|
The 40's through 70's were a wild time.
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2023 01:47
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 11, 2024 06:29 |
|
|
Motronic posted:Yes: GE PowerMark panels are fine
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2023 03:06
|
|
|
Motronic posted:Good to know. We have very few of those (left?) on on this coast so I've not personally run into a problem/investigation where they caused an issue. Waitaminnnit, I'm as old as a Zinsco subpanel.  e: Found this list Arsenic Lupin fucked around with this message at 03:33 on Jul 25, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2023 03:30
|
|
|
Chronojam posted:Is there a master list of terribad electrical panels? Federal Pacific Zinsco Challenger Pushmatic, but this one is because they're obsolete. They never made AFCI breakers for them and NOS for regular breakers is drying up. kid sinister fucked around with this message at 03:59 on Jul 25, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2023 03:51
|
|
|
Motronic posted:Yes: I've got Square D Homeline and it's not awful! (I would have definitely paid for the upgrade to QO had I known or been made aware of the difference when I paid for a panel replacement though)
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2023 04:18
|
|
|
SpartanIvy posted:I've got Square D Homeline and it's not awful! (I would have definitely paid for the upgrade to QO had I known or been made aware of the difference when I paid for a panel replacement though) I just installed a homeline panel last year in a friend's barn due to total lack of QO breaker availability. Homeline is okay. It's definitely not awful, but it's real obvious that it's a budget panel. The #1 reason to use a QO, especially in an unheated outbuilding, is that the bus bar is tinned solid copper, not aluminum.
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2023 14:10
|
|
|
Hi all... I have a wiring question for you. I have two outdoor outlets on my house which have stopped working. They weren't GFCI outlets and they had a weak sauce cover on them which caused them to short whenever my kids would accidentally spray them with the hose. I kept thinking, "Man, I should replace those outlets and put all weather covers on them." Before I did, they just stopped working entirely. My first step was to try just replacing the outlets themselves because I was planning on it anyway. However, that didn't help. Then I tried taking one of the outlets out, turning the breaker back on and measuring the voltage with a multimeter. The multimeter seemed to show a very very slight voltage. I didn't write down the exact number, but I think it was like < 1V. So my next thought was maybe there was an issue with the curcuit breaker itself. So I just tried replacing the breaker itself and it had no effect. My only other thought is that it's the wires themselves, but I have no idea how to diagnose that issue. I'm a newbie to all of this, so could have made any number of errors along the way to lead me to the wrong conclusions. Any thoughts on a good way to proceed? Thanks!
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2023 22:54
|
|
|
Look for a tripped GFCI outlet in your garage or on the other side of your house
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2023 22:57
|
|
|
Rufio posted:Look for a tripped GFCI outlet in your garage or on the other side of your house Thanks for the advice. Will do.
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2023 23:01
|
|
|
Rufio posted:Look for a tripped GFCI outlet in your garage or on the other side of your house That did it. Thanks! Found a GFCI outlet in the garage which I didn't even know was there because it was behind a storage shelf.
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2023 23:10
|
|
|
kid sinister posted:Challenger Irony: Eaton (who used to own Cutler Hammer) bought Challenger in the early 90s. My Challenger panel is almost all Cutler Hammer breakers too (they're listed for use in it according to the panel door), though they're BR and BD (as are the few Challenger-labeled breakers - but the CH ones still use the Challenger font on the handle). They seem to be holding up fine after 25 years; at least, the kitchen one will definitely trip if I run the air fryer and anything else in the kitchen at the same time, and the 2 pole tripped instantly when the compressor shorted to ground in the old AC. I thought code in the late 90s meant more than 1 kitchen outlet circuit though.  My last apartment was built in 84 and had a dedicated "breaker" (I use that term loosely since it was a Stab-Lok panel) for each kitchen outlet (and that tiny galley kitchen had more outlets than my much larger kitchen in this apartment).
randomidiot fucked around with this message at 12:15 on Jul 26, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2023 12:07
|
|
|
I know the 90s required GFCIs and established requirements for receptacles to be positioned ever 4ft, but I don't know about circuits. My kitchen was renovated in the 90s and only has one circuit for everything but the dishwasher, but I'm suspicious about how code compliant the contractors that the parade of Garys hired were. My plan when I get this place required is a dedicated 20A circuit for each kitchen outlet so I don't have to worry about making toast while the coffee maker is going.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2023 13:10
|
|
|
Shifty Pony posted:My plan when I get this place required is a dedicated 20A circuit for each kitchen outlet so I don't have to worry about making toast while the coffee maker is going. This is overkill in the best way possible and thinking about when we reno our kitchen it would honestly be like 3, maybe 4, countertop breakers tops. That’s not really that bad in the grand scheme of things.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2023 13:25
|
|
|
Is it really overkill? Our air fryer pulls 12.5A, toaster pulls 15A for four slices, coffee maker 9A, electric griddle 12.5A, instant pot 10A, microwave is rated at 13A but actually pulls nearly 16A for the first 30 seconds or so. The toaster can already cause a 4V sag on our current 12awg circuit all by itself. There's basically no way to run more than one appliance on a circuit and not risk significantly exceeding the rated current when both cycle on at the same time. So why have the capability to accidentally do it? Edit: it is worth mentioning that I would only need to add three circuits to make this happen, and have no intention of doing similar in other areas of the house. Shifty Pony fucked around with this message at 14:19 on Jul 26, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2023 13:57
|
|
|
Shifty Pony posted:Is it really overkill? I don't think so. The kitchen really is the room to do this in. For the most part every other room in a home is decreasing in energy usage mostly from LED lighting but also things like no more CRT TVs. We're at the point where I feel like we need some codes for 16 gauge or lighter 5-8 amp or lower lighting circuits. The other place(s) that could benefit from dedicated high amp circuits would be workshops/garages/craft room kinda places - and the laundry room but those typically already have that.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2023 14:37
|
|
|
Ironically all of the "wet rooms" are where you want the most power - Kitchen, Bathrooms, Garage/Workshops. If I had really thought about it I might have requested my bathroom be a shared-neutral 20A where top/bottom of outlets are tab broken separate circuits running on 12/3. Then future me could easily run a Japanese MegaShitter9000, a hair dryer, curling iron, etc. I kind of wish I had a 30A/220v outlet just out in the kitchen to use a commercial air fryer on. Basically those units you see at a starbucks. 
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2023 14:41
|
|
|
Some day, in future house, I will have a commercial combi oven in my kitchen. Wife might force it to be in the butler's pantry. Either way johnny kilowatt is coming to visit when it's time to wire up my walls.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2023 14:58
|
|
|
Hed posted:Some day, in future house, I will have a commercial combi oven in my kitchen. Wife might force it to be in the butler's pantry. Either way johnny kilowatt is coming to visit when it's time to wire up my walls. This new place has a fairly new electric double oven but no convection functionality.  I can't bring myself to spend like $5000 to r&r it.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2023 15:22
|
|
|
Shifty Pony posted:Is it really overkill? I think you're right. I have four circuits in my 1978 kitchen and zero complaints. I recently got an air fryer and it is nice that it's plugged into its own circuit despite being adjacent to the Toaster. Not that they get much action together anyway. Sometimes air fryer and rice cooker. I think I ended up with one appliance on each circuit. Realistically it's rare to use more then two at a time. I don't make fries and coffee and toast and microwave a breakfast sandwich and fry eggs.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2023 18:04
|
|
|
Even if they don't see a ton of use, it's incredibly inexpensive to add them at a planning stage/when walls are open and typically very very expensive and possibly not even feasible later.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2023 18:29
|
|
|
Wire seems expensive but in comparison to everything else it's very very cheap when you've got easy access.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2023 18:36
|
|
|
"A whole dollar a foot for 12/2 !!!???" I exclaim while shoveling $50k into a kitchen remodel.
Motronic fucked around with this message at 18:56 on Jul 26, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2023 18:38
|
|
|
Here's a question that's been bugging me: in the room with my pc (for "work"  ), intermittently or when I turn on the desktop mini amp on the lights will dim slightly for less than a second.The lights themselves are all LEDs with separate drivers that are all from 2014, so they're old but not yet cascade failing (only one has failed in the rear of the house and in that one the driver was melted). As far as I know there's no "ran everything off the same breaker" problem and everything in the place is pretty well installed electrics wise, barring some mystifying aerial/satellite/cat5e setup. Best guess would be that something is going on with the earthing and the dimmer the lights are on is dropping when the amp powers up or something like that.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2023 18:56
|
|
|
I need to not, but it's really tempting to do 300amp main where it's only 100amp 2 pole breakers to sub panels elsewhere, solar input, and that's it.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2023 18:56
|
|
|
Powerful Two-Hander posted:Here's a question that's been bugging me: in the room with my pc (for "work" I've got a few cheap LEDs that do that. Swap[ping bulbs has taken care of it any place I've noticed so you may want to try swapping out a quality LED before getting into much else. Quality LEDs do not come from big box stores or the grocery store. They come from actual lighting stores or places like 1000bulbs.com (anything 90+ CRI is typically pretty high quality in all the other ways that count).
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2023 18:59
|
|
|
Motronic posted:I've got a few cheap LEDs that do that. Swap[ping bulbs has taken care of it any place I've noticed so you may want to try swapping out a quality LED before getting into much else. Preach. For the two that have failed (I forgot about one of them) I bought some no name generic and it was a complete pain in the rear end to install and the connection box was so big I could barely get it into the space (which smaller than it should be but that's a different problem). I took the other one I'd bought back and ordered a bunch of Collingwood replacements from a supplier exactly like that and they were much better. I will be using the "does the manufacturer have a video on their site of a middle aged man in an otherwise empty room that in great detail explains the exact properties and differences between sub models" test in future.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2023 19:02
|
|
|
I've got some extremely cheap workshop LED lights that do the dimming thing, is it a voltage issue? I've seen it in my workshop where the lights are when I turn on a power tool even though they're on separate circuits, but I've even seen it happen "randomly" presumably when some load in the main house kicks on. I'm guessing more and bigger/better capacitors is what keeps the nicer lights from dimming when the voltage shifts a little bit?
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2023 19:02
|
|
|
FISHMANPET posted:I've got some extremely cheap workshop LED lights that do the dimming thing, is it a voltage issue? I've seen it in my workshop where the lights are when I turn on a power tool even though they're on separate circuits, but I've even seen it happen "randomly" presumably when some load in the main house kicks on. I'm guessing more and bigger/better capacitors is what keeps the nicer lights from dimming when the voltage shifts a little bit? That's exactly what happens and I can easily believe they're cheap units based on being a big full house installation where they used a shitload of them. So if nothing else I'm not going mad (my wife claims she can't see anything changing) which is good enough.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2023 19:06
|
|
|
FISHMANPET posted:I've got some extremely cheap workshop LED lights that do the dimming thing, is it a voltage issue? I've seen it in my workshop where the lights are when I turn on a power tool even though they're on separate circuits, but I've even seen it happen "randomly" presumably when some load in the main house kicks on. I'm guessing more and bigger/better capacitors is what keeps the nicer lights from dimming when the voltage shifts a little bit? It's very likely a voltage issue - I see it happen when circuits they are on or near get loaded a lot. But the point is those voltage changes should not cause this - the bulbs are just made cheaply. Under filtered? I guess capacitors are expensive. Bad power management? No power management and just a buck converter that hoses rectified 120v down to something close to what the LED needs but entirely linear based on input voltage? I dunno, I'm not gonna take apart and deep dive cheap disposable LED drivers.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2023 19:11
|
|
|
Motronic posted:Even if they don't see a ton of use, it's incredibly inexpensive to add them at a planning stage/when walls are open and typically very very expensive and possibly not even feasible later. My big plans when we rewire are: - Kitchen receptacles on individual circuits - Water heater on an independent circuit - Patio receptacles on their own circuit - NEMA 14-50 receptacle in the carport - remove the current generator so it isn't in the way of connecting the living room to the patio, install a larger unit with service entrance transfer switch like should have been done in the first place The panel is a Cutler Hammer 200A type BR with 40 slots. Not sure if it is worth the trouble and cost of replacing it with something like a type CH PON, but it probably is.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2023 20:13
|
|
|
X posting from the house buying thread. H110Hawk posted:
|
|
#
?
Jul 27, 2023 15:56
|
|
I am happy to report that the sellers agreed to $12,000 in credits. Thanks, something awful friends for making me know that Zinsco panels are worth pushing on, and just how expensive those gosh darn modern nfpa breaker rules make replacement much more expensive than it used to be. Literally just got me $5k in extra credits.
|
I have a two car garage that is currently illuminated by one bare bulb over each stall. I am getting eight corded dual 4' LED shop lights to replace the two bulbs. The plan is to remove the bulb sockets and replace them with dual gang boxes and install electrical outlets in the boxes that the shop lights will plug in to. The garage is completely unfinished, so the only thing overhead are the rafters. Does it matter either way if I install the boxes to the bottom of the rafter ties with the outlets pointing straight down vs. mounting to the side of the ties with the outlets facing parallel to the floor?
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2023 21:31
|
|
|
It only matters if you see yourself drywalling that garage in the foreseeable future.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2023 00:17
|
|
|
Will an electrician run low voltage stuff if I ask them, or do they typically avoid that? I got a growing list of electrical stuff that I'm probably going to hire out since it's getting to be too much. Since it involves running new circuits/extending existing ones I figure I'd probably ask them to run some ethernet/coax while they're already going to be here drilling holes and pulling wire. edit: wouldn't have them terminate any of it... just run it point to point since that's the hard part.
|
|
#
?
Aug 4, 2023 15:12
|
|
|
DaveSauce posted:Will an electrician run low voltage stuff if I ask them, or do they typically avoid that? My experience is they'll pull it for sure, and in recent years they've offered to terminate. I still like to do that part myself 
|
|
#
?
Aug 4, 2023 15:31
|
|
|
I would hire a second person. You might get lucky and get an residential electrician who knows how to properly run networking cable (12" from power cable when parallel, all crossings done perpendicularly), but you'll more likely get someone who thinks this is ok:  (Taken from Reddit) With modern 1Gb networking equipment a bit of interference from a bad run usually isn't too much of a problem, but there's no guarantee that it won't cause strangeness and it might be a problem in the future as faster networking standards take hold.
|
|
#
?
Aug 4, 2023 15:33
|
|
|
A big part of my job is troubleshooting communication issues. More than once running the comms in a separate conduit has fixed the issue. On installs you might get some electricians complaining about having to run a second pipe but for some crazy reason things work better or more reliably when you follow best practices. It makes it a lot easier to pinpoint the issue when there are less things done the wrong way.
|
|
#
?
Aug 4, 2023 18:34
|
|
|
OK, I need an opinion from some Actual Sparkies™, since though I'm dumb enough to do the same thing three times in a row and get the same result each time, I'm not quite braindamaged enough to do it a fourth time. In the front of my house, there's a lightpole in the yard which has an outlet and two lights on it (one motion-sensing, one always on). The outlet is in a weather rated box, with a weather rated cover that completely covers it, and is itself a weather rated GFCI. This lightpole is powered from a box on the porch (also weather rated, also in a weather rated box, also GFCI). That, in turn, goes to a switch inside the house, which is basically left alone 24/7 as "on". For the third time now, the GFCI at the lightpole has completely hard-locked up and refused to reset, even after I've removed the lights to see if the short is in one of the two of them. I've been going through and replacing pretty much everything, and clearly I'm missing something. First time, I just swapped the outlet -- it wasn't GFCI rated before, and it's outside, so, fine. I also put a new cover on, since the old cover was broken. This one lasted about a year. Second time, I thought, maybe the motion sensing light was bad -- it had several components that were barely holding together, so fine -- I swapped that out, along with replacing the GFCI. Again, about a year, and then dead. This most recent time, I did everything. Replaced the lights, replaced the box, replaced the cover, replaced the GFCI, replaced the loving GFCI on the porch, everything. The only thing that's the same is the wires themselves that are in the ground, and the light switch inside the house. And guess what. One year, all of a sudden, nothing. Dead as a doornail.  What am I missing? Clearly, I'm loving something up, though I don't know what. Please help! lovely MS-paint quality wiring diagram included. 
|
|
#
?
Aug 4, 2023 21:06
|
|
|
I'll read your post in a hour or 10 but I wanted to say this is a goddamned masterpiece. I hope you frame this.
|
|
#
?
Aug 4, 2023 21:22
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 11, 2024 06:29 |
|
|
Does this only happen in the summer? How hot does the weather get where you are, and is the box in the sun?
|
|
#
?
Aug 4, 2023 21:26
|
|