|
Can I ask a question about phone wiring? In the house I just moved into (renting) it looks like the telphone is coming in through some... thing that may very well be from the 40's. I'm getting awful DSL speeds and I'm guessing that may be the key, either the device itself or the way phone jacks are wired to it. I need to get a picture of it, but I don't even know where to begin searching for info on this. E: 
FISHMANPET fucked around with this message at 03:27 on Jan 13, 2015 |
#
¿
Jan 13, 2015 03:19
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 9, 2024 06:14 |
|
|
Centurylink us the telco. I went outside and the wire comes straight out of the house and up to the mass of wires that runs to the poles in the street, so now box as far as I can tell. I looked closely and saw 98-A on the box and Googled. It is lightning arrester, and the patent date on that model is 1938, so late 30s/40s is very probable. I was sold 40 down DSL and I get 5-8 so I'm thinking the first step might be to call support and act dumb and just say the connection is slow and see what they do. I'm betting if they run a signal test it will be poor.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 13, 2015 04:55
|
|
|
I'll have to get a ladder and a flashlight and see if I can get in there to put a run of cat5e in.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 13, 2015 05:13
|
|
|
Motronic posted:If you have to go that point.....but really this isn't your problem until it crosses the demarc. I mean running cat 5 off the arrester. There are 3 cables coming off right now and they're a pile of hot steaming garbage. Going clean from that device to my modem may just do the trick. Hopefully I can figure out how to wire the thing.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 13, 2015 05:51
|
|
|
So here's a better picture of what I'm working with: The Yellow and Green are wired into the left terminal, red into the right, and black wrapped back around the cable itself. So my plan would be to take some 4-pair Cat5e cable (becuase I'll be damned if I can find 2-pair in store) and wire up the blue and white-blue to the left and right jacks (according to this: http://www.wire-your-phones.com/) then wire it into one of these: http://www.homedepot.com/p/CE-TECH-Surface-Mount-Telephone-Jack-Light-Almond-468-4C-IV/203712667 on the other end. Do I need to do anything special with the 3 unused twisted pairs in the cable? I'm also guessing I'd want to leave as little of the pairs untwisted to the arrester.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 13, 2015 22:10
|
|
|
Ran a 4 pair Cat5 cable to the Lightning arrester, using the blue pair, and got a punch down jack on the other end. I doubled my speed to 20/10, but still not the 40/10 I'm supposed to be getting. Also I took the nuts on the terminals all the way off which was dumb because they were a bitch to get back on (had to basically pound the nut to get it to grip the teeth properly). I could try and attack the wires coming in from outside just to see if I can get any better speed out of the line.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 15, 2015 06:29
|
|
|
It's a silver metal, so iron or steel maybe? Not really sure what would have been used. If it was put in during WWII was there brass/copper rationing that would have had them use iron or steel or something else?
|
|
#
¿
Jan 15, 2015 18:39
|
|
|
OK, another question. There's a light switch that, if I put in my furniture, will be behind my ikea wardrobe. Is there some product I could use to relocate that switch against my wardrobe? The hillbilly way would be to splice in 2 feet of wiring to move the switch with another wall switch, just hillbilly mounted. Is there another way to do this with less of a fire hazard? It's close enough that a wire isn't a problem, but if there's a wireless solution that would work too.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 19, 2015 01:27
|
|
|
Motronic posted:By moving the switch properly? I'm not sure of the actual question. I don't actually want to move it on the wall, I want to attach it to a freestanding piece of furniture:  In an ideal world there'd be some kind of box I could replace the switch with, that would allow me to plug in an external switch. I could just grab a few feet of electrical wire, some wire conduit, and a box and bolt it to the side of my wardrobe, but that seems to be against all manner of sense and probably electrical code. Something wireless could work, if I could replace the switch with some kind of wireless receiver and then have a switch I could mount to the side of the wardrobe. The way I'm (trying to) arrange my furniture, there's no room on the wall for me to just move the switch to the side (and I wouldn't want to do that anyway as its a rental). Basically, I'm just looking for some way to remove the light switch from inside the wall and put it somewhere else freestanding. E: Something like this would certainly do what I need: http://www.homedepot.com/p/Heath-Zenith-Wireless-Add-On-Switch-BL-6133-LA/100654951 That's basically exactly what I need, though of it were wired it would be even better. But I understand there's probably few people in my exact situation where a remote switch would work but it could be hard wired in. FISHMANPET fucked around with this message at 08:48 on Jan 19, 2015 |
|
#
¿
Jan 19, 2015 08:43
|
|
|
I feel really stupid that I can't figure this out, so here goes. The porch in the house I'm renting has a single light socket. Connected to that light socket is one these that lets you plug in a 2 pronged outlet (sidenote: does this make my porch a deathtrap). Plugged into that are 2 strings of basically Christmas lights that line the porch. The lightbulb plugged into the adapter works when I turn on the light switch, and if I plug something in (I used my phone charger) at the end of the Christmas lights, it gets power. But the lights don't come on. They don't look old enough to be of the design where a single bad bulb shorts out the whole string (and if they were I wouldn't get power on the end, right?). I also highly doubt that out of a total of 4 strands of lights that literally every bulb is burnt out. Is there something else I'm missing?
|
|
#
¿
Mar 13, 2015 20:57
|
|
|
So what's mostly likely happening is that each string has at least one bad bulb? Since there are 4 total strings of lights and none of them are working.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 13, 2015 21:37
|
|
|
The light fixture in my dining room has a dimmer switch attached to it. It also has all the bulbs replaced with regular CFLs. Obviously this doesn't work and the lights just flicker instead of dim (and even with the dimmer all the way to max they still flicker sonetimes). So I'd like to remedy this in some way, either by putting dimmable CFLs (which I know are not super great) or just replace the dimmer with a regular switch. I'm just renting so I don't want to/can't go to the trouble of replacing the fixture and putting in a standalone dimming ballast and rewiring etc etc. So I guess the question is are dimmable CFLs worth the cost or should I just spend $1 on a new switch?
|
|
#
¿
Feb 1, 2016 18:43
|
|
|
I'm getting tired of my old gas mower, and thinking of getting an electric one. My yard isn't that big so I was thinking corded. And basically I've fallen down a rabbit hole of wire gauges and amperage. My house only has one "exterior" outlet, in the back porch, such that if I were to reach the front yard I'd probably need over 100 feet of extension cord. The mower I'm thinking of is 13 Amps. So my understanding is that the longer the distance, the thicker the extension cord has to be. But actually what matters is the wire gauge all the way to the breaker box. So first I'm curious what wire gauge would be "normal" for in house wiring, and if it'd be enough to theoretically run 150 feet (the outlet itself is very close to the panel so I'm not sure there's much distance there). And second I'm wondering how easy it would be to add a 20 Amp circuit and run a new outlet to the outside. The basement is open so I can run the wire, and there's a good spot on an exterior wall where I can put the outlet that makes it a much better location for lawn mower reaching. But if I run it myself I figure I can get really beefy wire and be safe as well. Is this the kind of thing a person could reasonably do themselves?
|
|
#
¿
Jul 3, 2017 18:28
|
|
|
The outlet in question is probably only 15 amp, so that's likely only going to be 14 gauge. Also, all electrical work in Minnesota requires an inspection as far as I can tell (is that normal everywhere?). And this is actually a house I'm renting, which actually means that technically all work has to be done by a licensed contractor. I was thinking of getting a corded mower because it was simple and cheap, but after digging some more, a battery mower is looking nice and nicer...
|
|
#
¿
Jul 3, 2017 18:56
|
|
|
I've actually used a reel mower in the past, I've got a tree that drops a ton of branches onto the grass and it's a huge pain to deal with those. Also I'm pretty lazy and never mowed often enough to keep the grass low, if it gets too tall the reel mower can't handle it.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 3, 2017 22:17
|
|
|
Is there any good software for mapping out the circuits in a house (to draw them I mean, I know I have to find everything myself). Or am I just better off with a pencil and graph paper and a ruler? I'm thinking I'd want to be able to draw out an (approximate) blueprint of the house, mark where each outlet/switch is, and be able to indicate which circuit that outlet/switch is on. And then possibly tie that into a "map" of the circuit breaker, so I could look at breaker #7 and see what outlets/switches are using that breaker. And then tie THAT into load calculations, as I want to get a feeling for the overall electrical load of the house (since I've only got 100 amp service and want to add some heavy electrical uses) but also maybe track individual per circuit to make sure I'm not overloading things/understand where I would need to add capacity.
|
|
#
¿
May 11, 2021 18:02
|
|
|
The adapter thing may or may not be a problem, but the 20 amp fuse in a 15 amp circuit is absolutely a problem. 10  out of 10.If the wire is only rated for 15 amps there's a huge fire risk because the fuse might not trip until it's too late. Fuse (or breaker) has to match the capacity of the wire.
|
|
#
¿
May 20, 2021 20:21
|
|
|
Can anyone explain this breaker to me? I get that it's AFCI, what I don't understand is why it's a double pole breaker for two circuits, with the only connection between the two being the bar that connects the two switches? FISHMANPET fucked around with this message at 04:03 on May 21, 2021 |
|
#
¿
May 21, 2021 03:59
|
|
|
Elviscat posted:It also appears to be a 15A feeding 12/3, including for a bathroom, which is... a choice. That's way thicker wire than is needed for just 15 amp, right? I spent time last night trying to map circuits to fixtures, and I discovered that in my 2 story 1288 sqft house, that breaker controls all the lights and outlets on the second floor (with the exception of the bathroom GFCI) plus most of the overhead lights on the main floor. Is it a thing for an electrician to come in and just do a deep dive on all the wiring and everything in the house? No changes, just discovery. Because I have no idea what's going on, and I've got older wiring (cloth wrapped) but maybe it's all super thick. There are way more 20 amp breakers in the panel than seem normal, not sure of that means thicker wire everywhere or dangerously overloaded breakers. And I'd like to get some advice on capacity of the system (amps and breaker spots) as I've got a 100 amp service panel with only 16 breaker spots and a desire to install some new circuits and electric appliances.
|
|
#
¿
May 21, 2021 13:14
|
|
|
Well, wouldn't you know, I do have a weird problem with that multi-wire circuit tripping when the microwave (on a different circuit) if I have a high load device (window AC in the summer, or a warm mist humidifier in the winter) running on the multi-wire circuit. I'm trying not to spiral with requirements and end up with a $10k electrical job, but there are some issues.
I figure it would make more sense to a sense of a general plan from an expert, rather than approach every little piece piecemeal. For example, if I hired someone to put in a 240v circuit for the AC, I'm sure they could find room in the breaker, and if I knew that I would eventually want some more 120V circuits they might put in a sub panel, but if they knew that in the future I would want an additional 240v circuit for an oven then maybe they'd just replace the whole panel.
|
|
#
¿
May 21, 2021 18:19
|
|
|
I can't be 100% sure but I know the house was upgraded to 100 amp service in 1965 (based on permit data and talking with the PO) sooooooo 1965? Isn't it possible to replace the panel without upgrading the service? From my rough calculations, 100 amp should be sufficient. So it's not that I have a supply problem, I just have a space problem. Everything I find about replacing a service panel talks about upgrading service, but surely you can just replace like-for-like, just plug the service wires into the new panel without needing to replace all that. But maybe the majority of the cost of a panel replacement is in rewiring the new panel, so it wouldn't cost much more to just upgrade the service while we're at it.
|
|
#
¿
May 21, 2021 20:50
|
|
|
What should I expect from an electrician when they're doing work that requires permits? I'm having someone come on Wednesday to look for Knob & Tube and I mentioned I also wanted to get some estimates on some other work and the person on the phone said they carry everything on the truck so they can do it right there. But most of it would be work that requires permits so it can't just happen right away that day, can it? If I did things myself I'd need to submit a plan, get it inspected at rough-in, and then get another inspection when I'm al done. Are licensed electricians able to bypass some of those steps?
|
|
#
¿
Jun 28, 2021 21:33
|
|
|
To be clear, they haven't come yet. I'm having them check for knob & tube before I get wall insulation installed. They come recommend by an org that does energy audits, so I'll start off assuming good intentions. Though if they want to pull new circuits and install some new GFCI outlets right on the spot I'll know they're full of crap. Maybe they just have a ton of calls for doing like for like replacements or other things that don't need permits that it makes sense to be ready to do the work on the spot. We'll see. I've got a good amount of work that will hopefully make it worth their time to want to do it properly.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 29, 2021 04:57
|
|
|
Not that it matters one way or the other at this point, but I'm pretty sure that when the PO upgraded the house from a 60 amp fuse box to a 100 amp circuit breaker in 1965 (yeah, it was in the family a while) they installed a subpanel in the detached garage by just... reusing the fuse box. And there's a 240V AC circuit out there (not actually in use) that's powered with one of the hots on a 30 amp fuse and the other on a 25 amp fuse. And then when they added onto the garage and needed a new circuit they just screwed onto a terminal of one of the fuses in the box. And all the fuses are 25 or 30 amp which I'm quite sure is too much for the receptacle. And then for some reason, there's a circuit in the house labelled "garage" that powers some entry lights in the back of the house, plus some lights in the garage, and those garage lights are controlled by 3-way switches, one in the garage and one in the back entry. None of it is really a problem because I'm going to replace the sub panel and rewire the whole thing. I'll power the garage lights off a circuit from the new subpanel, and leave the interior "garage" circuit for those backlights. Oh, but the connection to the service panel doesn't currently have a neutral, just two hots and a ground connection. So I'd better hope the underground conduit between the house and garage will let me pull a new wire through. Oh, yeah, and the 1965 service upgrade moved the service connection from the attic to the basement, and so they just ran a couple of wires up into the old service box to tie into the knob & tube wiring upstairs. And there are squirrels in the attic that have chewed up some of that knob & tube so I should REALLY get the whole house rewired (the first quote is $30k for a rewire and 200 amp service upgrade). At least that would take care of all my shared neutrals!
|
|
#
¿
Jul 4, 2021 03:36
|
|
|
sharkytm posted:Dishwashers, too. They all come with a plug now for exactly this reason. All the better to run an extension cord up from the basement and run the dishwasher off the dryer circuit (note: circuit is for a gas dryer so not sure why it needs a dedicated circuit)
|
|
#
¿
Jul 6, 2021 21:49
|
|
|
Gut check: if I pay an electrician to inspect my wiring and give me a quote for rewiring all the knob & tube, and they don't bother to look at how the new service ties into the k&t in the attic, and doesn't even take the cover off the main circuit panel to look inside, I probably shouldn't bother to hire them for the job, right?
|
|
#
¿
Jul 12, 2021 14:29
|
|
|
It was specifically a "knob & tube" inspection. I mean, on one hand they know it's there already. And you're right that the end goal is to get rid of it by rewiring, so I'm not sure how valuable it is to know how exactly it's wired if you're going to run new everything. But not looking in the panel seems kind of strange to me as well. I had another electrician here a few weeks ago that went looking for the knob & tube in the attic, found the old service, and put some electrical tape around the wires that had been chewed up so we didn't immediately die. He also opened up the panel and discovered that we have an awful lot of shared neutrals, and did give us a quote for rewiring the whole thing. The first guy did a lot of work to understand the house whereas the second one basically just counted receptacles and is gonna use that to give us a quote. I knew this second company would be cheaper (they won't repair the holes in the wall they make, for example) but I don't want to cheap out on the actual electrical work.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 12, 2021 14:49
|
|
|
The first electrician was brought in to "prove" that there was no knob & tube in the exterior walls before we got insulation installed, and it turns out we did have it in the exterior wall. He was able to figure out what to look for, and went into the attic to find the old service entrance for the knob & tube where it was tied into the 1965 service upgrade. It was a general electrical inspection that I paid for so he looked at all sorts of stuff. He opened up the panel and counted the hots and neutrals and figured I had a lot of shared neutrals (that weren't protected by shared neutral breakers). That company apparently has a guy that just does knob & tube rewires, and my inspector called him and they talked about the house and the "guy" said it would be about a 5-day job so my inspector did some calculations on his calculator and came out with $22k for the rewire. The second was just brought in for a quote on a knob & tube rewire, so he brought in a couple of guys and just looked at every outlet, took some notes, and said he'd get me an estimate by the end of the week. I paid more for the first inspection than I did for the 2nd quote (and I did pay the first electrician to do the minor fixes he did). I get a sense that the first one did a much better job "understanding" the wiring, though if you're just going to replace it all maybe that's not particularly useful. I don't have the second quote yet obviously, but I guess we'll see what the price difference is and how much I think that "understanding" is worth, vs just having someone pull wires. The first electrician was recommended to me by a non-profit that does energy audits and works with insulation contractors. The non-profit wanted to confirm the lack of knob & tube before their insulation contractor would come in. The second was a recommendation from a coworker who had the company do some work and they were significantly cheaper than other quotes. They don't do the drywall stuff, and maybe electricians normally do that, so that's why they're so reliably cheaper than others? They're a bigger firm, not just a guy with a truck, so I think I'd trust them to do the work well.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 13, 2021 05:01
|
|
|
Can anyone help me make sense of this ceiling fan wiring diagram from my Black & Decker Wiring book? I'm quite sure there's at least one mistake in it, but I'm not sure just how wrong it is. https://imgur.com/lJP5Vm0 Specifically the one at the bottom, with the switch at the end of the cable run. First of all, the white neutral from the power source doesn't connect to anything, not the fan, not the switches at the end, nothing. Whereas the diagram above has the neutral connecting to the fan. I know that's wrong. But then I don't understand why it's showing a 3-wire and 2-wire cable with neither cable using the neutral wire. Seems like you could run the hot wire from the power source through the black wire of the 3-wire cable, connect pigtail and connect it to each switch (like shown in the diagram) then use the white and red wires to come out of the switches and run to the fan (marking them to indicate they're hot). Then the neutral from the power source attaches to neutral on the fan, and boom it's all connected. That seems like a reasonable hybrid between the "fan at end of cable run" and "light fixture with switch at end of run" diagrams. FISHMANPET fucked around with this message at 20:20 on Jul 26, 2021 |
|
#
¿
Jul 26, 2021 20:14
|
|
|
We just had the house rewired and so all the lights/switches are 3 wire. We currently don't have any fans installed, just lights, but thinking about fans (the boxes should all be fan rated boxes but we'll double check when the time comes). I have an older wiring book and it shows wiring a switch at the end of a circuit with a "switch loop" with the black (hot) going from the fixture to the switch and then back from the switch to the fixture over the white neutral (with black tape to indicate the white is hot). The Black & Decker book (and the electricians as well) said it has to be 3-wire to the switches now, was there a code update that bans use of the white wire as hot? If that's the case, I'll have to look at how everything else is wired, (switch on end or fan on end) and possibly pull some 4-wire cable to the ones that are switch on end.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 26, 2021 21:31
|
|
|
Well this is about as far away from new construction as it gets, so not a concern there I guess. I see NEC 200.7 C (1) allows the white to be hot, as long as it's properly marked, and in a switch loop it has to be the supply to the switch. So remarked white would be hot to the switches, then black and red would go from the switches back to the fan. Since I'm a crazy person, any idea what part of the code talks about a neutral being required in each box for new construction? Mostly out of curiosity. And at least in the bedroom it would be pretty easy to run a new wire (I've got attic access) so maybe I'd do a 4-wire anyway.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 26, 2021 22:26
|
|
|
I think that's an indicator of how much of the cover you should strip off the wire to connect them to that switch.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 27, 2021 17:29
|
|
|
Does your house have a circuit breaker or a fuse panel? What are the wires wrapped in (is it some thick cloth/rubber-looking thing, or a much thinner rubber/plastic coating?)? What material is the box in the wall made of?
|
|
#
¿
Jul 30, 2021 15:53
|
|
|
Soooo, that's probably knob & tube. Which isn't inherently dangerous, but depending on a lot of factors it could be dangerous. Putting an outlet there may or may not increase the danger. It's probably something you might want to have investigated by an electrician, they can take a look at everything and figure out what your situation is. In my house, for example, the new circuit breaker was in the basement, but the original service entrance when the house was electrified in 1920 was in the attic, and so everything upstairs and all the lights on the main floor were still old knob & tube that basically spidered out from the attic, including 2 hot wires that squirrels had chewed through down to bare wire. Kind of tangential, but you might find out that things are basically "fine" and your house isn't a deathtrap likely to burn down at any moment, but either way you might learn that you'd have a lot more peace of mind if you ran a new circuit for a GFCI outlet rather than tapping into existing circuits.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 30, 2021 19:32
|
|
|
I think we're all missing the lede, which is that the tub is plugged into that outlet, which means the power cord is being run through the wall, which is also a big-nono. And if the justification was to GFCI protect that circuit... well that's not even a GFCI outlet.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 4, 2021 20:28
|
|
|
Yeah I think you're right, I didn't realize this was a thing since I've never seen it strolling through the electrical aisles at Home Depot or Menards, but Blank Face GFCI is real.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 4, 2021 20:42
|
|
|
Extra deep old work boxes were a mistake 
|
|
#
¿
Aug 4, 2021 20:48
|
|
|
An idle thought I keep having, with now even lights containing circuits that drop the voltage, how much stuff is left in homes that's actually using 120v vs some kind of low voltage. Every house is full of a million devices that are converting 120v AC into low voltage DC. Could we ever reach a point where houses and plugs are primarily some lower voltage standard, with a few standard 120v AC outlets for things like vacuums and kitchen appliances?
|
|
#
¿
Aug 9, 2021 17:17
|
|
|
Yeah, and taking into account that different electronics need specifically different voltages (5v vs 12v vs whatever) and at this point those little tiny transformers to convert high voltage AC to low voltage DC are pretty cheap, there wouldn't be any kind of big efficiency gain that would outweigh the enormous amount of intertia around 120v AC. It seems like it is happening a little, like with some lighting systems for under cabinets, where you've got a single powered driver that runs low voltage to all the lights in the system. E: Just idle thoughts I had while looking at my two LED retrofit can lights, where 120v AC runs to one, which contains an LED driver/transformer, then more feet of 120v AC to the second one, which then drives a second LED driver/transformer. Could probably get away with just a single driver/transformer, but the complexity for future me in dealing with a non-standard configuration would be an enormous pain. FISHMANPET fucked around with this message at 17:32 on Aug 9, 2021 |
|
#
¿
Aug 9, 2021 17:30
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 9, 2024 06:14 |
|
|
Rhyno posted:Here's a top down Is this taking advantage of the fact that when you don't snap off the tab, the top and bottom terminals are connected, as the way to do the daisy-chaining?
|
|
#
¿
Aug 10, 2021 19:18
|
|
