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babyeatingpsychopath posted:I don't know about Federal in Canada, but Federal Pacific in the US is electrician-speak for "house-consuming electrical fire deathtrap in a box." That said, if you're looking at a house built in the 70s and it's got an FPE panel and you open it up and not a spec of copper to be seen... RUN!!!!
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Jul 28, 2009 23:05
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IsaacNewton posted:I really wish I had been told about that, but to be honest with you the electrician didn't give me a choice per say. (I didn't know better either anyway so..) I'm not Canadian, but I've watched enough Holmes on Homes to know that running any circuits through the dead front is a big no-no. There's a reason why the dead front doesn't have any pass-thru holes. Go thru the side or top/bottom. If you need to, you can splice the wires inside the box with properly sized maurets, or mount a blank faced junction box near the panel and extend the wire from there. Take this as a lesson learned, never cut the wire to length until you're sure it's long enough. And then cut it a foot or two longer anyway.
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Jul 28, 2009 23:06
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Mthrboard posted:Take this as a lesson learned, never cut the wire to length until you're sure it's long enough. And then cut it a foot or two longer anyway. It's left over wires I had. I don't know if I could even find a junction box for a 1 1/2 inch wire, let alone marets for 2ga wires. Oh well, nothing to see here, just a guy who wasted mucho money. 
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Jul 29, 2009 00:27
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IsaacNewton posted:There's 3 free knockout big enough to pass my 1" 1/2 wire through. My problem is the dead front doesn't give a whole lot of room to have wire go past it, and the wires might be touching a sharp edge of the dead front. If there's room, go ahead and put it in. If it "might" touch a sharp edge, put some protection on the edge. I see you've got some 2ga. What flavor of cable is this? You can usually bend the cable pretty well and use a bunch of layers of tape on sharpish edges without any problem.
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Jul 29, 2009 03:55
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IsaacNewton posted:It's left over wires I had. Oops, I missed that it was 2ga wire. In that case, you need split bolt connectors. I don't have an image handy, but they're basically a large bolt with a notch cut out of them, so they look like a U, with a nut that...actually, just do a Google Image Search, you'll see what I'm talking about. Get one of those for each conductor, use the electrical tape where it's designed for (wrapping the split bolts instead of trying to pad a sharp edge), and run the wire outside the dead front. As for the box, get a deep 2 gang metal box with large knockouts on opposing sides, and don't forget to ground it.
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Aug 6, 2009 01:13
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Thank you, that sound a lot more likely to pass inspection than tape on sharp edges. (no offense babyeatingpsychopath) Do you happen to know what the heck a SOL is? http://www.homedepot.ca/webapp/wcs/...r&showreviews=1
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Aug 6, 2009 16:54
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I am working on a small electrical project using 12/2 NM-B indoor non-metallic cable. As part of this I need to somehow attach three disconnects to a length of wire, so that they are arranged: wire->disconnect->wire->disconnect->wire->disconnect. I have no problems hooking up disconnects to the end of the wire, but how can I hook up a disconnect in the middle of a wire? Is there some online resource that has tutorials on basic wiring? I haven't been able to find any examples similar to this situation in the sites that I have found.
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Aug 6, 2009 17:33
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IsaacNewton posted:Thank you, that sound a lot more likely to pass inspection than tape on sharp edges. (no offense babyeatingpsychopath) You say what you may, we got our green tag yesterday. SOL means solid wire, as in, that split bolt is not rated for stranded wire. poopcutter posted:I am working on a small electrical project using 12/2 NM-B indoor non-metallic cable. As part of this I need to somehow attach three disconnects to a length of wire, so that they are arranged: Cut the wire in the middle, now you have two ends? What do you mean by "disconnect," exactly?
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Aug 7, 2009 01:23
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babyeatingpsychopath posted:Cut the wire in the middle, now you have two ends? What do you mean by "disconnect," exactly? http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/202039635/Female_Disconnect_Terminal.html These things.
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Aug 7, 2009 05:41
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babyeatingpsychopath posted:You say what you may, we got our green tag yesterday. Thanks, makes sense now. I have stranded wires. poopcutter posted:http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/202039635/Female_Disconnect_Terminal.html What is your application for these? I never saw that used in anything other than vehicle electrical (more than likely rightfully so).
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Aug 7, 2009 15:49
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poopcutter posted:http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/202039635/Female_Disconnect_Terminal.html Ah. Those are usually called "terminals." If you're not drawing any serious current with this, I guess they could work, but historically, something like this is used for rapid disconnecting means at the ends of electrical wiring.
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Aug 7, 2009 16:35
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I have an idea for a smallish accent lamp that would have multiple sockets (maybe 3 to 5) and use smaller bulbs, but have just a single switch. I've googled for wiring diagrams, but haven't found anything. How would I do this? Also, would there be a big issue if I use copper tubing for said lamp?
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Aug 9, 2009 03:16
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Mister Kingdom posted:I have an idea for a smallish accent lamp that would have multiple sockets (maybe 3 to 5) and use smaller bulbs, but have just a single switch. A picture of what you want to do would be helpful, but at some point you're going to need a place for all your wires from the sockets to be connected together. If you're using copper tubing, then make sure whatever plug you get has a wide prong and a narrow prong so you can't put it in an outlet backwards. The wide prong on your plug gets connected to all the shells. The short prong on your plug goes to the switch, then from the switch to the centers of all your sockets. If your lamp cord has two different color wires, then white is shells (long prong) and copper is centers (short prong). I have attached an incredibly crappy picture that should illustrate what I've just said. Note that real lamp cord is mostly stuck together for all of its length but peels apart fairly easily. babyeatingpsychopath fucked around with this message at 04:15 on Aug 9, 2009 |
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Aug 9, 2009 04:12
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 The copper tubing would be curved away from the base (which would be wooden). I would hollow out the base so everything would be flush. The plug wire would come out the back.
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Aug 9, 2009 14:56
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Read most of this thread, gotten tons of great advice from it. Have a few questions of my own for you the pros, I recently purchased a 1949 home that had the electrical box recently done as shown in the pictures. The house has only 1-2 plug-ins in each room and I would like to add more. I have the added luxury of the walls being completely open because after the wiring I am going to add insulation and then drywall. I have been told the wiring is asbestos coated. I would like to replace the plug-ins with new three pronged ( they are currently two pronged ), add new gang boxes ( blue plastic ones ) and run another 1-2 plugs off each of the current plugs. From what I have read, using 14-2 NM-B is what I would want to use, correct? So from what I have read I want to use a GFCI plug at the start of the string and then I can run as many off of that as I would like? Any reason why half of my house is wired to the new box and the other half is wired to the old box? The old box has things like bedrooms/lights and the new box has things like the garage panel, heaters and range.. My current wiring... http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh182/dstoneburg/IMG00016-20090809-2254.jpg Current plug-ins... http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh182/dstoneburg/IMG00017-20090809-2254.jpg Old box still powering half the house... http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh182/dstoneburg/IMG00018-20090809-2256.jpg New box powering half the house and garage panel... http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh182/dstoneburg/IMG00019-20090809-2256.jpg
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Aug 10, 2009 07:04
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leseak posted:From what I have read, using 14-2 NM-B is what I would want to use, correct? So from what I have read I want to use a GFCI plug at the start of the string and then I can run as many off of that as I would like? quote:Any reason why half of my house is wired to the new box and the other half is wired to the old box? The old box has things like bedrooms/lights and the new box has things like the garage panel, heaters and range.. If that's too much work, then it should be easier to take the guts out of the old panel, run 4 circuits worth from the new panel to old and make splices in the old panel box, then put a blank cover on the box (don't drywall over it). This is just to get rid of the fuses. But really, since your walls are open, now is the perfect time to rewire everything up to current code. This means AFCI in bedrooms, GFCI practically everywhere else, and the proper number of circuits for kitchens/bathrooms/etc.
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Aug 10, 2009 11:48
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babyeatingpsychopath posted:But really, since your walls are open, now is the perfect time to rewire everything up to current code. This means AFCI in bedrooms, GFCI practically everywhere else, and the proper number of circuits for kitchens/bathrooms/etc. I do second your recommendation, though- 12/2, replace the panel, and bring it all up to modern standards!
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Aug 11, 2009 10:58
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With the information given, and under my circumstances I think I am going to try and get rid of the old box by running new wire from the new box to everything the old box covered, which I think is mostly only the kitchen. As much as I would love to bring everything up to current code I don't have the skills or money to do so. So my new plan is to start every string with a GCFI and run 14/2 from the old plug-in's to some new ones. With this plan do you think I will run into any problems? Is there a limit of how many per "string" I can have? I was also told to run 12/2 to my kitchen for things like a microwave and whatnot, does this also mean I need a 20 amp breaker and GFCI?
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Aug 12, 2009 08:22
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leseak posted:With the information given, and under my circumstances I think I am going to try and get rid of the old box by running new wire from the new box to everything the old box covered, which I think is mostly only the kitchen. As much as I would love to bring everything up to current code I don't have the skills or money to do so. So my new plan is to start every string with a GCFI and run 14/2 from the old plug-in's to some new ones. With this plan do you think I will run into any problems? Is there a limit of how many per "string" I can have? I was also told to run 12/2 to my kitchen for things like a microwave and whatnot, does this also mean I need a 20 amp breaker and GFCI? The rest may be 15A (14/2) if you want to reuse existing cabling. (I recommend 12/2 for all new circuits, though.) Only a few outlets have to be GFCI, mostly stuff near water. AFCI (arc-fault) is a relatively new 2008 requirement that was expanded from bedrooms to cover the rest of the house; it may or may not be invoked in your locality yet, you'd have to check. Either way, you'd still have to put AFCI breakers on circuits feeding your bedroom at $30+ a pop. grover fucked around with this message at 10:58 on Aug 12, 2009 |
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Aug 12, 2009 10:54
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I have a really basic and maybe very stupid question: When I pull wire for a new circuit, what is the easiest way to run it and measure the lengths for each device? I'm planning to just grab a roll, start at the last device and pull it back to the panel. At each fixture or receptacle along the way, I'd pull a loop about 1.5-2 feet long, and continue on my way. When it's time to attach the devices, I just cut the loop, pigtail the wires to the device and tuck them in. Does this sound like the best method? I'm rewiring an entire 1890 house, open basement ceiling, lath and plaster walls, and hardwood attic flooring. I'm planning separate drops for each second story room, and obviously going up through the exposed basement ceiling to each room on the main floor. I'm trying to avoid as much demo as possible.
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Aug 12, 2009 17:28
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mr.belowaverage posted:I have a really basic and maybe very stupid question: Yeah pretty much you got the easiest way to do it. You could get a bit more technical and pigtail off a branch or two for some boxes if it's possible to save a little copper, or boxes that would be the first in the series that you just can't easily reach from the basement (plumbing/HVAC in the way). Instead you would just wire from the second box to the panel, then pigtail off a branch from that second box to the first one.
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Aug 12, 2009 17:40
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kid sinister posted:Yeah pretty much you got the easiest way to do it. You could get a bit more technical and pigtail off a branch or two for some boxes if it's possible to save a little copper, or boxes that would be the first in the series that you just can't easily reach from the basement (plumbing/HVAC in the way). Instead you would just wire from the second box to the panel, then pigtail off a branch from that second box to the first one. You're describing some kind of Y-branch where power goes to box #2, and then one way to logical box #1 and the other way to #'s 3-through-N. How would I connect that? I see one cable coming into the box, one cable going to each of two branches, and a pigtail for the device itself. Isn't that too many conductors for regular boxes? How would I handle that?
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Aug 12, 2009 18:13
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mr.belowaverage posted:You're describing some kind of Y-branch where power goes to box #2, and then one way to logical box #1 and the other way to #'s 3-through-N. How would I connect that? I see one cable coming into the box, one cable going to each of two branches, and a pigtail for the device itself. Isn't that too many conductors for regular boxes? How would I handle that? That depends entirely on how deep your boxes are, which in turn can depend on how thick your walls are.
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Aug 13, 2009 02:23
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Here's one I can't explain. My wife rented a carpet shampooer which only works on one receptacle. She asked me if I was loving with the panel as none of the receptacles in the living room worked. I checked them with my voltmeter and they were reading hot. The entire circuit in that room is fine, but for some reason, the shampooer won't run. Plug anything else into the receptacles and it works fine. I am at a loss, I told her that there isn't any reason that I can think of why it isn't working. In fact, there is NO reason that it shouldn't be working. Am I crazy or what?
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Aug 15, 2009 05:27
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RedReverend posted:Here's one I can't explain. My wife rented a carpet shampooer which only works on one receptacle. She asked me if I was loving with the panel as none of the receptacles in the living room worked. I checked them with my voltmeter and they were reading hot. The entire circuit in that room is fine, but for some reason, the shampooer won't run. Plug anything else into the receptacles and it works fine. Try bending around on the plug prongs? Maybe it isn't making good contact.
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Aug 15, 2009 08:59
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For those of you with older houses that have had a couple of owners I would urge you just to open up the covers on switches and stuff. I pretty much knew what I was getting into but I still found some gems. For example, bare copper, not good, and this is one of the good ones.  I realize this is the neutral, but some previous owner used this technique with the hots as well, either way, not correct.  I've also found 16 gauge speaker wire used to wire from a hot up to the security light in the back yard. It was twisted on using the strip 3" back from the appliance(outlet) and just wrap it arround the hot, don't bother to cover method. 3 cables on one of the outlet screws, 2 on the other screw. Apparently pigtails didn't exist for the previous owner. As well as no such thing as to many cables in a small work box. Probably the best gem was someone in the past installed a new ceiling light fixture, and to get power to said fixture they just broke a cable and used 3" stripe and loose twist "method" of reconnecting(not inside a box,) and then rebury said bare wires in the cellulose insulation. I was happy to discover that one early on in the home ownership. Probably the best part of this is I would find older mistakes next to new proper(for the time,) fixes, but who ever knew what they were doing decided to just leave the blatantly wrong problems the way they were in the same work box. If I had thought to take more pictures during my house rewiring I would have had ton of material on how to burn your house down.
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Aug 15, 2009 15:09
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Ferris Bueller posted:Probably the best part of this is I would find older mistakes next to new proper(for the time,) fixes, but who ever knew what they were doing decided to just leave the blatantly wrong problems the way they were in the same work box. That's why I made this thread; when rewiring my house, I found the previous homeowner's amazing errors. The thing that really convinced me that no wire would be reused is when every time the fridge would kick on, there'd be this weird humming noise from the attic. Eventually, the fridge stopped coming on. In the attic, I found a metal 4" square box that was the j-box for the whole kitchen. Every knockout used, most with 2 or 3 romex. Inside the box, 3 red wire nuts, each easily attempting to connect 6-10 #12s and #14s. The weird humming was the arcing in the box. The fridge stopped working because the wires eventually caught fire and shorted out. If it hadn't been in a box (like so many of the other joints in the house) then the cellulose insulation would have gone up and so would the house. So I did the whole house new, safe, and to code, and never had any problems, and the new owners can't go to anywhere in the house and say "look at what the previous idiot did."
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Aug 15, 2009 17:03
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Ferris Bueller posted:funny yet dangerous pics I can't remember the site, but there is some forum for inspectors on the interwebs that was just full of pictures of awful wiring jobs just like these. My favorite one was somebody finished their basement and built a shower with the fuse box in it. Does anybody know the site I'm talking about? edit: found it! http://www.electrical-contractor.net/forums/ubbthreads.php/forums/4/1/Violation_Photo_Forum edit2: the picture in question: 
kid sinister fucked around with this message at 18:52 on Aug 15, 2009 |
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Aug 15, 2009 18:44
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RedReverend posted:Here's one I can't explain. My wife rented a carpet shampooer which only works on one receptacle. She asked me if I was loving with the panel as none of the receptacles in the living room worked. I checked them with my voltmeter and they were reading hot. The entire circuit in that room is fine, but for some reason, the shampooer won't run. Plug anything else into the receptacles and it works fine. Does the shampooer plug have a GFCI wart on the end that could be tripped? My wife's parents had a Rug Doctor shampooer a while back that would trip the GFCI if you looked at it funny. I never figured out if it was the machine or the plug, but they got a new one and that worked fine. If it's not the GFCI, check the machine for hidden switches or levers, near the handle hinge if the machine has one. Again with the in-laws machine, it had like 3 switches to turn on (main power, heater power, and a main machine/upholstery attachment toggle), plus a dead-man type switch that wouldn't allow the machine to turn on unless the handle was raised.
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Aug 15, 2009 21:13
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Okay, I have a question about aluminum wire and rewiring. My brother is looking to buy this townhouse. Good location, and okay price. But, aluminum wire. Ungrounded aluminum wire. From the inspection:  Apparently, all the outlets have been "pigtailed". An electrician is going to verify that. Sooo... 1) How dangerous is aluminum wire, really? Assuming that it has been properly pigtailed. Poking around online, it seems that there are right ways and wrong ways to do this(?). 2) There would have to be a kitchen remodel, definitely. Will GFI outlets do anything on an ungrounded line? We will be expanding the kitchen, slightly...so new outlets and a bit of new wiring. 3) A rough guesstimate to rewire the whole townhouse was $15~20k goddamn dollars. For a $105k townhouse. Now, pardon me, but when I hear numbers like that, I start thinking outside the box. Sooo...I started thinking. What about raceways. Something like this. Or, I've seen in the home improvement books, they will do something similar--only they cut off the sheetrock at the floor, and drill holes + install nail guards instead. But same concept. So that covers outlets. For switches and lights, I guess I would run wires up the inside of the wall (fairly easy), and then at the top, pop out and run through a raceway or conduit. Raceways are ugly, so let's cover them up with a tin ceiling, or faux tin ceiling made of plastic panels. Not really cheap, but cheaper than $15k surely. Then the existing aluminum-wired outlets would just be disconnected and left in place, and sheetrocked over I guess. Ultimately, I guess question #3 boils down to this: Can you run wire inside crown molding, and underneath tin ceilings? And if so, what are the requirements? Does it have to be inside conduit or raceways, I assume?
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Aug 19, 2009 04:06
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Am I better off using GFCI and/or AFCI type breakers in my panel, or GFCI/AFCI receptacles as required in the various branch locations? What are the pros and cons to either choice?
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Aug 19, 2009 06:55
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I have a switch connected to the outlet my TV plugs into, and I want to disconnect it. i removed the cover and looked at the switch, its a simple decora switch with a red and black going to it. Do I undo these and wirenut them together, or undo them and electrical tape them apart?
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Aug 20, 2009 18:27
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kid sinister posted:My favorite one was somebody finished their basement and built a shower with the fuse box in it. Does anybody know the site I'm talking about?
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Aug 20, 2009 18:37
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Pympede posted:I have a switch connected to the outlet my TV plugs into, and I want to disconnect it. i removed the cover and looked at the switch, its a simple decora switch with a red and black going to it. Do I undo these and wirenut them together, or undo them and electrical tape them apart? Wait a minute, if that switch has red and black connected to it, is it a 3-way switch?
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Aug 20, 2009 23:00
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Pympede posted:I have a switch connected to the outlet my TV plugs into, and I want to disconnect it. i removed the cover and looked at the switch, its a simple decora switch with a red and black going to it. Do I undo these and wirenut them together, or undo them and electrical tape them apart? Turn off breaker, remove wires from switch, wire nut together, install blank cover. Precisely two wires, right? Assumedly, the white runs on through. Check the outlet; if the top has a black and the bottom a red, then the top is constant hot and the bottom is switched. This is known as "half-switched" and is fairly common for outlets.
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Aug 20, 2009 23:26
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babyeatingpsychopath posted:Turn off breaker, remove wires from switch, wire nut together, install blank cover. Precisely two wires, right? Assumedly, the white runs on through. Check the outlet; if the top has a black and the bottom a red, then the top is constant hot and the bottom is switched. This is known as "half-switched" and is fairly common for outlets. You can also look to see if the metal tabs on either side of the outlet that connect the two screw plates have been pried off. Also if this is the case, just plug your TV into the other outlet!
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Aug 20, 2009 23:32
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Not sure what kind of wiring problem this could possibly be. We're at a total loss! The top floor of our townhouse lost power last night. The rest of house is fine, but when you get to the top floor nothing. Last night we turned on the light in the ensuite bathroom and lost all power to the floor. Breaker didn't trip (we flipped it, waited, put it back on) and all of the fuses are fine. None of the lights or outlets on the top floor work. Any chance you know why our top floor run out of electricity? The top floor has 1.5 bathrooms and a master bedroom. Is this something anyone can advise on?
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Aug 27, 2009 00:19
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Tequila Mockingbird posted:Not sure what kind of wiring problem this could possibly be. We're at a total loss!
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Aug 27, 2009 00:35
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I'm afraid to ask this, but my father and I have been working on rewiring my garage/barn. We replaced the fuse panel with an updated breaker panel and rewired from the main. That worked great. Right now there are 2 15amp breakers for lights, wired with romex 12/2 and 2 strings out outlets on 20amp breakers wired with romex 14/2. I have a funny feeling that I just wired 12 outlets with the wrong wire and will now not pass an inspection. Am I right?
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Sep 15, 2009 22:29
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Dragyn posted:I'm afraid to ask this, but my father and I have been working on rewiring my garage/barn.
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Sep 15, 2009 22:46
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