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Purchased a new home in June and with the paint and interior work mostly complete, the next area I was planning to renovate was electrical outlets. The house was built in 1942 but renovated significantly in 2004; electrical seems to be generally in OK shape. I've been reading this thread for a few weeks and would like to get a gut check before I purchase parts and start any work. I plan on a few different tasks: - Change out existing outlets for Leviton USB combo (A/C) outlets in a few key locations - Change out fan switches for Lutron Maestro to control the new fans that were installed - Change out the old rocker and dimmer switches throughout the house - Change out all of the old, nasty yellowing standard outlets throughout the house Here's a snap of my fuse box, which shows the house is mostly 20A breakers with a few 15A here and there:  Per NEC 404.14, I understand it's acceptable to use 15A switches on 20A circuits provide the loads are acceptable. This is good, because 20A rocker switches appear to be more of an industrial/commercial thing and the level of finish leaves something to be desired. My plan is to go with Leviton rockers for the incandescent fixtures, with Lutron dimmables for a few areas where I will have LEDs (fans, new dining room pendant). I will eventually go with LEDs over time, but otherwise is there any reason to go with the higher end switches? I don't have any interest in home automation at present. Extrapolating this to outlets - any recommendation on the best way to proceed, 15a vs 20a outlet? 20A outlets appear to be roughly 2x the price for both regular and USB outlets. I know that for the USB outlets I may have box depth issues, it's something that will need to be verified at each location. I'm traveling this week for work otherwise I'd pull out a few outlets and see what's already in the walls. Any other things that I'm not thinking of that are significant?
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Jul 13, 2022 02:46
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| # ¿ May 9, 2024 12:56 |
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My 1942 build/2004 reno home was pre-wired for fire and CO sensors. PO left the old detectors but they were very tired, so I bought new versions at HD and connected them to the existing 3-pin wiring using the adaptors they came packaged with. For a week or so everything was fine, then I started getting false alarms from the combo smoke/CO near the kitchen. I assumed it was a battery issue and pulled that down. A day or so later, the two in the bedrooms started to go off in the middle of the night. Thoroughly inspected the property, no fire or smoke - but the internals of both alarms smell of burnt electronics. Got a new battery in the combo detector and put it up since I took the other two down and it did the same thing within an hour - went off for fire when there was none and the internals all smell burnt. Any thoughts as to what might be causing this?
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Sep 5, 2022 21:09
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taqueso posted:Did you buy a "Smoke Alarm" or a "Smoke, Alarm"? loving Oxford comma 
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Sep 5, 2022 23:27
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Anza Borrego posted:My 1942 build/2004 reno home was pre-wired for fire and CO sensors. PO left the old detectors but they were very tired, so I bought new versions at HD and connected them to the existing 3-pin wiring using the adaptors they came packaged with. For a week or so everything was fine, then I started getting false alarms from the combo smoke/CO near the kitchen. My post got lost amidst the dog piling Crusty Minge’s pending solar battery fire, any thoughts?
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Sep 9, 2022 18:54
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