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 Mod edit: corgski posted:From this point forward, if anyone who has professional experience with this field sees something dangerous being suggested hit report and it'll be at minimum a six, possibly more if it's something really egregious or a repeated issue. End mod edit I've seen a bunch of simple-to-complex home wiring posts pop up in different places. These things will be asked again, so why not make a thread for them? If you have a question about how to wire a receptacle, switch, dimmer, lamp, ceiling fan, garage door opener, etc., post it here. I'll put up some basic stuff sometime soon. I'm a professional electrician with the code book on my desk, and I know there are at least a couple of other people with the code book handy, so we won't steer you wrong. Basic information: In wiring, white is neutral, green is ground, any other color is hot. On a receptacle, the long terminal is neutral, the short one is hot. If you're looking at a device (switch, receptacle, etc) then the brass screw gets a hot wire, the white screw gets a neutral and the green screw gets a ground. If there are two brass screws, either or both could be hot. If there's a black screw, then it may also be hot. In a lamp socket, the screw shell must be connected to the neutral conductor. If no ground conductor is included in the lamp cord, then any metal parts of the lamp must also be connected to the neutral. This is why polarized plugs are important. If the lamp is wired properly and your plug or receptacle is not, then all metallic parts of your lamp are hot. It's this way with anything that has a two-prong plug; if your plug is messed up, then the metal parts of the whatever may have voltage on them. Cable numbering! If you see a number like 12/2 or 6/3, then that's the number of "normally current-carrying conductors" in the cable, one of which is the neutral. So, if you cut open a 12/2, you will see a white, a black, and bare copper?! What? Yes, cables today also have a ground, but it's typically not specified in the numbering. So your cable is really a 12/2 w/ground. Sometimes you can get 12/2 w/ insulated ground, in which case you have black, white, and green. x/2 has black and white. x/3 has black, white, and red. x/4 has black, white, red, and blue. All of these include a ground, typically. Type NM is usually bare, but other types the ground is green. There are also new strange cable types, like 2-12/2. That's a black, a red, a white, a white with a red stripe, and a green. It's for the new code requiring separate neutrals for each circuit. If you want to convert old 2-prong outlets to 3-prong without running new wire, install a GFCI. It won't be grounded, but it will prevent lethal shocks. The GFCI you buy will have the stickers you need, "GFCI PROTECTED" and "UNGROUNDED." Don't use cheater plugs. kid sinister wrote a 3 prong upgrade post that should clear up any confusion. If you don't think grounding is important, check this post from movax about why grounds are good and electricity doesn't care about your fleshy saltwater sack. If you're trying to figure out what circuit something is on, plug a radio into that circuit. Turn it up loud enough that you can hear it from your panel. Turn off breakers. When the radio stops making noise, you've likely found the correct circuit. If doing a large place or somewhere where it's unwise to shut stuff off at random, I use a circuit finder from Harbor Freight. It's not perfect, but it's good enough for $20 (frequently on sale for $10). It will usually get you within a couple of breakers, or at least on the right phase. How to install a cut-in box:
The 2017 NEC This is "the code book" everyone talks about when saying something is "up to code." Archive.org lost the NEC codebook, but the NFPA has it available on their site. You do have to register an account to view it though, plus you can't print it. The NFPA sends you junk mail ALL THE TIME, so register with a throwaway email address. Thanks to kid sinister for the link, and for reminding me that it's been ANOTHER three years on this thread. Oh look ANOTHER THREE YEARS! Somebody fucked around with this message at 23:48 on Jul 9, 2022 |
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Mar 4, 2009 05:57
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moana posted:I'd like to know about replacing outlets - we're buying a house with old outlets that are apparently out of date and sagging, so we need to replace them with new GFCI ones. I've found a couple of tutorials (like http://www.easy2diy.com/cm/easy/diy_ht_index.asp?page_id=35720244) that say we should have a circuit tester to make sure power is off, power works after fixing, etc. How crucial is that? Can't we just plug something in to see if the power is turned off? If a wire is loose then something plugged in won't work, but the power will be on. By ensuring the right breaker is off, you can feel relatively safe, but a tester is so cheap and so worth not setting something on fire or stopping your heart that it's worth it. grumpy posted:I currently have a wall oven and a cooktop. Each has its own 30 amp breaker in the main breaker panel. I am considering replacing both with a free standing range. The ones I have looked at require a 50 amp circuit. Yes. You're going to need 50A wiring, which is #6 AWG copper. The new wire will need (probably) 2 hots, a neutral, and a ground.
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Mar 4, 2009 13:37
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Lucid Smog posted:<wall-o-text> 1: Installing a ground rod is easy and simple and shouldn't require any permits. Just buy the rod, drive it, and run #6 solid copper to the ground bar on your panel. Make sure the ground bar and neutral bar are bonded. While you've got the #6 solid, run a piece (preferably the same piece without breaks) over to a cold water ground clamp on your cold water pipe. As for that last part: pictures.
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Mar 31, 2009 12:29
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Local Yokel posted:I replaced a few switches today. I've got three switches in one place (three-gang?) and replaced all three. Well, the drywall is pretty ugly around the hole, and some genius removed too much of it. This makes getting the switches lined up and at the proper angle difficult, because one of them wants to tighten down half a centimeter too deep and at an angle. The other switches tighten against the drywall, as the box is inset a little. What do I do to get that third switch to look right? If it is a triple-gang box, then if two of your switches tighten up, just put the cover plate on and tighten the third switch against that. The other two will make the third one line up. If you've already done this and SOMEONE ELSE can tell it's messed up, then go back and look at it. Trust me, you will forever know what's behind that plate, but you're the only one in the world that can tell the difference.
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Apr 8, 2009 12:27
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The reason for switch prices is supply and demand. A typical house has 100 single-pole switches (a case), 10 3-ways (a box) and 1 4-way (1). They all cost about the same to make, but they make two orders of magnitude more single-pole switches, so the cost comes down. If you want to control something from one point, you need a single pole. Two points is 2 3-ways. N points is 2 3-ways and N-2 4-ways. Single-pole switches are wired with 2-conductor cable (12/2 or 14/2). Note that there's a ground in the cable, so there are actually three wires in it, but it's still 2-conductor cable. Everything else is with 3-conductor cable (12/3 or 14/3). Take a lesson from what you're doing now and always run 12/3 from one of your switches to any ceiling lighting box where someone at some point may conceivably want to have a light and a ceiling fan on separate switches. You can always leave the unused wire unconnected.
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Apr 12, 2009 15:59
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Ok, first things first: conduit underground. It's against code to put romex in conduit underground. Romex cannot be used in wet locations, and that's what underground counts as (even in conduit). So you're going to be using UF (underground feeder) wire anyway, which is rated for direct burial. If you can pull the old stuff out, use it to pull in some cable with more conductors. If there's 12/2 in there now, pull in 12/4. If it's 10/2 or 8/2, pull in 10/3 or 8/3. Next: I had a 60A 240V tankless water heater for the whole house (1200sqft) and it worked fabulously. It would throttle power, take water as hot as 88F, and run all day. It was truly wonderful. If I had to do it on a much larger house, I'd go one of two ways: if there were hot-water floor heat, I'd use a tank heater and a recirculating pump; if not, then a 30A 240V on-demand heater mounted under each sink and a 40A 240V on-demand in the shower(s). That's a lot of wiring, but it's small and reasonably cheap, and you only have half as many water lines. Upgrading services: ask your power company. Services only come in in 200A, and getting a new one is pretty pricey. It is something you can do, since any half-trained monkey can do residential electric, but it is way more complicated and the service entrance, meter bases, panels, and grounding should probably be done professionally. Once the panels are up, the rest you can do. Finally, circuiting. When I rewired my house, I read the code book. It said: bathrooms on their own dedicated GFI circuit, two general kitchen appliance circuits with nothing else (no lights, etc) and bedrooms on AFCIs. So that's what I did. I ran two cirucits to the plugs in the kitchen, one circuit to the bathroom, then one circuit to each room in the house. That way, it was easy to turn off "master bedroom" or "living room." Until a room gets really big (10 outlets plus a bunch of lights) a single 20A should do you fine. If you've got space in the panel go for it. Fridges, disposals, and microwaves are commonly getting dedicated circuits, as are A/C units. Ovens must have a dedicated circuit. That, with the two kitchens, the bathrooms, and the bedrooms on AFCIs, adds up to a lot of circuits really quickly; more quickly with one circuit (two-pole!) per dedicated on-demand water heater.
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Apr 15, 2009 12:42
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Slugworth posted:Own a home in a Chicago suburb (Berwyn). Looking for some guidance on code. If you're running conduit the whole way (and in Chicago, I'm 99% sure you are) then you can use normal wire (THHN, etc). You're going to need #6 for a 60A subpanel. 3 #6 and 1 #10 ground requires 3/4" conduit minimum, with 1" probably being an easier pull. As long as you have the ditch in the ground, put another 1" pipe in there just in case you want some phone lines or something.
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Apr 20, 2009 05:13
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The wikipedia page on "electricity distribution" has a much better picture than the one I was about to draw. In general, there's 3-phase power coming into a neighborhood substation, usually at a reasonably high voltage (15-38kVAC, 60Hz). It's stepped down with banks of transformers connected delta-delta to around 4160V. One phase goes to each residential street, where small (75kVA) transformers step the voltage down to 120/240 single phase. If there's industrial/commercial applications, then two or three of the phases are sent down the poles. 3-phase power to small commercial buildings (a bank, etc) is typically supplied from the street by 3 transformers, one of which is center-tapped, so there's 3-phase 240V with two 120V legs off of one of the delta legs. Larger commercial areas get 3 phase power connected in a delta-wye to have 277/480 power for the "high voltage" applications, like lighting and air conditioning. Most commercial lights are run at 277V. Air handlers, recirculating pumps, and the like are usually 3-phase 480. Transformers in the building change the 480 into 120/208 with another delta-wye transformer. Delta-wye is also known as delta-star.
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Apr 27, 2009 12:28
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Lucid Smog posted:edit: I have a question about wiring in a U.S. home. I have a 10/3 NM, 12/2 NM, and 12/2 MC cable. I have an unfinished basement with a cinderblock foundation. I want to put some outlets on the walls. I plan to run a 4"x1"x4' board from the ceiling joists where the NM wiring is run down the cinderblock wall and fasten it with masonry screws. Then I want to mount a handy box to said piece of wood and run a cable to it. Can I just run MC cable and secure it properly, or does it have to be in EMT or Schedule 80 PVC up to the joists? Can I run MC cable EMT/PVC (I have more of this than 12/2 NM). I am guessing I cannot just staple NM to the wood as that is pretty exposed. You can run NM exposed if you want, but you can't staple it to the bottoms of the joists. If you don't want to drill holes in your joists you can run it in EMT which would be strapped to the joists. NM cable must be secured within 12" of any box and within every 4.5 feet thereafter. Run between holes in joists counts as supported. You're going to be doing almost exactly the same thing with MC anyway. It has to be protected exactly like NM, or run exposed. The whole point of putting it deep in holes is so sheetrock screws don't hit it when sheetrock goes up. If you're not going to finish the basement, go ahead and run it exposed down the walls and at least 1.5" above the face of the joist if run parallel or through holes at least 1.5" away from the edge if run perpendicular. You can also put notches in the joists and put a "nail plate" over the notch, but I don't know of anyone that really likes notching joists.
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Apr 28, 2009 02:09
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Fire Storm posted:God, I think they also wired my basement. You're talking about running a separate service. What's the rating on your house panel? The power company will be happy to do anything they can charge you for, so they'll say yes. You can probably get a 200A service there at your garage for your house and garage combined. Meter base into a 100A/200A circuit breaker enclosure, one of which goes to your house, the other into your garage. This will probably require the services of a professional to come out and put eyes on the place and tell you what you can or can't do.
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Apr 28, 2009 05:21
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Fire Storm posted:Yeah, a separate service. It just seems cheaper/easier than running from my house out to the garage (deep lot and the garage is not close to the house). Draw a picture of your lot, including your current service drop, and I can probably come up with something.
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Apr 28, 2009 12:19
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Lucid Smog posted:How can I trace circuits without having them be live? Circuit tracer. They sell them pretty much anywhere you can buy electrical tools. They can be a little tricky to use, but are well worth it even if you only use it once to map out your whole house. While you're at it, get a 2-prong plug to socket base converter (looks like a light bulb base with an outlet in it). That way, you can plug the tracer into your lights to trace them as well. Lights and outlets may be on radically different and nonlogical circuits.
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May 4, 2009 16:31
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chryst posted:These seem to trace from an outlet to the breaker. Is there something like this that'll trace the wires inside the walls, so I don't have to tear out drywall to figure out where each branch ends up going when I want to run a new 3-conductor wire? Short answer is: not cheaply. Your eyes and common sense are the best bet. If two outlets are on the same wall, the cable probably doesn't go into the attic to get between them. Just abandon the cable in the wall; it's not going to hurt anything. It's secured to the framing anyway, so you probably won't be able to use it to pull new wire in.
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May 4, 2009 19:20
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Lucid Smog posted:The Amprobe ECB50A appears to serve this function. It was on the Grainger website too, but the site I linked is cheaper and has links for the instruction manual and datasheet. I'm not going to say it won't work, but I'm inclined to believe your suspicions that it won't work on that cable, which is probably BX. The tester like that (I think it was a Greenlee) didn't work if the cable passed through a metal stud. It would find the cable until it went through the stud, then locate the whole stud with nothing past that. The transmitter says 8-10kHz; it may sufficiently energize cable armor to work fine. For $70, you have a really good circuit tracer if nothing else.
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May 5, 2009 01:42
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Atrus posted:How possible/smart/stupid is it to convert a ceiling light figure to a plug-in? NEC 400.8: Flexible Cords and cables: Uses Not permitted (1) As a substitute or the fixed wiring of a structure. (4) Where attached to building surfaces. So, no. Your only way is to figure out how to get wire from the switch on your wall to your ceiling or to use a floor lamp plugged into a switched outlet on the wall (which is OK by code [210.70(A)(1)]) babyeatingpsychopath fucked around with this message at 09:00 on May 25, 2009 |
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May 25, 2009 08:43
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fast5c posted:I tried reading through the thread for a quick answer but I just got a headache doing it. I'm definitely not an electrician! If the switch is wired properly, then white goes to black, red goes to black, black and red gets a wire nut, and green goes to green. If it doesn't work, swap the white and black house wires [white to red, black to black]. Whatever you do, put black tape around that white wire. It may be your hot wire coming in, and should be marked.
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May 29, 2009 01:25
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fishhooked posted:The chimney runs to the attic so it is sealed off. The vertical run would be 30' or so (2 floors) The code says NM may be run unsupported when fished between access spaces and supporting is impractical. So, you're good. I'd put a j-box at the top and bottom so there are cable clamps as close as possible to the run. If you don't run anything else in the chimney, you could even claim it as a "raceway" and NM in raceways doesn't need support. Lucid Smog posted:I know that I need 40% fill for 12/2 NM cable. How big of a hole do I have to drill through my joists for it? Is 3/4" sufficient? 3/4" is fine for 1 or 2 NM. The reasoning, as I've heard it, is that you may finish the basement, so to avoid having to explain to the drywallers not to screw everything up (which they'll do anyway), you just can't run wire on the bottoms unless its 3 #8s or bigger (2 #6s). It's a 2005 code change, so fairly recent. You see older houses with all the wire stapled in the basement ceiling frequently.
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May 29, 2009 01:30
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Aturaten posted:So, I'm on knob and tube wiring. I've attached a picture of what looks to be our deathtrap of a breaker box. Is it feasible for someone with little wiring experience to re-wire his house (after researching how, of course), or should I just contract out? If so, could someone give me a very estimate cost for a 1940s, 4 bedroom, 2 bath house? (not sure about the exact sq footage). I maintain that any idiot can do residential wiring based on the idiots I see with contractor's licenses doing residential wiring. That said, be very careful, get your permits, and get the power company to pull your meter out before you start and very little can go wrong. Not knowing anything about the house, a ballpark estimate for a whole-house rewire in a place like that is probably on the order of 7-10 grand. It is a whole lot of work. You can probably do it yourself in a 3-day weekend for less than 2000 in tools and material.
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May 29, 2009 18:08
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RedReverend posted:Whoops wrong one. This is the correct way to wire it. I suspect red goes to the light and black goes to the fan. Black from the bottom to black on the switch. Black on the switch to red. Black on the bottom to black on the top. See if that works.
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Jun 3, 2009 02:19
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Ahz posted:Any tips or things to look out for on this kitchen pot light to socket change? Cut a 4" square hole in the cabinet top and use a box extension ring to make your devices mount flush with the top of the cabinet, then just use a normal faceplate. Each receptacle should have three wires coming off of it and all the wires get connected together in the box. No daisy chains, please. It makes things so very annoying when they eventually fail. Since you're going to have a full 4" square box with extension ring, there's no reason not to have 8" of wire on each receptacle. As long as it all mashes into the box, you're fine; it is also especially annoying to have to replace a failed device and have BARELY enough wire left over to pull the thing forward enough to get to the screws. Code says 6" of wire from the entry point or 3" past the front of the box, whichever is more; our local code says 6" past the front of the box, which is good. Make sure to ground the box if you're using a metallic box (probably not).
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Jun 27, 2009 03:58
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Dexter_Sinister posted:I'm having trouble with an outside pole-mounted light fixture on a circuit with an outside GFCI plug. Your conduit and splice box are full of water. Underground conduit always gets full of water. Dig up the junction box, install some direct burial splices, rebury the box. You could also dig up the box, drain and dry it, fill all conduit entries with approved potting compound (RTV, silicone, etc), then close it back up. Ideally, you'd dig up the box, repair the pipe, and repull the wire to have a continuous run. Insulation doesn't care AT ALL about water, but splices do.
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Jun 27, 2009 04:01
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GreenTrench posted:YAs grover said, you cannot feed a 70A subpanel with a 100A breaker. I'd recommend this instead. Type QO breakers are incredibly common. When you go to home depot, don't get the Square-D homeline; they're crappily made. The QO or Siemens panels are much better for only marginally more.
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Jul 15, 2009 11:56
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bgack posted:I have an old bathroom that I'm going to replace the vanity (which also doubles as the light for the room and has the only outlet), add a GFCI outlet in the wall and a light fixture above the mirror. I'd also like to add a ceiling fan (currently there isn't one). The house is a ranch, so I have access to the attic above the bathroom, and should be able to find a place for the exhaust vent pretty easily. I don't know about permits in your locale; usually they have a minimum dollar amount before a permit is required, but you can get one for any project if you'd like the piece of mind that comes from having an inspector look at it and say "you did a really good job." If you're pulling new wire up to the fan, you might as well go all the way and pull new wire to your outlet/vanity and have an outlet that's always on. Some GFCIs can get finicky about their power going on and off. Depending on what breaker is in your panel, get a 50' roll of 12/3 or 14/3. 12/3 if you have a 20 amp breaker, 14/3 if there's a 15 amp. 12/3 has four conductors in it: Black, Red, White, and bare for ground. Get two switches; a "3-way" almost certainly isn't what you want here. After turning off the appropriate breaker, connect the black wire from the panel to the top screw of each switch. Run cable from one switch to the fan; connect the red wire in that to the bottom screw of a switch; white to white, bare to bare. In the fan, white to white, bare to bare/green, red to whatever's left. Note that the black wire is unused, trim it flush with the cable jacket inside your switch box and fan. Going to the vanity, black goes to black, red goes to the bottom screw of the other switch, white to white, bare to bare. In the vanity, red goes to the light, black goes to the black from your outlet cable, white to white, bare to bare/green. The red wire in the cable from the vanity to the outlet is unused, so trim it flush with the jacket. Most electricians will have 12/2 and 12/3 for a run like this, but buying two 25' rolls (one of 12/2 and one of 12/3) is probably going to be more expensive than one 50' roll of 12/3. Inside your attic, any wires that cross joists must go through holes bored at least 1 1/4" away from the top of the joist. Most people use a 7/8" hole for a couple runs of Romex; anything in the 3/4 to 1" range should be fine (depending on what you have).
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Jul 24, 2009 02:00
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bgack posted:thanks bep, this is helpful info. I'm not sure I follow the 'as long as you are pulling wire up to the fan' with wiring the outlet to always be on. I guess I will see how it's wired when I demo the old vanity, but I think the only wire running to the old vanity is coming from the switch. So I'd have to run a separate hot wire down (or up?) to the new outlet. I didn't know GFCI outlets could be finicky with on/off power but obviously I'd rather have it be on all the time. In ranch-style houses, almost everything is run through the walls. If there's not an existing exhaust fan, you're going to have to pull wire to it to get it to work. Since you're already in the attic with a spool of wire, it doesn't make any sense NOT to do the project as you want it, instead of having to compromise JUST to use somebody else's questionable wiring. Just leave the wire abandoned in the wall; it'll be fine there as long as it's not hooked up on either end.
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Jul 24, 2009 17:06
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IsaacNewton posted:Hello, me again with questions regarding wiring up my garage. (still) If there are still available knockouts on the bottom, it should be fine to punch another one out and feed a wire in from the bottom. The "metal part protecting the naughty bits" is called the deadfront, because if you remove it and touch something, you're dead. US Code says you have to have that installed, Canadian code probably does as well.
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Jul 28, 2009 01:10
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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: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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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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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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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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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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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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Tindjin posted:I'm getting back into welding and decided to go with a 240v setup instead of a 120v so I have a wider range of useability. According to code, if you have a 50A cord and cord cap assembly (plug) and you plug it into that 50A receptacle, you're golden. It may mean upgrading the cord to your welder. Realistically, most people would put a 50A plug on their welder and be just happy to weld away forever, but know that if your welder starts to die, the breaker won't blow until the welder is pulling nearly twice its rated current. Replacing the breaker and receptacle with a 30A would also be fine.
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Sep 21, 2009 06:52
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Dragyn posted:You know, I can't find this stuff anywhere, and I live 5 minutes from both Home Depot and Lowes. You made the head too big. Sucks to be you. You can try to have someone at the other end feed the wire in; you'd be surprised how that little effort on the other end will help you. That pulling lube would also have helped. They put it in different places, most times it's in an endcap or on some random shelf somewhere. Ask around; the employees may know.
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Oct 20, 2009 16:44
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RedReverend posted:Have you thought about maybe putting a subpanel on your second floor somewhere? It might save you money, running the #6 up there instead of 4 homeruns. I plan on putting it on a wall in my hallway and hanging a picture over it so nobody has to see it. I'm not so sure about this. The discount you get on buying a 1000' spool of 12/2 romex probably outweighs the cost of the subpanel and #6. And don't bother running 14/2 anywhere. Just get the 1000' of 12/2 and use that for everything. You can connect it to 15A breakers if you've got 15A only outlets, then if you (or anyone who ever lives in that house) wants to upgrade to 20A outlets, you're set. Material isn't the biggest cost in this project: it's time. Spend the few extra bucks and make it overbuilt, since you're saving THOUSANDS of dollars by doing it yourself. Also, panels must be "readily accessible. Capable of being reached quickly... without requiring those to whom access is requisite to... remove obstacles...." So no pictures over your breaker panel. Also, no panels in bathrooms or over stairs. You have to wonder why there are specific rules not to put a panel in a bathroom, don't you?
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Oct 21, 2009 06:07
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dyne posted:So supporting the wire on a 2 story vertical run is not necessary if it's through conduit? Can the conduit just be secured in the attic or basement? Type NM cable (romex) is permitted to be unsupported where the cable is fished between access points through concealed spaces in finished buildings or structures and supporting is impracticable. So, 2 stories vertical is fine. Just remember to support it: within 12" of every box, and every 4.5ft thereafter, using staples, cable ties, straps, hangers, etc.
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Oct 21, 2009 06:12
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Slugworth posted:Upon trying to replace the wall sconce in my bathroom, I found that there wasn't a box in the wall, the old fixture was just screwed into the drywall. With the light I'm replacing it with, this isn't an option. There's a small hole in the drywall to accomodate the bx line, and there are no studs upon which I could mount a box (At least, not while maintaining a center on my mirror). Most of the metal cut-in boxes I've dealt with are modular. You can unscrew one side plate on two single-gang boxes and they just stack and screw together to make a double-gang. I think these are called "gangable" boxes. The side plates may have anchor wings or you may be using f-wings.
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Oct 28, 2009 01:13
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EssOEss posted:How do I open this box? Do I need to take the handle off somehow? It's an interlock to prevent you from opening the box while energized. You can either figure out how to bypass the interlock (there's usually a small screw somewhere you can unscrew) or you can turn the breaker off, open the box, look inside, close the box, then turn the breaker back on. Standard warnings apply, with the addition of the new warning about there being enough energy available to set all your clothes on fire instantly should something go wrong, and possibly enough energy available to explode several hundred grams of copper into molten spheres traveling just subsonic right into your face.
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Nov 3, 2009 14:24
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slap me silly posted:I've got another question. The existing wire running to my bathroom fan is too short to reach the connection point on the new unit. I bought some more NM and a junction box, but I'm not sure how to set it all up. How am I allowed to install this junction box? There's about 16 inches of blow-in insulation that will cover everything up when I'm done. If I just nail the box to a joist, it'll be buried. Run a new wire. Installing a new, hidden j-box is just asking for someone else to get really pissed off that you cheaped out on 16" of wire.
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Nov 21, 2009 13:09
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Desi posted:My biggest catch here is that I must be able to do it myself because I really don't want to have to pay someone to come set up this system when I am confident I can do it myself. I've found a few systems online that are only sold to and by authorized dealers who must install them. So, basically, what I'm looking for are recommendations as to systems that I should use. Go to Lowes. Go back to the electrical section. Pick up the "Leviton Home Automation" booklet. Read that. Make sure everything you want to do is in there. I've used some of their stuff, and it's very simple. They claim that stacking more components on it to make a whole-house automated lighting solution is just as simple as one bank of dimmers with an RF remote.
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Dec 7, 2009 14:23
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