinkshame.
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Jul 15, 2020 01:00
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DaveSauce posted:
Less than 10 seconds, usually. Schneider publishes their TCs, like this 15A QO one here: https://download.schneider-electric.com/files?p_enDocType=Tripping+curves&p_File_Name=730-2.pdf&p_Doc_Ref=730-2 Always fun to look at those when you trip a breaker and estimate how much juice you were pulling.
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Jul 15, 2020 01:36
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B-Nasty posted:Less than 10 seconds, usually. Schneider publishes their TCs, like this 15A QO one here: https://download.schneider-electric.com/files?p_enDocType=Tripping+curves&p_File_Name=730-2.pdf&p_Doc_Ref=730-2 My main snapped off INSTANTLY, and one leg's breakers were all tripped from the fault breaker on up. That was Spicy. A squirrel had become a short-circuit path to ground when it chewed through some cable in the attic. Rough guess was 400-600A out of a 50A double-pole for maybe one cycle.
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Jul 15, 2020 03:38
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How'd that squirrel smell?
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Jul 15, 2020 20:52
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I loved watching the squirrels explode on the power lines behind my house. It would light up a cloudy day and definitely bright at night.
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Jul 15, 2020 20:59
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They make a very satisfying KAPOW on the lines with a hell of a bright flash. ... just hope you're not close enough to catch some fried squirrel bits... say, with your face. 
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Jul 16, 2020 22:55
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Linked for squirrel fatality. https://i.imgur.com/UzHMEmH.jpg Sometimes the squirrel doesn't knock the power off, but the turkey vulture who shows up to feed, does.
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Jul 16, 2020 23:59
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Nevets posted:Who'd want a life where you have to wear rubber gloves in the shower? I actually have started wearing one now just because of this whole thing, as you'll see below: "A dumb post by Captain Splendid in Discord from a few days ago posted:Plumber came round on Thursday, then the plumber and the electrician on Friday morning
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Jul 17, 2020 14:00
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Jesus tap-dancing Christ. Discharge it with a wire then quick! Take a shower before it charges back up. 
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Jul 17, 2020 14:20
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Thankfully it didn't come to that because it had been resolved the next day. However bad the landlady and building company were, the technicians were really nice and messaged me a couple times afterwards to ask if they needed me to come round again.
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Jul 17, 2020 14:34
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If it were me, I'd just tie a piece of 10ga through the shower between the spigot and drain grate, just to be sure 
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Jul 17, 2020 14:39
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Question from a person who does not understand electricity in any reasonable way... I live in an apartment. Yesterday the power cut out in what I initially thought was only one room -- living room -- and checking circuit breaker to see what was up showed none had flipped, so I flipped the living room myself manually. Nothing came back on. Then I investigated closer and realized it wasn't just the living room that was out -- almost every outlet in my apartment was not working. ACs, refrigerator, and almost everything else plugged into an outlet. Ceiling lights were still working though, and after a bit more investigation I eventually found a handful of outlets that do work -- maybe 4 or 5 out of an entire 2 bedroom apartment. Earliest my super can take a look is Monday AM so I'm waiting on that, and his theory is strongly that the circuit breaker itself will need replacement. In the meantime I'm trying to understand exactly what could have happened here? Too much draw from an AC on one circuit? How could that affect other circuits as well? Also is it worth learning how long / involved it could take to replace a circuit breaker? Or, with 90+ heat looming is that just going to make me more perturbed and frustrated?
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Jul 19, 2020 14:48
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GeorgieMordor posted:Question from a person who does not understand electricity in any reasonable way... Replacing a circuit breaker only takes a few minutes, but you absolutely have to know what you're doing so it's not something you should try.
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Jul 19, 2020 15:19
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glynnenstein posted:Replacing a circuit breaker only takes a few minutes, but you absolutely have to know what you're doing so it's not something you should try. This, and to me it sounds like you dropped a phase. It's probably not going to be something you can self-repair especially in a rental.
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Jul 19, 2020 15:23
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glynnenstein posted:Replacing a circuit breaker only takes a few minutes, but you absolutely have to know what you're doing so it's not something you should try. Thanks, and just to be clear I wasn't asking with any idea or intent to do this myself. Since I live in a rental, fixing this is the super's job. Encouraging to know that it's possible to replace a circuit breaker without too much trouble. Hopefully that'll be the case here. TacoHavoc posted:This, and to me it sounds like you dropped a phase. It's probably not going to be something you can self-repair especially in a rental. I've personally never seen anything like this before so that's interesting. What could cause the dropped phase? Too much draw to a specific outlet? Too much draw to the circuit breaker itself?
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Jul 19, 2020 15:43
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GeorgieMordor posted:Thanks, and just to be clear I wasn't asking with any idea or intent to do this myself. Since I live in a rental, fixing this is the super's job. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-phase_electric_power If one of your two hot legs is disconnected at a pole, panel, or other location, half of your breaker box will be de-energized. If this is what happened, it's probably nothing you did. Faulty connection that finally broke, mechanical damage somewhere, etc.
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Jul 19, 2020 15:49
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Check to see if any GFCIs have tripped. Could be an upstream GFCI tripped and cut power to everything else.
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Jul 19, 2020 16:01
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SpartanIvy posted:Check to see if any GFCIs have tripped. Could be an upstream GFCI tripped and cut power to everything else. This is a problem I've had before, so I'll second it.
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Jul 19, 2020 16:44
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TacoHavoc posted:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-phase_electric_power I'm trying to think of a safe way someone can test if they are only getting 1 hot leg without any tools. What about turning on an electric oven or range & seeing if it takes forever to heat? I think you can safely run it on 110v for the 15 minutes or so it would normally take to preheat the oven or boil some water to see if it's getting enough juice.
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Jul 19, 2020 22:11
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Hello. I am replacing a kitchen light that is on a three-way circuit. I've disconnected the circuit completely and while I'm at it I want to replace one of the old switches because when it's on it makes a buzzing noise. This is what I see  This old Leviton three-way switch is pre-wired, unlabeled, and doesn't have a white wire (or a ground wire or ground terminal, lol). Can I assume the black and red are the traveler terminals and the brown is the common terminal? e. also if I understand it, the three-wire cabling in the wall has its white wire being HOT, and I need to label it as such? Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 22:40 on Jul 19, 2020 |
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Jul 19, 2020 22:38
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Leperflesh posted:Hello. I am replacing a kitchen light that is on a three-way circuit. I've disconnected the circuit completely and while I'm at it I want to replace one of the old switches because when it's on it makes a buzzing noise. Based on the usual leviton/PS 3-way wiring I'd guess that you're correct that the brown lead (connected to the black box wire) is the common. It's best practice to put black tape on the white box wire, but it's not as important here (where it's obvious that the white is not being used as a neutral) as opposed to a 240V circuit that uses a white wire as a hot.
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Jul 19, 2020 23:06
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Leperflesh posted:Hello. I am replacing a kitchen light that is on a three-way circuit. I've disconnected the circuit completely and while I'm at it I want to replace one of the old switches because when it's on it makes a buzzing noise. Leviton has their diagrams up on their website, I assume for old stuff too. Can you google the model number that's stamped into it?
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Jul 19, 2020 23:18
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Nevets posted:I'm trying to think of a safe way someone can test if they are only getting 1 hot leg without any tools. A 220v stove with an open leg won't be slow - it won't work at all.  So yeah if you have 220v appliances which also aren't working, you have lost a leg somewhere.
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Jul 19, 2020 23:25
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I can't find a model number other than that sticker, and googling that sticker number (9B28X1) gets me nowhere. It says Leviton, is EL listed, says for permanently installed fixtures only, and assembled in mexico. It's definitely not original to the house (1957) and definitely older than 10 years, but other than that I've got no dates to go on either. I'm gonna work at the other end and I'm gonna install my own replacement switch, but the other end of that wire is the junction box above the kitchen light I'm replacing and it has four lines coming together in it (this circuit has several lights and at least one bathroom outlet on it, maybe some more poo poo too), and it's somewhat confusing, so I'm just trying to be 100% sure that I understand every wire before I turn the power back on and let the smoke escape.
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Jul 19, 2020 23:26
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Leperflesh posted:Hello. I am replacing a kitchen light that is on a three-way circuit. I've disconnected the circuit completely and while I'm at it I want to replace one of the old switches because when it's on it makes a buzzing noise.
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Jul 19, 2020 23:27
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Leperflesh posted:I can't find a model number other than that sticker, and googling that sticker number (9B28X1) gets me nowhere. It says Leviton, is EL listed, says for permanently installed fixtures only, and assembled in mexico. It's definitely not original to the house (1957) and definitely older than 10 years, but other than that I've got no dates to go on either. Other j-box aside, if you mix up any of the three wires shown in your pic the worst that will happen is that the light will not correctly switch on and off from both switch locations.
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Jul 19, 2020 23:38
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Slugworth posted:There's no ground because (hopefully) your metal box is connected via metal conduit all the way back to your panel. Or they just used a metal box with romex, and are very bad electricians. There's no ground because it was from 1957 and they didn't bother to ground poo poo back then. The metal box is definitely not connected back to the panel. Most of the 15v household circuits in this house are ungrounded; I've added grounds to a couple, installed GFCI outlets on most of the rest, and the 20v, three kitchen, two garage, and 40a A/C circuits were already grounded. Blackbeer posted:Other j-box aside, if you mix up any of the three wires shown in your pic the worst that will happen is that the light will not correctly switch on and off from both switch locations. I was like 90% sure of this but it's reassuring to hear, thanks. I'm gonna go back into the attic to replace an exposed, taped union of two old "romex" (paper-wrapped two-wire) lines with a proper junction box. Here's the fun that I found when I took down the broken kitchen fixture:    This is after I removed the wires going to the fixture and just put the wire nuts back on. Why yes, there is scorching on the wires in there, thanks for asking.
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Jul 19, 2020 23:47
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Leperflesh posted:There's no ground because it was from 1957 and they didn't bother to ground poo poo back then. The metal box is definitely not connected back to the panel. Most of the 15v household circuits in this house are ungrounded; I've added grounds to a couple, installed GFCI outlets on most of the rest, and the 20v, three kitchen, two garage, and 40a A/C circuits were already grounded. The late 50s was the beginning of grounding. It began with bathrooms and kitchen countertops, kinda like GFCIs now. In fact, such circuits may have began with ground wires, yet everything down branch didn't have them. Did you test the boxes? In those days, electricians would use NM with ground and bend the ground wire back against the outer sheathing, then twist them together outside the box and attach to to the boxes with one of the gang screws on the outside. My 1956 house actually used NM with ground but only had it hooked up on half of the circuits. On the half that didn't, they clipped the ground wire off at the outer sheath. Luckily, in those days, the ground wire was bent zigzagged inside the outer sheath. It was possible to tug on it inside the boxes and straighten out enough to work with. Oh yeah. The test. Test for a circuit between the hot wire and the steel box. kid sinister fucked around with this message at 00:03 on Jul 20, 2020 |
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Jul 20, 2020 00:01
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Hi I need some help. I'm replacing all my outlets with the tamper resistant decora ones - https://www.leviton.com/en/products/t5325-w. And of course, on the last set of three I have an issue. This is in my bedroom, and there are five outlets along the walls. Two of them, and the ceiling light work fine. The other three do not. I assume these three are connected in some way - they are on two adjoining walls. In two of them, I have two black wires, two white wires and a ground. I have them set as following, which I copied off the previous installation: for one set of black/white wires coming from the same location, black on one of the brass, and then white on the silver screw diagonal from it. Then vice versa for the other two. And the ground wire to the ground screw of course. The other one has just one white wire, one black wire and one ground. The black is on the bottom brass screw (bottom as you are looking at the outlet from the front), white on bottom left,a nd ground to ground. My first question is does it matter which black goes to which brass screw, and which white goes to which silver screw? Also for the one with only one white and one black, does it matter which brass screw the black wire goes on, and which silver screw the white wire goes on? If the answer to both of those is it doesn't matter, I assume the issue must be that my shepherd's hook isn't connecting enough on at least one of these three? One thing that happened is a few of the stab wires came out at once for one of the outlets, so I'm thinking maybe I didn't reposition them correctly on the new outlet. thank you actionjackson fucked around with this message at 00:48 on Jul 20, 2020 |
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Jul 20, 2020 00:44
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kid sinister posted:The late 50s was the beginning of grounding. It began with bathrooms and kitchen countertops, kinda like GFCIs now. In fact, such circuits may have began with ground wires, yet everything down branch didn't have them. Did you test the boxes? In those days, electricians would use NM with ground and bend the ground wire back against the outer sheathing, then twist them together outside the box and attach to to the boxes with one of the gang screws on the outside. My 1956 house actually used NM with ground but only had it hooked up on half of the circuits. On the half that didn't, they clipped the ground wire off at the outer sheath. Luckily, in those days, the ground wire was bent zigzagged inside the outer sheath. It was possible to tug on it inside the boxes and straighten out enough to work with. I've seen the bend-back-the-ground thing on one line in the house: it's in the garage, goes to an overhead light. But most of the rest of the original wiring going to lights, 2-prong outlets, etc. doesn't have a ground in it... I know because I've sliced a hell of a lot of it open as I've redone various outlets and stuff. I've also explored my breaker box and I can see many of the fixture boxes and a few junction boxes from the attic and/or crawlspace. And yeah the metal outlet and fixture boxes generally aren't grounded either, I've tested them. Basically the house needs to be re-wired and the main breaker box replaced. Unfortunately I had an electrician come out and look at it about 6 years ago and he said he can't touch the box without relocating it because it's too near to the gas main for code; and relocating it is gonna be pretty expensive. So in the meantime I've made various safety improvements, a la GFCI, running grounds where I can, clipping and re-wiring ends of NM where it's scorched from arcing, and in a few exposed places (garage, just now in the attic) replacing whole runs with NM-B, etc. Eventually I'll cough up the dough for the relocation of the box and rewiring. There's no master breaker anyway, so I'll have to have PG&E come pull the meter when its done. And a bunch of the wiring is going to require tearing open drywall, too. It'll be fun!
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Jul 20, 2020 01:02
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actionjackson posted:
No, the two silver screws (white, neutral wire) are connected together, and the two brass (hot, black wire) are connected together. You can actually make that not the case by breaking a tab on the side, but for a new outlet, they will be the same. Do you have an outlet tester? They are less than $10 and will generally tell you if an outlet is wired correctly. I would proceed assuming all are wired correctly and check your loops and make sure the screws are very tight.
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Jul 20, 2020 01:11
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B-Nasty posted:No, the two silver screws (white, neutral wire) are connected together, and the two brass (hot, black wire) are connected together. You can actually make that not the case by breaking a tab on the side, but for a new outlet, they will be the same. I did go through all the outlets with someone in the discord. he did mention a tester, but even if I identify the source of the issue (which I'm guessing is with the wires), I'm terrible at this kind of stuff so I'm not sure I'd be able to do it without an electrician anyway.
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Jul 20, 2020 02:19
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Leperflesh posted:Hello. I am replacing a kitchen light that is on a three-way circuit. I've disconnected the circuit completely and while I'm at it I want to replace one of the old switches because when it's on it makes a buzzing noise. Trip report: black and brown were the traveler terminals and red was the common. Just figured you'd like to know, in case you ever come across another one of these switches in the wild. My wiring was successful at least in as much as the switches work and there's no magic smoke. Thanks for the help!
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Jul 20, 2020 02:55
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