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Own a home in a Chicago suburb (Berwyn). Looking for some guidance on code. My detached garage is currently fed by 14g wire on a 15 amp breaker through a 1/2" conduit. My plan is to setup a sub-panel in the garage so that I can run some fairly power-needy welding equipment. I want the sub-panel to be a 60 amp service at 220v. Essentially, I'm wondering two things. What gauge wire do I need to run from my house panel to the garage, and is the 1/2" conduit going to be up to code, or do I need to dig it up and use a larger diameter conduit? I would love to avoid digging up my yard, obviously.
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Apr 20, 2009 04:34
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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). Does a metal 2 gang old work/rehab box exist? I've seen single gang metal ones, and up to 4 gang plastic ones, but that's it. Slugworth fucked around with this message at 19:46 on Oct 27, 2009 |
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Oct 27, 2009 19:34
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insanity74 posted:Are you saying that you plan to use a ganged switch box to support a light?
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Oct 28, 2009 23:06
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BeastOfExmoor posted:I could only come up with about 11 amps of power usage (1000w Microwave, 300w Plasma TV, some CFL lights), but I can also imagine that perhaps the breaker is a bit sensitive (confirm or deny, they become more sensitive as they're tripped?
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Feb 23, 2010 23:01
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I got curious and started googling, and found a lot of sites that seem to agree with me, but use a lot of terminology that is over my head. http://www.rd.com/18099/article18099.html "As you add up the electrical loads, keep in mind that a wire rated at 15 amps can carry 15 amps all day long. However, 15-amp breakers and fuses can only carry 12 amps—80 percent of their rating—on a continuous basis. Continuous basis is considered to be a circuit loaded to capacity for three hours or more. This 80 percent rule applies to all breakers and fuses." Again, I might be missing something obvious here. Anyone care to shed some light?
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Feb 24, 2010 04:13
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PBCrunch posted:I bought a ceiling fan for the spare bedroom in my house. The existing lighting fixture is a plain old light. http://www.westinghouselighting.com/pdf/pdf_decelec07/SafTPan.pdf I took off all the nuts holding the original pan inside the fixture box, popped the new one on, and the fans mounted perfectly afterwards. It's a moot point however, if the fixture box really isn't mounted to a stud. Do you have access to the attic/crawlspace above the room?
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Apr 10, 2010 19:22
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kid sinister posted:In other words, it has a feature that every GFCI receptacle has built in already.
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Apr 14, 2010 03:30
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Not a question, just a complaint that could really only be posted here. I had to do demo yesterday in a house where instead of running romex or conduit through the joists, they just ran 14ga wire in the gaps between sheets of drywall, then mudded over it. How in the name of christ can someone who is capable of wiring up a basement be that absolutely retarded? So, I guess there was a question after all.
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Aug 22, 2010 14:55
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The power company installed a new pole behind my garage with three huge.... things on it, which look nothing like transformers. My neighbor says the crew told him they were generators and would aid in our power getting restored quickly during outages. My question is, does the term generator have a different meaning in this context? I am assuming these are not gas powered generators, but.... maybe? Also, there is a braided copper line running down the pole which I assume is the ground. It was recently hacked apart by a scrapper, and the power company won't respond to calls I have made to get it fixed. This is a fairly serious issue worth correcting, no?
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Sep 19, 2013 17:40
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http://imgur.com/kKihQRc Linked for size.
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Sep 19, 2013 22:36
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I am beginning to wonder if my neighbor was perhaps drinking when he spoke to the crew. I was really hoping I had some magic boxes that would get my power back up quickly in case of emergency. Ah well.
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Sep 19, 2013 23:31
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Bobulus posted:Here's something to make the thread laugh/cry:
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Sep 23, 2013 00:56
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I installed a gangable box at my parents' and when I went to install an outlet in it, the conduit locking nut blocks the outlet from fitting in. The placement of the knockouts is such that they will all have the same issue, and I can't find a thinner outlet. I have accepted that I will need to replace the box, but.. why does this box exist? Purely out of curiosity, what would be the intended purpose of a box so shallow that the thinnest outlet won't fit in? Are they intended to be junction boxes only? Or is the fact that I am using conduit the issue? Would Romex fix the problem? (I am in the Chicagoland area - Romex is an urban legend here)
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Jan 12, 2014 16:13
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kid sinister posted:Did you still need help? It sounds like you're using a switch box for a receptacle. With conduit fittings poking inside, those things will barely have enough room for a switch. I would recommend trying a deeper box, if the wall and conduits allow it. That way, the fittings would be mounted back far enough to cram an outlet in.
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Jan 24, 2014 17:47
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I am gonna be installing a 40 amp, 220 circuit soon for a friend's new oven/microwave combo (which is apparently a thing). I have done a fair bit of 110 work, but never 220. I am assuming it'll be a 4 wire setup, two to the breaker, one to the neutral bar, and one to ground. Anything fundamental that I am missing? 8 gauge wire for a short (probably less than 20 feet) run? Proper double breaker as well.
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Feb 19, 2014 20:55
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I read that if a 220 device is not within sight of the panel you need a disconnect (which an outlet would count as) - Is that accurate, in case I end up hard wiring it?
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Feb 20, 2014 00:15
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kid sinister posted:So if your panel door locks shut, you don't need a disconnect. If it doesn't but you install a tiny hasp with padlock on it, you don't need a disconnect. If you have a utility closet and can lock it shut, you don't need a disconnect.
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Feb 20, 2014 01:52
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I went to help a friend with some electric while he is remodeling his kitchen, and, well, his electric is hosed. Every circuit controls stuff spread all over the house for one. The most hosed however, is one box in his kitchen soffit. It was an outlet, but was also serving as a junction. Very crowded box, connected to four runs of conduit. One run was a foot long bit of abandoned flex with a neutral and a hot. Both wires were showing as hot with my simple little voltage detector (not meter). I disconnected the neutral from the big bundle of neutrals - At this point we are discussing a foot length of wire inside flex, not attached to anything at either side - Voltage detector is saying it is hot. I disconnect the hot wire, and thankfully the laws of physics kick back in and both lines go dead. I am assuming somewhere in the flex, both wires were bare? I continue taking the box apart, and ultimately find that two of the five black wires nutted together are hot. Both of them, as it turns out, are hot unless 3 separate breakers are turned off simultaneously. All 3 breakers are on the same side of the panel, but not next to each other if that matters. I did what I could (relocated the box so he could remove the soffit, put it all back how it was, minus having one of the mystery hots now capped by itself, abandoned in the box) and told him to hire an electrician. I don't think he is going to.
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Mar 9, 2014 16:29
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Is there a chance that when installing a 2 pole 220 breaker I may end up without 220 based on where it is in the panel? My dad spooked me by suggesting it, but I can find nothing online saying it's possible. I know with 3 phase panels you need to be careful with breaker placement, but residential seems pretty idiot proof. He is a long-ago-former electrician - Was this perhaps an issue with older residential panels?
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Mar 19, 2014 17:48
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kastein posted:Any reasonably modern panel you will be fine with. I can't even think of any old panels this would be true on... basically the lugs for the breakers are set up so they are connected to alternating hot legs, so any two adjacent slots are going to be on opposite hot legs.
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Mar 19, 2014 18:32
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Yesterday I replaced a stove hood with a above range microwave. This entailed taking the existing electrical connection for the hood, and converting it to an outlet for the microwave. Everything seemed fine. This morning, I discovered my fridge wasn't running, the microwave was intermittently shutting off, and some lights in the house were super dim. My dad (former electrician) came over and discovered that one of the legs feeding the breaker is dead before the meter. I've got the power company coming out. Questions I failed to ask my dad while he was here - There's no way I killed a leg by installing an outlet, right? I get that the timing strongly suggests I did, but I really can't figure out how I would have. The connections are secure in the new box and the box feeding it. I taped every connection and the outlet itself, there was never any indication of a short, etc. Half my breakers are reading at like 60v or so. If the leg is dead, where are they getting this power? The only 240v breaker is turned off, so the live leg wouldn't be feeding the dead one through there, right? The main, maybe?
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Jul 9, 2016 16:59
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kid sinister posted:Unless you rooted around inside your main panel while you were doing your microwave work, then you couldn't have caused a problem affecting all your circuits. It sounds like one of your split phases is out of whack. Is every other breaker vertically testing at 60V, while the ones between are fine? Test for voltage between both the hot lugs. That should be 240v. But hey, at least it wasn't something I did, or something I need to pay for.
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Jul 9, 2016 21:41
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angryrobots posted:....they aren't fixing it until Monday? That's loving insane. And thankfully, yeah, I've got 69 inches to the top of the microwave - I was admittedly unaware of that restriction though. The only specification I saw in the manual was that the cabinet bottom had to be 30 inches off the cooking surface. Although given a standard oven/counter height, that probably works out to 66" total, so there you go.
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Jul 10, 2016 04:14
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Alright folks, a head scratcher. I have yet to see this, but my girlfriend reports that if she is using the oven (gas) and then runs the microwave, the circuit breaker trips. A gas oven can't possibly be appreciably drawing more power while cooking, can it? I mean, the power draw would be.... a thermostat?
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Aug 20, 2016 03:49
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kid sinister posted:Is she using the oven or the range? Which is electric and which is gas?
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Aug 20, 2016 13:39
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drat you, glow plug! That certainly sounds like the likely culprit. I assumed the oven lit with a little piezo like the stove top burners. And not GFCI or AFCI. In any case, I guess I'll need to see about running a new circuit, assuming the very crowded conduits in this place aren't at code capacity.
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Aug 21, 2016 03:31
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chef posted:I need to replace a dimmer switch that is broken- the old switch only has two wires, while the new one has three, adding a green ground. My plan is to follow the wiring diagram for the hot and neutral wires, and just cap off the green one on the new switch and call it a day. Sound ok?
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Sep 12, 2016 18:41
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babyeatingpsychopath posted:See how the box is metal? See how there's a small hole in the back of the box that a screw could go in? Get a green ground screw and screw your green wire to that. It is foolish, dangerous and against the law to do otherwise.
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Sep 13, 2016 13:19
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mastershakeman posted:Is this a joke post or like a real Midwest thing? I need to open up my outlets just north of Chicago and am praying for this on my 68 year old house But I was legitimately weirded out walking down the electric aisle at the nearby Home Depot and seeing blue plastic boxes for the first time in my life. Like, I knew they existed, but Chicago area depots don't carry them. Slugworth fucked around with this message at 03:15 on Sep 14, 2016 |
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Sep 14, 2016 03:13
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minivanmegafun posted:As far as I'm aware, in Chicago, water lines must be copper, and waste cast-iron.
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Sep 14, 2016 03:37
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kid sinister posted:They don't like smurf tube in Chicago? Just looked up smurf tube, definitely never seen that in a wall around here, but honestly I'm not sure I've ever really seen any elaborate low voltage stuff installed. Which in retrospect is strange, considering how many fancy-dancy homes I've done demo in. If the rich aren't filling their walls with smurf tubes, who is? .... It's all in Silicon Valley, isn't it?
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Sep 14, 2016 06:12
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Okay, checking in that I'm not royally loving things up here. A few questions!
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Oct 6, 2016 03:20
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:I'm happy to fix up the wiring for the motion-activated light, I just don't know what the proper solution is. Put a very short bit of conduit in there with an insulated throat? Or cut out a hole in your siding for your existing box, and spin it around to face the exterior. Seal between the box and siding and any exterior light fixture will come with a gasket for the seam between fixture and box. But before you do any of that, let's hope one of the pros in this thread comes along and says your current setup is fine.
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Oct 6, 2016 15:38
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:So you'd've used a box too? Hrm. I guess maybe I could cut a hole in the siding to fit a box into, so the light wouldn't protrude so far from the wall. It's a lot of extra work compared to the flush mount, and I suspect still wouldn't look as nice. For what it's worth, unless I'm wildly misunderstanding the fixture you've chosen, cutting a hole for the box is still going to result in a flush installation, same as a wall sconce inside your house or a ceiling fixture. You'll just be mounting to a box that is flush with your siding instead of the siding itself.
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Oct 6, 2016 18:15
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kuddles posted:I have a thermostat (not installed by me) attached to one fan heater in the basement and for various reasons it makes the heater cycle on and off every 3 minutes or so. It's a cheap thermostat and I also think it couldn't have been installed in a worse place in terms of moving air. Is there a simple method of disconnecting the thermostat from the heater so that I can just use the manual knob on the heater? I've tried googling this, but it just gets me to instructions of how to install a new thermostat.
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Oct 23, 2016 04:27
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Oh, I guess I should specify my instructions apply to the sort of simple thermostat you see attic ventilation fans hooked up to, not the type that control furnaces.
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Oct 23, 2016 13:51
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Code in my area is that garages/shops need gfci at all heights. Absolutely no clue why, some light googling suggested it has to do with those areas being more likely to have high power devices in use, which still doesn't make sense to me.
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Oct 24, 2016 13:12
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Crotch Fruit posted:Stop being a pussy and learn how to plug poo poo in? TRs are seriously not that bad.
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Oct 30, 2016 16:50
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Theoretically the box is grounded, but if not, a non contact voltage meter would do the trick. Tortilla Maker - There's a decent chance you are correct, but by the same token, doing electrical work without a meter of some sort means hoping the guy before you actually color coded his wire correctly. Slugworth fucked around with this message at 04:41 on Nov 6, 2016 |
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Nov 6, 2016 04:38
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Tortilla Maker posted:I had wired the darker cable to black and the slightly lighter one to white. Turned the power back on and the receptacle tester indicates it's wired correctly.
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Nov 6, 2016 13:53
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