Wiring Thread: This stupid safety device started alerting that there wasn't safety!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Hobbies, Crafts, & Houses > Wiring Thread: This stupid safety device started alerting that there wasn't safety!

McBeth: Jul 11, 2006; Odeipus ruined a great sex life by asking too many questions.

I was trying to replace the thermostat for my downstairs floor heaters but I screwed up the wires and blew it out tripping the main circuit breaker. Everything else has power again but no heat downstairs anymore and I know I fried it. Is this something I can fix myself or should I suck it up and hire an electrician?

# ¿ Apr 2, 2009 23:49

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# ¿ May 6, 2024 07:19

McBeth: Jul 11, 2006; Odeipus ruined a great sex life by asking too many questions.

grover posted:

Sounds like you accidentally shorted hot-to-ground. This probably didn't fry anything, just scare the piss out of you. If anything did burn up, it's probably at a splice in a connection box and you can find it. Or maybe the thermostat, depending on what exactly you did. Your heater is most likely just fine.

Can you post more information on your thermostat and the wiring, maybe a photo of the open box? What size breaker is feeding it? Did you try wiring it correctly, or just give up after this happened?

This is what it looks like, not working. After the spark and tripping the circuit breaker I gave up. I did ask a friend to look at it but I don't think he knows what he's doing though he did replace his thermostat successfully. I'm not sure of the breaker size, I have a small box nearby which controls stuff in the house and then one outside which hits everything. I looked online for help but couldn't find anything, the wiring in the wall wasn't labels which is how I screwed it up.

I do fix most of my problems myself and rarely ask friends for help, it's from watching Macgyver too much as a kid.

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# ¿ Apr 3, 2009 17:18

McBeth: Jul 11, 2006; Odeipus ruined a great sex life by asking too many questions.

grover posted:

Did you just nut black wires to the white wires? That might be your problem right there.

Draw yourself a diagram of the cables coming into the box (and their colors), including which direction they leave the box, which might help indicate where they're going. Also open up your heater and do the same thing there. Then sit down and work out which wire is doing what. The thermostat is simply an on/off switch, like a light switch- you want it to break the circuit (usually on the "hot" side) when the heat is off. Normally, you'll nut all the white wires together and leave them as a separate path, and only switch the red and black ones. It looks like there's too many wires in this box for it to be a simple switch loop. There's probably a parallel path so the heat can either come on automatically with the thermostat or manually at the heater.

It's hard to tell without being there, but I'd expect it to look something like this:

NEUTRAL----(WHITE WIRE)--[--{WIRENUT}----(WHITE WIRE)---------------]---HEATER

BREAKER----(BLACK WIRE)--[--{WIRENUT}----{THERMOSTAT}----(RED WIRE)-]---HEATER AUTO
\-----------------(BLACK WIRE)-]---HEATER MANUAL

VERIFY ALL THIS BEFORE TRYING IT!

So I probably just fried the thermostat and the rest should be fine? I'll be looking up more info online before I shock the poo poo out of myself again. Any good sites you can recommend?

# ¿ Apr 3, 2009 17:50

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