|
It's not clear to me that the green wire in the pictures actually goes through the conduit vs just being tied to the ground screw on the box and then the ground screw on the outlet. And even if it does go up into the box, there's no guarantee that it runs unobstructed back to the panel. Metal conduit is allowed for grounding, so it could be that the green wire just ties the outlet to the box, or if it does go into conduit, it could tie in to something else along the way (if there are any junction boxes along the way). So that green wire may not even be suitable as a pull wire.
|
#
?
Sep 10, 2021 19:20
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 25, 2024 00:14 |
|
|
FISHMANPET posted:This post brings to mind the post about an electrician in a crawl space with a broken lightbulb (and the reason that a crawlspace circuit needs to be GFCI protected): lightbulb was broken but turned on, electrician was crawling on the ground, got wedged in between the ground and the broken lightbulb and made contact with the conductor in the light bulb, and became the easiest path to ground and was electrocuted. My electrician was telling me that story as he ripped out the incandescent bulbs he found in my attic, but I'd already heard it here as well. The scary thing about electric shocks are that lower currents don't necessarily stop your heart/kill immediately. Lower currents just paralyze your muscles, usually fully contracted, including your diaphragm. If it's your fingers contracting around the wire, you may remain alert enough to realize that you need to let go, but you physically cannot. Your body is paralyzed while your brain is screaming at your muscles to let go, to no avail. You slowly suffocate as you lungs refuse to take in breath, all while being completely awake and aware of your impending death.
|
|
#
?
Sep 10, 2021 19:27
|
|
|
Yup. My electrician was telling me about a time he was on a ladder and for whatever reason he got zapped, and all he could do was just fall off the ladder, didn't have enough control to let go or anything, just fall off and break his back.
|
|
#
?
Sep 10, 2021 19:39
|
|
|
Nearly every electrician, especially old timers, know someone who has been maimed or killed on the job. I've been shocked plenty of times, mostly my fault, but never had it grab me. It sucks every time.
|
|
#
?
Sep 10, 2021 19:59
|
|
|
Electrician is coming in to take a look at some stuff, I’m going to ask them to give the panel a once-over to see if they can find some PO fuckery. Considering the upstairs living area is on the same circuit as the disposal and dishwasher, I expect there to be some findings. By my uneducated eye, it would appear that they made the space needed to tie the hot tub into the breaker by moving the upstairs living area circuit to another breaker. God knows how exactly they did that. I’ll keep the thread posted if there’s anything entertaining.
|
|
#
?
Sep 10, 2021 20:02
|
|
|
I always wonder what's going on in the brain of someone who does this 
|
|
#
?
Sep 10, 2021 20:12
|
|
|
Rufio posted:I always wonder what's going on in the brain of someone who does this If you don't trim off enough insulation, it's not going to get fully seated inside of that backstab. Then it might be loose, and that could be dangerous!
|
|
#
?
Sep 10, 2021 20:14
|
|
|
babyeatingpsychopath posted:I have done as you asked.  Thanks didn’t know etiquette there, just seemed like a good post to have a reference to.B-Nasty posted:The scary thing about electric shocks are that lower currents don't necessarily stop your heart/kill immediately. Lower currents just paralyze your muscles, usually fully contracted, including your diaphragm. If it's your fingers contracting around the wire, you may remain alert enough to realize that you need to let go, but you physically cannot. Your body is paralyzed while your brain is screaming at your muscles to let go, to no avail. You slowly suffocate as you lungs refuse to take in breath, all while being completely awake and aware of your impending death. Yup. If someone is being electrocuted to death you either hit their grabbing hand with a cricket bat hard enough to break it or RUN to the breaker / epo.
|
|
#
?
Sep 10, 2021 20:16
|
|
|
Your heart doesn't stop, it goes into atrial fibrillation. Basically the nice steady rhythm turns into a crazy irregular thrashing. It's still pumping blood, just at weird intervals that will not work long-term. The instrument used to reset your heart rhythm is called a defibrillator. It's the thing you see in movies where they go "clear!" And yep, it works by zapping your heart with electricity. This can frequently reset the rhythm of your biological pacemaker, but it's not a guarantee. It turns out that the ideal frequency for triggering fibrillation is around 50-60Hz. So just by dumb luck, we as a species have standardized on the deadliest possible frequencies for alternating current.
|
|
#
?
Sep 10, 2021 20:33
|
|
|
cruft posted:It turns out that the ideal frequency for triggering fibrillation is around 50-60Hz. So just by dumb luck, we as a species have standardized on the deadliest possible frequencies for alternating current. lol
|
|
#
?
Sep 10, 2021 20:52
|
|
|
Hey, so looking for something else I stumbled on another post about conduit and wiring, and it makes me wonder if I've hosed up and need to redo some stuff. I've got an enclosed porch with storm windows, as best as I can tell that's a "damp" location. With the help of my father-in-law we wired it up with electricity. There was a feed coming from inside the house into the ceiling/roof of the porch with NM cable that went to a light fixture. We fed off of that, into schedule 40 PVC conduit to power some ceiling fans and outlets. We fed the whole thing with NM cable running in conduit. So it's never exposed, it's either running through the ceiling or running in conduit. The fans and light fixture are damp rated, and the outlets are all WR/TR within "EXTRA DUTY" In-use boxes. But I'm not sure if NM is allowed in this case. The ceiling cavity above the porch is "dry" as far as I understand, but I'm not sure about the inside of the conduit, is that "dry" or "damp"? Right now everything (lights, fans, outlets) are controlled by that single switch, so I'm planning on running a brand new circuit out there and rewiring some stuff and putting in more switches, but I'm starting to think that while I'm out there, I should be replacing all the NM cable with THHN wire. Because my guess is that inside the conduit is a "damp" location and NM isn't rated for damp, but THHN is. Am I correct that I should rewire the porch with THHN, and/or is there anything else I've hosed up. Also for running THHN, that can't be run lose in the ceiling, can it? Each fan has is powered by a cable running from a conduit through the ceiling for about 5 feet, would I need to keep that part NM, and transition to THHN as soon as it comes out of the ceiling? I can take some pictures of how things currently are if that's helpful.
|
|
#
?
Sep 10, 2021 21:50
|
|
|
Y’all I just finished doing the direct wire LED retrofits of one of my kitchen boxes and holy crap the difference. The next one won’t be so time consuming now that I know what I need to do. The lighting quality between the old tubes and the new LEDs is wild. I can see!
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2021 15:30
|
|
|
Found some remnants of knob and tube hooked into a junction box: Pretty sure that all knob and tube is supposed to have been "disconnected" in this house. Can I just remove this knob and tube wiring?
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2021 16:07
|
|
|
one way to find out
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2021 16:09
|
|
Associate Christ
|
melon cat posted:Found some remnants of knob and tube hooked into a junction box:  No clamps and aluminum wire as well? That's quite the box you have there. Is that actually knob and tube or just like 40's NM?
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2021 16:38
|
|
|
H110Hawk posted:
I'm no expert but I'm about damned sure that it's knob and tube: The aluminum wire is from the suspected knob and tube wiring. Yeah that box is rough all right. So if I did want to bring it up to proper safety all I'd need is a new junction box and clamps, or is there any else that I'd have to add? All I wanted was a new bath fan, dammit melon cat fucked around with this message at 02:03 on Jan 15, 2024 |
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2021 18:15
|
|
|
The knob and tube is probably tinned copper, not Al wire thankfully. But yeah, disconnect that and see what stops working. Then, pull new wire.
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2021 19:36
|
|
|
babyeatingpsychopath posted:Just jumping right to here. I was thinking to myself earlier today why don't I just pull new wires through the conduit with the old wire and then I read this... so I'll just do this. I looked at the pricing of this stuff and moaned out loud though
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2021 20:32
|
|
|
e: on second thought, we probably don't need forwards from grandma here. sorry.
cruft fucked around with this message at 17:47 on Sep 15, 2021 |
|
#
?
Sep 15, 2021 17:16
|
|
|
Two dumb questions for the group. First -- the area I've circled in red, it's not the most accessible in the world (water heater right behind it) but I think I'd have the room to wire up what I need to in it. It's also not my main service panel. But... I recall requirements (discussed in this thread probably) of the clearance zones required for working on a panel (36"?) -- can this even be done or is it disallowed by code? I can completely de-energize and lockout the power feeding it and gently caress with it to my heart's content, even contorted and this isn't the service panel... its a sub. Still have to keep 30"?  I'd run the conduit behind the water / sewage piping there. I bought a real SDS drill finally, after suffering with a handheld brushless hammer drill and holy poo poo it's like 10 seconds to put holes in concrete instead of 10 minutes. Second, I think I've run afoul of a locking feature (or I'm a moron). I take it companies use physical features / lockouts to stop you from installing the wrong types / amounts of breakers / etc in a panel (mostly to limit tandems I think), and have also read about CTL. That said... this picture below represents my complement of hardware, a 8 position QO panel (QO816L100DF), and a QO240 and QO250 breaker. It looks like there is only one place (2 wide, position 5 and 6) that will accept these breakers -- everywhere else, I feel like I'm going to break the plastic if I try to snap the breakers in. I can see them limiting it to only 2 tandem breakers for this panel, but all I really want to use this panel for is the thing I posted about earlier -- stripping the oven circuit / breaker out of my panel, upsizing it to 70-80 A, running it to this new panel, and then installing a 50 A breaker (to run back to the oven) and a 40 A breaker for a NEMA 5-40 for EVSE. Basically, breaking out to a panel to expand some more. I'm about to purge a bunch of electric heat from my place to be replaced with a ductless system, but not sure the breaker trading will actually leave room for more circuits, so that's why I'm doing this. I'd love to leave room in this 100 A panel (As suggested) in case I want to run another 20 A circuit out for something in the garage.  I bought from HD before doing breaker sizing / calcs -- is it actually not possible to install my 90 A of breakers in the 100 A sub? The bus bars are rated (with engineering margin...) for 100 A, I'm sizing upstream such that it will never see 100 A, and so even if I put 4x 50 A breakers in this thing, I'm doing my job / calcs correctly of protecting downstream harnessing / wiring. What am I loving up?
|
|
#
?
Sep 17, 2021 06:18
|
|
|
movax posted:Two dumb questions for the group. Yep. There's no exclusion for subs. In fact, the NEC language is very broad and requires that clearance for all equipment: "likely to require service, examination, maintenance... while energized". This covers any kind of panel. movax posted:What am I loving up? They should fit. Sometimes the larger value breakers really take some force to clip into place. It's hard to explain in text, though. From the technical specs, that panel does have a circuit size limit, but it sounds like you are under: "70 A Max. branch circuit breaker and 100 A max. back fed main circuit breaker" Beyond that, it's just a standard load calc to make sure your feed is sufficient.
|
|
#
?
Sep 17, 2021 14:24
|
|
|
A two pole qo breaker should have a groove between the contacts for the bus bar separator in your panel. I think something isn't lined up. Should take a bit of force to snap on though.
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2021 03:42
|
|
|
Quick splice question: I'm replacing my bathroom exhaust fan. The new fan has the junction box on the other side, and I'm not sure there's enough slack to reach it. If I run in to an issue, I can just bolt down a junction box and splice in there, right? This will be in the attic, are there any special considerations? Like, does it need to be oriented a certain way (i.e. mounted on top of the joist vs. on the side)? Do I need to have all insulation clear of it (I have loose fill in this area), or once the box is closed up can I top it with insulation?
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2021 19:03
|
|
|
I'm looking to rewire an 8ft fluorescent fixture to bypass the ballast, to put in an LED. But this is at a commercial property. Is this something I need to hire out to a licensed electrician?
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2021 21:17
|
|
|
Man, I’m in the process of going through all my tube lights and doing the direct wire non shunted tombstones. The amount of bullshit and just wrapped in electrical tape wires I have found makes me worried for the rest of the house. One of them used what appeared to be lamp cord from the light box to the inside of the fixture. E: cruft posted:I'm looking to rewire an 8ft fluorescent fixture to bypass the ballast, to put in an LED. But this is at a commercial property. Is this something I need to hire out to a licensed electrician? My understanding is that no states have an exception for non licensed electrical work for commercial
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2021 21:25
|
|
|
DaveSauce posted:This will be in the attic, are there any special considerations? Like, does it need to be oriented a certain way (i.e. mounted on top of the joist vs. on the side)? Do I need to have all insulation clear of it (I have loose fill in this area), or once the box is closed up can I top it with insulation? It doesn't really matter, but the NM entering/exiting it should be positioned so that it isn't likely to be damaged. If it runs on top of the joists (perpendicular), it should have strips of wood to protect it or be in a spot where it can't be stepped on like near the eaves. If you can position the box where it can be seen/not buried, that's ideal. You can use flags or paint the rafters above to mark it if you must bury it. That's just trying to not gently caress the next guy (i.e. you.)
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2021 21:55
|
|
|
I'm replacing a dead smart switch with a regular switch, so there'll be an extra wire in the box. Is taping up the unnecessary neutral wire and putting it back in the box the right way to go?
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2021 22:24
|
|
|
gwrtheyrn posted:I'm replacing a dead smart switch with a regular switch, so there'll be an extra wire in the box. Is taping up the unnecessary neutral wire and putting it back in the box the right way to go? Put a wirenut on it. No tape.
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2021 22:26
|
|
|
B-Nasty posted:Put a wirenut on it. No tape. Sounds good to me. I didn't have either on hand anyways. In other news it was backstabbed, so I guess I'm checking every switch and outlet in the house 
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2021 22:30
|
|
|
gwrtheyrn posted:Sounds good to me. I didn't have either on hand anyways. Buy the big package of whatever nuts / wagos you decide on. Those 10 packs are for suckers if it's the yellow or red size. They don't go bad on any time scale you have to worry about and then you always have them.
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2021 22:32
|
|
|
gwrtheyrn posted:In other news it was backstabbed, so I guess I'm checking every switch and outlet in the house Are you sure it was backstabbed? I've never seen a smart switch with them. Holes in the back where you can use the side screws to clam the wire, sure. But not back stabs (spring type).
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2021 22:33
|
|
|
Motronic posted:Are you sure it was backstabbed? I've never seen a smart switch with them. I mean it was this but there are other things in the house that make me want to check everything. Whoever did the door hardware also didn't believe in actually tightening screws, so I see no reason to believe whoever did the wiring did either Case in point: I am currently playing where the gently caress is the gfci
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2021 22:48
|
|
|
gwrtheyrn posted:I mean it was this but there are other things in the house that make me want to check everything. Whoever did the door hardware also didn't believe in actually tightening screws, so I see no reason to believe whoever did the wiring did either Under the sink in the kitchen. If the wire is clamped then it's fine, but other tell tale signs of tomfoolery are good to check. If you spot check a few that look screwed with and they're fine I wouldn't worry about it.
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2021 23:49
|
|
|
KKKLIP ART posted:Man, I’m in the process of going through all my tube lights and doing the direct wire non shunted tombstones. The amount of bullshit and just wrapped in electrical tape wires I have found makes me worried for the rest of the house. One of them used what appeared to be lamp cord from the light box to the inside of the fixture. Okay, and I guess replacing a ballast is considered electrical work. Hopefully changing the tube isn't... E: updating with what I've found on this, since I sincerely didn't know the answer. Changing the ballast does appear to fall into the category of "electrical work". Changing the tube does not, although my employer forbids us from doing this due to EPA and state environmental regulations relating to breaking a tube (we do a buttload of chemistry and get a lot of scrutiny). So, on commercial properties, yes, you can (probably) change your own fluorescent tube, but no, you cannot change your own ballast. Probably a good idea to wait until the ballast dies, call the electrician out to bypass all of them in the room, and then put LED tubes in, since you're going to be paying far out the butt for that work either way, and bypassing the ballast means it's the last time you have to call the electrician out for your tube lights. cruft fucked around with this message at 01:12 on Sep 19, 2021 |
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2021 00:07
|
|
|
H110Hawk posted:Under the sink in the kitchen. It was under the sink. Except half of them go to under one sink and the other half go to the other (which is on an island yet controls outlets on the wall). Also if a bathroom GFCI trips gotta check every bathroom and not just every gfci outlet in the room because reasons. Like at that point I don't know why it's not just at the breaker
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2021 01:22
|
|
|
B-Nasty posted:It doesn't really matter, but the NM entering/exiting it should be positioned so that it isn't likely to be damaged. If it runs on top of the joists (perpendicular), it should have strips of wood to protect it or be in a spot where it can't be stepped on like near the eaves. Ah gotcha, I forgot about that part, and as such forgot to get some NM staples. Got the knockout connectors to use on the new fan, but nothing to secure the cable on the way over. Thanks! B-Nasty posted:If you can position the box where it can be seen/not buried, that's ideal. You can use flags or paint the rafters above to mark it if you must bury it. That's just trying to not gently caress the next guy (i.e. you.) Not sure I can leave it visible, but the one good thing is that it'll be within a foot or two of the fan, so should be easy to find. That said, I have some red lawn flags somewhere that might do the trick... if not, I have a furring strip I've been using for drywall patches that I could use too.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2021 01:38
|
|
|
cruft posted:Okay, and I guess replacing a ballast is considered electrical work. Hopefully changing the tube isn't... This is good information. Pretty much everywhere I've ever worked has been "don't ask, don't tell" when it comes to ballast replacements. If your maintenance guy (or you, if you are the maintenance guy) wants to replace a ballast, then they say just go for it. There are probably technical rules somewhere saying it's gotta be done by a licensed electrician; those rules are frequently ignored. The redder your state is, the more likely that "don't get caught" or "don't get on the inspector's bad side" is the enforced rule, however. Again, in my experience. Never do anything specifically illegal.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2021 13:30
|
|
|
I recently got a new commercial client because their maintenance man hooked up the wire nuts after a ballast change so poorly that he disconnected the lights down the line and then couldn't figure out the problem. So by all means, maintenance men, get after it. It's a sick pleasure to just twist some wires together then charge $150.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2021 14:45
|
|
|
My brother's bedroom and bathroom lights/ceiling fans stopped working. This is in two bedrooms and two bathrooms. It sounds like the circuit breaker is tripped. He said he's reset it several times and it's not the breaker. I can't imagine what would turn off a whole circuit if not the breaker tripping over and over. My only other guess is there's a GFCI outlet that he doesn't know about attached to the same circuit as a lights, or a junction in a switch box became completely disconnected early on in the circuit, or there's a short thats constantly retripping the breaker, or he doesn't understand how a breaker works. Any ideas?
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2021 15:49
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 25, 2024 00:14 |
|
|
I'd say if he can't be trusted to know how a breaker works then he shouldn't be trusted with troubleshooting. That said, when troubleshooting you want to find the last device that is working on the circuit and start from there. It could be a rogue GFCI somewhere or a loose wire. My money is on loose wire. Rufio fucked around with this message at 16:01 on Sep 19, 2021 |
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2021 15:58
|
|