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Rufio posted:One note here is that I don't believe the plastic tabs count as internal clamps for box fill. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong. I've seen arguments on it both ways so I just play it safe and include them when I'm sizing a box but I also wouldn't lose sleep if I had to ignore them to make the numbers work on an existing box.
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Aug 10, 2021 20:55
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Any recommendations for software or an app to help me document the wiring in my house? I've been replacing bits here and there and it would be nice to track my improvements so I know what sections I couldn't get to, and record how it's all laid out but I suck at drawing and don't know if there's anything out there that could do this. Not looking for CAD-level detail but something that lets me map things out on top of a 2D/3D rendering of my house?
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Aug 10, 2021 22:53
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Sirotan posted:Any recommendations for software or an app to help me document the wiring in my house? I've been replacing bits here and there and it would be nice to track my improvements so I know what sections I couldn't get to, and record how it's all laid out but I suck at drawing and don't know if there's anything out there that could do this. Not looking for CAD-level detail but something that lets me map things out on top of a 2D/3D rendering of my house? I went looking for this a few months ago and didn't come across anything, but maybe you'll have better luck. I found one French company that was making something for tracking homework, but it wasn't really able to map switches or outlets to circuits.
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Aug 10, 2021 22:56
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Always a good sign when the electrician is replacing your panel and gets a look at some of the existing wiring and is like "I have no idea what kind of wire this is, I've never seen this before."
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Aug 12, 2021 01:47
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FISHMANPET posted:Always a good sign when the electrician is replacing your panel and gets a look at some of the existing wiring and is like "I have no idea what kind of wire this is, I've never seen this before." Something's real hosed up, and I hope it's your POs choices and not your choice in electrician. (of course it's the PO, it's always the drat PO)
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Aug 12, 2021 01:55
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Yup, this is some unpermitted DIY wiring from 1965. It's clearly copper wiring, some kind of jacket, but it's super thick, his first guess is silicon. I might go out there and pull some out of the conduit and see if I can solve the mystery. It's some kind of wiring with a jacket, and the two wires wrapped together in a jacket, one red and one brown, no ground wire, a true 2-wire cable. And then they also ran a white neutral wire through the conduit. One conduit feeds a 240V AC outlet that doesn't have a neutral. The other feeds a regular 120v outlet. The brown wire in the cable is hot, the standalone white wire is neutral, the red wire is just folded back into into the conduit and unused. It all worked for 55 years without burning the garage down, but it's far from "correct".
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Aug 12, 2021 02:18
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FISHMANPET posted:Yup, this is some unpermitted DIY wiring from 1965. It's clearly copper wiring, some kind of jacket, but it's super thick, his first guess is silicon. I might go out there and pull some out of the conduit and see if I can solve the mystery. Yeah, so that's some "not structural cable at all" poo poo that somebody had laying around from whatever plant/factory they or their buddies worked at or some poo poo. Never intended for that use but......hey, it worked. Solid core or stranded? Please do get some of it/take pics. I love seeing these kinds of things (as long as it's not involved with me investigating a cause and origin).
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Aug 12, 2021 02:23
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Motronic posted:Yeah, so that's some "not structural cable at all" poo poo that somebody had laying around from whatever plant/factory they or their buddies worked at or some poo poo. Never intended for that use but......hey, it worked.  Every day is learning something new by realizing something old: Electrons don't care what color the insulation is. Or is made of. Or if exists at all anymore.
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Aug 12, 2021 02:34
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So it's not copper, it's a silver wire so my next guess is aluminum. There's no marking on the wire except something like "Balden" and "12 duplex" and googling those words I find... automotive brake cables. My "Gary" is a whole collection, the house was in the same family since 1945 until we bought it this year. They were machinists and race car drivers/mechanics. The subpanel in the garage was most likely an unpermitted fuse box installed between the permitted 100 amp service upgrade in 1965 and garage addition in 1966. The electrician said it looked like a used fuse box because it had a bunch of punch outs punched out but not used. I've got some pictures and I'll try and get some more in the morning when there's some actual light in there. E: I took these tonight, sorry for poor quality but it was just my headlamp and I guess I can blame my low blood sugar for my not even thinking to use the flash. http://imgur.com/a/WxRfI9g Oh and the 240v AC outlet, the white wire was connected to the ground screw on the outlet, the old fuse box is gone so I'm not sure what it was connected to, but I'll see if I captured it in any old pictures I took. FISHMANPET fucked around with this message at 03:20 on Aug 12, 2021 |
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Aug 12, 2021 03:12
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FISHMANPET posted:So it's not copper, it's a silver wire so my next guess is aluminum. There's no marking on the wire except something like "Balden" and "12 duplex" and googling those words I find... automotive brake cables. More likely to be Belden.
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Aug 12, 2021 03:23
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FISHMANPET posted:Yup, this is some unpermitted DIY wiring from 1965. When I replaced the light switch in the family room, I found that the PO had dealt with the extra depth created by the wood paneling by soldering galvanized steel wire to the Romex. There was also some charred wood under the switch plate. Surely just a coincidence.
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Aug 12, 2021 04:28
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FISHMANPET posted:E: I took these tonight, sorry for poor quality but it was just my headlamp and I guess I can blame my low blood sugar for my not even thinking to use the flash. Looks like UF/direct burial cable to me. Nothing out of the ordinary.
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Aug 12, 2021 15:02
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I did another one! This is one of three outlets in the entire main room of the basement. And it was not in a convenient place being near the ceiling. So I ran more romex down to the floor and  Yay electricity! Everything tests correctly this time around, no scary splices. The upper wall outlet is where the outgoing line from my first project ended. Now I have an outlet I can use instead of running an extension cord across the basement to power the TV. If I'm not careful I might actually get good at this.
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Aug 13, 2021 15:40
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Rhyno posted:If I'm not careful I might actually get good at this. Danger! I got to your level then said "how much harder can a whole-house rewire be?!" and it turned out: not that hard. Then I became a professional electrician.
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Aug 13, 2021 17:20
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Thankfully only the basement appears to have been a DIY nightmare. The house was built in 2000 so I don't have too many worries. I do want to add a light at the top of the basement stairs though.
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Aug 13, 2021 17:29
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Rhyno posted:I do want to add a light at the top of the basement stairs though. Well now you're getting into the truly dangerous tools: Ladders.
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Aug 13, 2021 19:58
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Who need a ladder when I have multiple rickety chairs.
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Aug 13, 2021 20:27
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One wheeled office chair can be very versatile.
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Aug 13, 2021 20:32
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Rhyno posted:The house was built in 2000 so I don't have too many worries. Oh sweet summer child.
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Aug 13, 2021 20:50
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opengl128 posted:Oh sweet summer child. Oh inknow there can still be poo poo but it's not like the hackjob poo poo I found in the 42 year old house.
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Aug 14, 2021 03:38
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Rhyno posted:Oh inknow there can still be poo poo but it's not like the hackjob poo poo I found in the 42 year old house. You really think there is a significant difference in the shenanigans that home builders were doing in 2000 vs. the late 70s and 80s? Especially as it relates to electrical?
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Aug 14, 2021 03:46
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No but our inspector on the first house missed about 400 things that ended up being problematic for us later. So with this one we went with a much more known and well reviewed inspector. I pulled open the report and he had a note about the open ground I fixed this week, I'd just forgotten about it.
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Aug 14, 2021 04:07
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Rhyno posted:No but our inspector on the first house missed about 400 things that ended up being problematic for us later. So with this one we went with a much more known and well reviewed inspector. Inspectors have so many restriction on what they can do (i.e., not anything that is intrusive or causes damage) that you really shouldn't count on a home inspection to tell you much more than obvious cosmetic issues or obvious structural. So I'm not really sure what your point is with this. Home inspectors can see almost nothing of electrical other than what's exposed and taking the face off of the panel. And plugging in outlet testers.
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Aug 14, 2021 04:10
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At the last house he didn't test any outlets. I thinknif you look back at my posts here you'll see I had problem after problem there. And I don't doubt there's still builder fuckery with home construction, but so far that first outlet is the only thing I've found that looked like a hackjob.
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Aug 14, 2021 04:15
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Rhyno posted:but so far that first outlet is the only thing I've found that looked like a hackjob. Congrats I guess, but my only point here is that this has little to do with the 20-ish age difference. Codes have changed in that time, but nothing of any significance and even more importantly the materials used are nearly the same. And yes, I've not only read your posts but given you advice. I'm well aware of your level of understanding on the subject at hand.
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Aug 14, 2021 04:29
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Installed my nest hello from my old house and it works fine except the indoor chime no longer works. I found the doorbell transformer in the garage and I think it says 10V 8VA on it (the embossed text on it is incredible hard to make out), while the nest documentation requests 16-24V and 10VA minimum. It also says hire a certified nest professional to upgrade the transformer. These doorbell transformer are 15 bucks, so I'm wondering if it's something I could do; is it just wiring in the new transformer or am I running new and bigger wire? Edit: chime itself looks like it's rated for 16V 10VA so that part should be fine. PageMaster fucked around with this message at 06:40 on Aug 14, 2021 |
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Aug 14, 2021 05:42
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I don't know where else to put this so here goes If I buy a replacement broiling element for a consumer oven (so that I can build a broiler to use while camping at sites that have big bbq/fire pits you can't use due to burn bans), what would be the best way to power it? Like this dude here: https://mccombssupply.com/ch44x185-range-oven-element-upper-broil-unit-for-ge-wb44x185-wb44x173/ Is it expecting 120V? I have a camper that can easily supply that but what kind of equipment will I need?
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Aug 14, 2021 17:44
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poo poo POST MALONE posted:I don't know where else to put this so here goes Do you have 3kw of 240v available to you? That's what that needs.
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Aug 14, 2021 17:48
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H110Hawk posted:Do you have 3kw of 240v available to you? That's what that needs. Actually most camp sites with hookups have pretty robust options  I guess I need to find an element that isn't expecting 240v though. Maybe look at consumer air fryer parts.
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Aug 14, 2021 17:50
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"Run something as hot as a fire, outside, hooked up to mains power, that I made myself" does not sound like a reasonable accommodation/following the spirit of of a burn ban.
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Aug 14, 2021 17:55
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poo poo POST MALONE posted:Actually most camp sites with hookups have pretty robust options I was hoping that would dissuade you honestly. Those plugs, as pictured, are 240v. You really shouldn't build this without that fundamental understanding. There has to be something on the market with a UL stamp.
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Aug 14, 2021 17:57
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Here's a 120v element. https://www.etundra.com/restaurant-parts/electrical-parts/elements/broiler/star-manufacturing-2n-y5313-120-volt-1050-watt-broiler-element/ What kind of power supply or junction would I need?
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Aug 14, 2021 17:58
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Okay fine you've convinced me not to do it. Would be fun to make a pizza though.
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Aug 14, 2021 17:58
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I bought an LED ceiling fan and the box in the ceiling has two wires, a black one and a dark blue one. The ceiling fan has very basic instructions, literally just pictures. and it shows three wires being connected to this:  Is there any way for this to work as is??? I live in europe if that matters.
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Aug 14, 2021 18:03
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Associate Christ
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poo poo POST MALONE posted:Okay fine you've convinced me not to do it. There are still options. If you have a camper that can supply 120V and you have access to shore power to plug it into then you could use a toaster oven to make a pizza. If you’re patient you could grill a pizza over a camp stove if your location allows contained combustion like that. Please don’t circumvent burn bans!
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Aug 14, 2021 18:25
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poo poo POST MALONE posted:Okay fine you've convinced me not to do it. Have you considered buying a convection oven? Seriously, you have a mountain of power right there.
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Aug 14, 2021 18:25
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double post
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Aug 14, 2021 18:44
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other people posted:I bought an LED ceiling fan and the box in the ceiling has two wires, a black one and a dark blue one. the old iec colours in the EU and UK used black for all phases and blue for neutral, and that picture is the current colours which is brown for L1 and still blue for neutral. By 'LED fan' I guess you mean a fan with a light in? Blue to blue and brown to black would run it but that metal case means it's not double insulated so you'd need to run a cpc/ground to it as well
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Aug 14, 2021 18:44
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PageMaster posted:Installed my nest hello from my old house and it works fine except the indoor chime no longer works. I found the doorbell transformer in the garage and I think it says 10V 8VA on it (the embossed text on it is incredible hard to make out), while the nest documentation requests 16-24V and 10VA minimum. It also says hire a certified nest professional to upgrade the transformer. These doorbell transformer are 15 bucks, so I'm wondering if it's something I could do; is it just wiring in the new transformer or am I running new and bigger wire? If I’m reading the Nest Hello specs correctly, it requires 16-24vac. A doorbell transformer outputs low voltage DC.
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Aug 14, 2021 18:55
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MrYenko posted:If I’m reading the Nest Hello specs correctly, it requires 16-24vac. A doorbell transformer outputs low voltage DC. Doorbell transformers put out ac. It's just at voltages you expect for DC. https://www.lowes.com/pd/Utilitech-Doorbell-Transformer/3482857 16vac
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Aug 14, 2021 19:17
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