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just another posted:Okiedokie. Am I going to somehow burn my house down if I snip it and push it back into the wall? Snip away
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Nov 8, 2021 18:44
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Do you still have a tv antenna on the roof? If not, snip away. If so, disconnect the antenna and snip away.
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Nov 9, 2021 02:36
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Nope, no sign of an antenna. Thanks for the info!
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Nov 9, 2021 02:41
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Having an inspection for my 200 amp hookup, and the inspector needs to have the panel hooked up to the meter housing. (attached picture) The three wires pictured are going into my house, and I assume the three wires from the pole go into the top. Since I have Pex coming into my house, I have to have a buried ground plate and wire. Does that go from the meter housing underground, or from my panel? Or do I currently have the meter wired improperly? Thanks
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Nov 9, 2021 23:12
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That's wired fine, depending on what else gets wired how. You need one, and exactly one, ground to neutral bond. This will likely be in your panel, but it could bein the meter base (it's not in this case) or on the mast head. If you have a choice, I would do this bond in your panel. You will need an appropriacy sized ground conductor from your panel to a grounding system. I would suggest 2 or 3 8 foot copper clad rods, all bonded together. A lot of these choices/decision are going to depend on your local code. I doubt you'll pass without the grounding system in place. I'd call ahead and ask before the come out just to issue a red sticker.
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Nov 9, 2021 23:20
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Blistex posted:Having an inspection for my 200 amp hookup, and the inspector needs to have the panel hooked up to the meter housing. (attached picture) You're also missing conduit bushings which are important because they stop the sharp edge of the conduit from wearing through your wire insulation
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Nov 10, 2021 00:49
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SpartanIvy posted:You're also missing conduit bushings which are important because they stop the sharp edge of the conduit from wearing through your wire insulation Not required on plastic conduit.
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Nov 10, 2021 01:35
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Motronic posted:That's wired fine, depending on what else gets wired how. So I guess what's expected is that the grounding wire from the panel box goes out through the wall with the other three wires, then down the other conduit in the meter, exits underground, and ends in a grounding plate (local code). I just wasn't sure if it started in the meter housing or the breaker box. Thanks.
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Nov 10, 2021 02:01
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Blistex posted:So I guess what's expected is that the grounding wire from the panel box goes out through the wall with the other three wires, then down the other conduit in the meter, exits underground, and ends in a grounding plate (local code). I just wasn't sure if it started in the meter housing or the breaker box. The bond happens at the first disconnecting means. If there's no way for you to shut the power off in the meter box, that is not a disconnecting means.
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Nov 10, 2021 16:46
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Just closed on a new home, which has a shed about a hundred feet back from the house with no electric. I'd like to remedy that. I'll be pulling a permit for the work, but would like to be prepared going into it. My end goal is to have a couple led overhead lights and a couple outlets on a 20 amp circuit. The breaker box is on the outside of the house. Is it as simple as conduit into the ground 18 inches, 10 or 12g 3 wire uf across the yard, conduit up to my first junction box and then just do my thing? Or would I need a subpanel? Is 10g overkill for a couple lights and running a single tool at a time?
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Nov 11, 2021 04:49
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Slugworth posted:Just closed on a new home, which has a shed about a hundred feet back from the house with no electric. I'd like to remedy that. This sounds good. 10/3 UF into a single junction box (or subpanel if you're feeling froggy) and then 12/2 to your lights and outlets. 18" deep as long as your jurisdiction sez that's deep enough and you're not going under a driveway. Protect the cable where it goes into and comes out of the ground with sch80 PVC minimum. Definitely stay 10g underground just to ward off any voltage drop. The Book says 8AWG on a 20A circuit (16A max load on a single tool) gives 2% drop. 10AWG is 2.8% drop at 15A, so I'd consider that kosher-enough as long as you're not running a space heater out there.
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Nov 11, 2021 05:15
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Sous Videodrome posted:I'm trying to troubleshoot an underfloor heating system. This is the first time I've tried to run it since I installed it. Platystemon posted:Congratulations. Your floor is now rich copper ore. Good news! I got it working.  Looks like one of the three mats was damaged during the installation process. But the other two work! It's been running for an hour with no trips. According to one post I read there's a very slight chance that it might be residual moisture in the self leveling concrete getting to it. I dunno. All the measurements are good as far as I can tell. It has resistance between the two heat wires in the correct range. It reads open line to ground on all ranges that my multimeter can set to. So I'll try hooking it up again at the end of winter/next summer and see if it still trips. But 2/3 mats probably gets me 3/4 of the heat, because one of them was way smaller than the others and I think it's the one that's tripping the GFCI. So I'm really pleased with that, all things considered.
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Nov 13, 2021 01:53
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Sous Videodrome posted:Good news! I got it working. That great. But if the mortar drying out "fixes" it, it's broken. There should not be an electrical path out of a non broken heat mat, period. If it works when it dries out can you get away with it? Almost definitely. But something got nicked/kinked and you are shorting to earth there. If it gets wet again it's just gonna trip. But maybe it really never gets that wet again an you'll be fine to run it. But keep those leads tagged as the suspect one.
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Nov 13, 2021 03:28
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Crackbone posted:Our house had an old-school home automation system (ie pre iphone days). We removed the "head unit" panel that was on the wall, and it had an electrical wire pair, which I think was in circuit with our porch lights, as now they won't turn on. What was the panel? How old was it? Have you checked to see what voltage is coming in? If this is a 50s/60s/70s setup, and/or something like 24V coming in, I have some expensive news for you, and it probably starts in your attic. If this is just regular household wiring (i.e. you have 120V on one of them, standard 12-14 gauge wire), then you can probably swap a regular switch in.
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Nov 14, 2021 09:46
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Oh my loving god, this house. This evening I decided to swap out this basic light fixture in the garage for something a bit nicer/brighter. It was just a standard porcelain light bulb base. I turned the light switch off, set up some lighting to work with, and pulled the fixture down. First thing I see is one hot wire and 2 neutrals tied in to the fixture. The fixture had 2 screw terminals on each side of the bulb, so the 2 neutrals were screwed in to separate screws. Admittedly, at this point I should have stopped and pulled out my non contact line tester, but I figured the switch was off and it’s just a simple fixture swap so what could go wrong. I unscrew the hot wire. It isn’t live, as expected. I unscrew the first neutral and get shocked, then watch as it slightly arcs against the other neutral (internal monologue: what the gently caress?!). I quickly bend the loose wire away so it can’t make contact with the others. I immediately get a text from my wife: “What the hell did you do?” Uh oh. I check the breaker panel, nothing tripped. Some notes about how this part of my house is wired. The breaker for this circuit covers lighting for the exterior lights, the garage, the entryway, the kitchen, and the family room. It’s a lot of lights, and it’s dark so they’re all on. When I took a closer look at what was going on in that ceiling box, there was an extra wire that I wasn’t entirely sure about. So apparently the first neutral that I pulled off the fixture was literally THE neutral for all of the other lights on the circuit. By breaking that connection, I killed the entire circuit without tripping the breaker off, shocking myself in the process. Either the dipshit previous owner or the idiot electrician that wired the place (my money’s on PO based on other shenanigans) ran THE neutral leg of the circuit through the thin strip of metal built in to the light fixture. One shock, one pissed off wife, and 15 minutes working by cell phone light later, I had wired in a short pigtail and nutted the neutrals together, and put the new fixture up. Everything is working as expected, and we’re no longer running all of the current in that circuit through a cheap strip of metal. Edit: the thin strip of metal. The loosened screws are where wires were connected. 
smax fucked around with this message at 04:16 on Nov 17, 2021 |
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Nov 17, 2021 03:41
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Does "Pharma-Bro" have a relative who does the same price gouging with circuit breakers? loving hell Arc fault manufacturers.
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Nov 17, 2021 04:54
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smax posted:Oh my loving god, this house. And this friends is why you always hit a "cold" circuit with a non-contact tester before working. Even if you're doing hot work, hit the wire(s) you expect to be hot and verify empirically. But don't do hot work. You personally. Every time. Wear a shirt with a front pocket, put it there. Glad you lived through using the most dangerous tool in the garage: a ladder.
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Nov 17, 2021 05:15
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H110Hawk posted:And this friends is why you always hit a "cold" circuit with a non-contact tester before working. Even if you're doing hot work, hit the wire(s) you expect to be hot and verify empirically. But don't do hot work. Yep, complacency is a bitch. When it happened I immediately realized how dumb of an oversight it was.
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Nov 17, 2021 05:54
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That's a champion P.O. though
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Nov 17, 2021 07:08
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I laughed pretty hard. No one died a+ story.
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Nov 17, 2021 07:14
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Thread delivers. Glad you're still pumping blood, op.
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Nov 17, 2021 14:42
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I usually use a volt meter to check that the circuit is dead. I feel like I wouldn't have caught that, since it was all at the neutral potential. I would need to use a clamp amp meter to detect the current flow. I don't really know how a non contact detector works, would their magic be able to detect this?
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Nov 17, 2021 15:43
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Guy Axlerod posted:I usually use a volt meter to check that the circuit is dead. I feel like I wouldn't have caught that, since it was all at the neutral potential. I would need to use a clamp amp meter to detect the current flow. I don't really know how a non contact detector works, would their magic be able to detect this? I believe it would. It even lights up when you approach non-energized meta (but only during approach). So any alternating current at all would, I think, light the thing up.
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Nov 17, 2021 16:07
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Having the feed through of the N wire at the light at all is kinda special (switch loop would always have this of course) but using the terminals of the keyless as the junction is extra lol Any time I've been surprised by an energized N it's usually a shared N on two circuits that's unmarked and on sperate breakers. Or the one time I found a circuit that had lost the N for some reason so someone soldered onto the N of a fixture and ran a new individual white wire down to restore it. They somehow were lucky enough not to buck phases. Oh yeah the solder was just an open splice in the attic, wrapped in standard black tape. Glad you are safe. Some people would fall off a ladder just from the arc. Rufio fucked around with this message at 16:27 on Nov 17, 2021 |
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Nov 17, 2021 16:25
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H110Hawk posted:And this friends is why you always hit a "cold" circuit with a non-contact tester before working. Even if you're doing hot work, hit the wire(s) you expect to be hot and verify empirically. But don't do hot work. Guy Axlerod posted:I usually use a volt meter to check that the circuit is dead. I feel like I wouldn't have caught that, since it was all at the neutral potential. I would need to use a clamp amp meter to detect the current flow. I don't really know how a non contact detector works, would their magic be able to detect this? cruft posted:I believe it would. It even lights up when you approach non-energized meta (but only during approach). So any alternating current at all would, I think, light the thing up. Yeahhhhhh so I don't know about y'all's, but my non-contact tester doesn't light up on neutral, even with a load. It only works on the hot side. It's a Fluke 1AC-A II, if that matters. I looked it up and they typically use capacitive coupling. I would have assumed that they picked up on the magnetic field, but thinking about it that would only see if current is flowing; voltage can be present without current flowing, so that's useless. Now it's been a long time since I had to deal with this stuff, but Google tells me that the operation of these types of detectors rely on you being at a different potential from the voltage. So if you're grounded, you'll detect hot just fine, but not neutral. Also, a clamp-on ammeter would be fine as long as current is flowing... but if current was not flowing at the time of test, or if it was so low as to not be detectable by your meter, that could change the instant someone flips a switch. edit: I typically rely solely on my meter, which also would not detect this. I have a non-contact tester, but usually I prefer to use a meter. DaveSauce fucked around with this message at 17:55 on Nov 17, 2021 |
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Nov 17, 2021 17:28
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DaveSauce posted:Yeahhhhhh so I don't know about y'all's, but my non-contact tester doesn't light up on neutral, even with a load. It only works on the hot side. It's a Fluke 1AC-A II, if that matters. I don't disagree that you can't detect an un-energized neutral. But as I understand it, neutral with a load is indistinguishable from hot. Like, once that wire is part of the circuit, it doesn't matter where in the circuit it is. I really only understand DC though, and just barely at that, so I could be way off.
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Nov 17, 2021 18:14
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The potential on the neutral hardly fluctuates. Could be a tenth of a volt. That’s not enough for a NCV to pick up via capacitance, and if it could you’d be getting false positives all the time.
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Nov 17, 2021 18:24
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cruft posted:I don't disagree that you can't detect an un-energized neutral. But as I understand it, neutral with a load is indistinguishable from hot. Like, once that wire is part of the circuit, it doesn't matter where in the circuit it is. If it's using capacitive sensing, then I would expect that load has no bearing on its detection capabilities. I'm not saying they all use that same detection technology, but it makes sense because you're not trying to detect load, but rather the presence of voltage. And fundamentally you can only do that by having some reference point to compare against, so ground is about your only option for a handheld tool. But that's all theory, and I'm particularly weak with capacitors. In any case, I'm 100% sure that my Fluke will NOT detect a neutral with a load on it. Literally just tested it with a small oscillating fan... maybe it'd work for bigger loads I guess, but I doubt it. Even so, if it can't pick up a small load then I consider that reason enough to never trust it for neutral.
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Nov 17, 2021 18:56
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It gets better. I pulled the other ceiling junction box out to take a look. I knew that one was going to have issues going in, the PO definitely hosed with this one. -The junction box is generally wired the same, the first light I pulled is powered from this junction box though. -The PO pulled the light socket out and replaced it with a non-GFCI outlet so that he could plug in an LED light. That’s coming out. -The outlet was not directly connected to the house in any way. Outlet jammed into the ceiling box, then he used one of those modular switch plate kits to make a thing to cover the hole (standard outlet in the middle, a blank on either side. The modular switch plate was then screwed into the drywall with 3 wood screws. Yep, that’s secure. -The outlet was acting as the junction on both the hot and neutral legs. The hot neutral from earlier went in the top outlet, and went out to the panel through the bottom outlet. The hot line from the light switch went in the top outlet and out the bottom outlet to the other ceiling box/light. Yes, both the neutral for the entire house and the hot wire for the other light fixture were being passed through the breakaway tabs on the outlet. -Bonus use of stab connectors on all 4 wires.
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Nov 17, 2021 20:14
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Blistex posted:Does "Pharma-Bro" have a relative who does the same price gouging with circuit breakers? loving hell Arc fault manufacturers. I've seen a lot of people complain that the NEC is mandating these arc fault/GFCI breakers as requirements to boost sales for the manufacturers that contribute to it. Sounds like people justifying their cheapness at the expense of safety, but when you see things like hardwired A/C condensers needing a GFCI breaker in the 2021 code it does make you wonder.
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Nov 17, 2021 21:27
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smax posted:It gets better. Aside from the backstab and location of the receptacle, the terminals on a receptacle junctioning Hot and Neutral wires for a circuit is completely normal and I reckon the way most of our houses are wired unless you went to the trouble of pigtailing everything.
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Nov 17, 2021 21:49
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Yeah, those breakaway tabs are rated for the same amperage as the outlet, that's not too crazy.
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Nov 18, 2021 05:09
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I've got a shed I plan on running power out to, but it's not gonna happen for awhile. In the meantime, I'd like to have a little light in there and be able to run some tools. I am sort of thinking of wiring up a light and outlets in the shed, and then.... Wiring up a male end of an extension cord sticking out of a junction box, and then plugging the female end of an extension cord from the house into that every time I wanna use the shed. I know this is not to code, but is it dangerous? It feels like it'd be relatively safe as a short term thing, but I am awfully dumb, so I'm very open to being talked out of it.
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Nov 18, 2021 19:54
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Slugworth posted:I've got a shed I plan on running power out to, but it's not gonna happen for awhile. In the meantime, I'd like to have a little light in there and be able to run some tools. I am sort of thinking of wiring up a light and outlets in the shed, and then.... Wiring up a male end of an extension cord sticking out of a junction box, and then plugging the female end of an extension cord from the house into that every time I wanna use the shed. I know this is not to code, but is it dangerous? It feels like it'd be relatively safe as a short term thing, but I am awfully dumb, so I'm very open to being talked out of it. Nah, it'd be fine. This is basically how a lot of small campers are wired. Just make sure you use a properly rated extension cord, 12ga at the minimum. If you want to get fancy about it, you could mount one of these to the outside of the shed to plug your extension cord into: https://www.homedepot.com/p/AC-WORKS-15-Amp-125-Volt-NEMA-5-15P-Flanged-Power-Input-Inlet-with-Weather-Covers-ASIN515P-WC/305436656
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Nov 18, 2021 20:17
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FISHMANPET posted:Yeah, those breakaway tabs are rated for the same amperage as the outlet, that's not too crazy. It it’s a 15A outlet passing current for the entire circuit on a 20A breaker, isn’t that an issue?
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Nov 19, 2021 00:40
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smax posted:It it’s a 15A outlet passing current for the entire circuit on a 20A breaker, isn’t that an issue? No. Most of those outlets are rated for 20A passthrough. In truth, there's essentially no difference between similar quality-levels of 20A vs 15A outlet. They just cut that extra slit in the plastic for the 20A plug and jack up the price.
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Nov 19, 2021 02:02
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I'm replacing the old busted fluorescent light fixtures in my closets. I already tried an led replacement bulb and it looks like the fixture doesn't provide enough power to light it up all the way. So I'm just going to swap them out. I saw this listing on amazon: https://www.amazon.com/2400Lm-Fixture-23-61in-Ceiling-Basement/dp/B09HC1T1C5/ It boasts "2ft led Light Fixture,20W LED Tube Light,2400Lm Shop Light,3000K Warm White,23.61in LED Garage Closet Light Ceiling Light for Office Home Basement,No Plug,No Ground Wire" No Ground Wire - That's uh, bad, right? Like this doesn't seem legal to install. I'm not considering buying it. I'm just kind of amazed it's listed. 
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Nov 19, 2021 16:55
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Sous Videodrome posted:I'm replacing the old busted fluorescent light fixtures in my closets. I already tried an led replacement bulb and it looks like the fixture doesn't provide enough power to light it up all the way. So I'm just going to swap them out. In my house, every fixture is a "no ground wire" fixture, because they didn't run ground in 1942. I'd want to see that the fixture was double insulated, though. e: thinking about this more, this is an LED fixture, so the very first thing it's going to do with the AC is convert it to DC. Just like the dozens of 2-pronged "wall warts" you have in your house right now. It should probably still offer the option to ground the chassis, though. cruft fucked around with this message at 17:06 on Nov 19, 2021 |
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Nov 19, 2021 17:02
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it's likely that your incoming ground gets bonded to the chassis of the fixture itself, and the 'live/neutral' is just +/- since there will be an LED driver in there somewhere
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Nov 19, 2021 17:05
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cruft posted:In my house, every fixture is a "no ground wire" fixture, because they didn't run ground in 1942. I'd want to see that the fixture was double insulated, though.
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Nov 19, 2021 17:07
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