Help for wiring a bathroom exhaust fan I have a NuTone model QTN130LE1 ventilation fan/light. I have 2 switches on the wall. One is for the light,the other is for the fan.im not sure how to wire it up properly. I don't think I can use the nightlight because I don't have consistent power to the unit,unless a switch is on. I have a black,white,red and a bare ground wire for power. From what I can see,the red wire is coming from the fan switch.  The unit has a green,taped red and white,taped white and blue,and a taped together black and white wires. Any help would be much appreciated.

Your green wire from the fan gets connected to the bare copper wire from your ceiling box. Then connect the white wire taped with the blue to the white wire taped to the black to the white wire from your ceiling box. Then connect the red wire from your switch to the black wire from your fan and connect the blue wire from your fan light to the black wire coming from your other switch.  The remaining red and white wires from your fan fixture are for the night light which you would need another switch to operate it


Rain coming in bathroom fan vent I just moved into a house and during the first rain we had a leak coming from the bathroom vent.  The vent had been broken off above the roof, but was repaired before us moving in.  What problems could we be looking at with this leak?

Not sure if this could be a poor seal or how exactly the vent keeps rain from coming down the vent pipe in the first place?

Any leak can rot the building, ruin insulation, cause electrical shorts, and cause mold. Water and any part of houses other than the inside of the plumbing don't mix, in general.

Since this is the bathroom fan vent, you have immediate potential for electrical/water interaction.


IKEA recessed lights: extreme clearance requirements? I'm finishing the ceiling on my basement.  I'm planning to insulate the ceiling with the Roxul Safe'n'Sound Fire & Soundproofing Insulation.  It is 3 inches thick so it only occupies the upper 3 inches of the bay.

I was planning to use IKEA's BLIXT recessed spotlight.  However, I have a concern with its clearance requirements: top of luminaire to overhead building member 0.5"; luminaire center to side building member: 12".  My joist spacing is b/n 11" and 15" so I can't possibly satisfy that.  Those requirements sound a bit extreme, don't they?

From what I could quickly research I think these fall into the "Marked Spacing Type Luminaries" category, according to:

http://www.iaei.org/magazine/2001/07/installation-clearance-requirements-for-recessed-luminaries/

Any thoughts?  Can I make it work?  I like these lights: they look great, are only 35W and cost $19 for 3 pack which is an unbeatable price.

I personally would abandon them for something with better requirements - there's a reason that IKEA stuff is low in price, and that reason is compromises. For instance, the GORM shelving units are strong and flexible, but take a while to assemble and are kinda ugly.

In this case it looks like the compromise is the required spacing. My guess is that the heat load they produce (especially the temperature of the fixture itself) is high enough that they need the extra space to cool (a different, more expensive, fixture might have some other way to ditch the heat that would require less space).

That said, any engineer worth his salt (and his lawyer) isn't going to skimp on the required spacing. It's very likely that you could get away with shaving a few inches off of it, but there are no guarantees if you start violating the spacing requirements.

The biggest worry in my mind would be that if something went wrong (even if it had nothing to do with these fixtures), the insurance company would balk because these fixtures were installed 'improperly'.


Do branch circuits sharing conduit with sub-panel feeder wires require separate grounding? I have installed a 75 amp sub panel with three #6THHN and a #8 ground from the main.
I need to move two branch circuits from main to sub since I do not have space in the 200amp main for the sub panel breaker.

Is a ground wire required for each branch circuit if they are in the same conduit as the feeders for the sub? One inspector said that each circuit has to have a ground. It seems redundant.

No, one ground wire of sufficient size will do the trick

All the branch circuits in a single cable or conduit can share a single ground wire (and are often forced to when metal conduit is used as a ground path or when a multi-circuit cable is used).  This is permitted as a consequence of NEC 250.122(C):

  (C) Multiple Circuits. Where a single equipment grounding
  conductor is run with multiple circuits in the same raceway,
  cable, or cable tray, it shall be sized for the largest overcurrent
  device protecting conductors in the raceway, cable, or cable
  tray. Equipment grounding conductors installed in cable trays
  shall meet the minimum requirements of 392.10(B)(1)(c).


How to wire 3 separate switches to a single exhaust fan I have installed multi port exhaust fan in the attic to serve 3 separate bathrooms.  How can I wire the fan so that the fan can operate independently from a switch in any of the bathrooms?

The answer to your question depends on many exact details of your existing circumstances. Are you building anew, or are you modifying an existing construction? If modifying, do you have access to run new cables? Is power supplied at the fan location or must you draw power from one of the bathrooms?

The following diagram assumes power supplied at the fan location. In general, the wiring for such a shared fan should look something like this:

The idea is to distribute the always-hot from the service panel to all the switches, then collect the switched-hots and connect them to the hot side of the load. The neutral side of the load is connected to the neutral from the service panel.

The name for this kind of circuit is "multiple parallel switch loops".

If power is to be take from one of the switch locations, the circuit becomes slightly more complicated:

But the principle is the same -- always-hot to all the switches, switched-hots in parallel to the load, neutral to the load.

In any case, in most places, your electric code now requires neutral to be distributed to all switch locations.


Why do both water tanks have hot inputs? Is my boiler (on-demand) feeding into my hot water heater? I have an interesting setup that I'm trying to understand (without tearing apart sheetrock).  I have two electric tank-based water heaters, and a tankless gas water heater that is used for the boiler system.

This is the tankless heater:

And here are the two electric tank-based heaters:

There is also a water recirculation pump hooked up to the water heater on the left.  Here's a close-up shot:

I believe that the two tank-based water heaters are hooked up in series, with the right one receiving cold water and feeding the left one, which then provides hot water to the house.  This explains why both the input and output of the left one are hot.  However, on the right one, the output is always hot (expected) but the input is sometimes hot, sometimes cold.  Why?  Is it possible that the on-demand boiler is feeding into the input of the right one?  Are there any other explanations?

If the right hand heater were supplying hot water to the left hand heater, it would be strange to hide the pipework in the wall.

I guess it is more likely that they are feeding separate heating circuits.

It is not unusual for the return pipe to be nearly as hot as the output line, if the system has been running for a while.

There ought to be records of the system somewhere showing how it is connected up. If the church doesn't have them, the original installers should - or at least could advise.


Is this line voltage thermostat sufficient? I'm replacing a bad Aube line voltage thermostat for my electric baseboard heaters. I liked the model, so I purchased what I thought was the same one - however I missed a letter in the model. What I bought was a TH115-A-240D, while what I had originally was a TH115-A-240S. It looks like the difference is that the TH115-A-240S was rated for 4000 watts, while the TH115-A-240D is only rated for 3600. As far as I can tell, however, the new one is still sufficient. I'm just hoping someone can double check me.

There are 2 baseboard heaters, wired in parallel, on a 20-amp 240 volt circuit. The wiring is #12. Each baseboard is 72 inches. Unfortunately I can't find any manufacturer's information anywhere on them (I believe it's all painted over.) Everything that I can find indicates that a 72-inch electric baseboard heater will consume 1500 watts, meaning that the total 3000 needed by 2 is well within the thermostat's specs. Is there any caveat I might be missing, or should I be safe?

Six-foot baseboard heaters are sold in varying voltage and wattages. You can buy a 1250 watt, 1500 or even 2-3000 watt heaters in the six foot lengths. So, I would not assume anything about your old heaters. On a 20-amp circuit, you can have a maximum of  3850  watts. So, you might be within that limit, you might not. There's my caveat. So if you're installing exactly what you had, you could be "safe".
See this chart https://king-electric.com/pro-tips/sizing-the-heater-circuit/


Changing a 240v plug with 4 wires to 240v plug 3 wires I have a outlet that is 240V with 4 wires.  I want to change it to 3 wires, I am assuming the black is also a hot wire. With the volt meter I get 220V touching the two red wires and 110V when i touch the black to ground.

I want to change the plug to a 3 wire and I am not sure what to do with the black wire, can i just put a wire nut on it and push in the box?? Any help would greatly be appreciated. I don't need another shocking experience

It looks like your wires are in conduit.  You need to follow the wires a bit more and figure out what they're being used for.  They should go back to a circuit breaker, and it should be a 2-pole (240V) breaker.  Turning off that breaker should turn off two of the wires.  I have no idea what's going on with the third (black) wire.

Those are the two wires to put on L1 and L2 on your NEMA 6-20 receptacle.  The ground goes to ground obviously.  NEMA 6 does not use neutral.


Plans for running new 8/3 NM-B service for oven I've been doing a lot of reading and planning for a run of 8/3 NM-B that is required for a new oven/micro combo in our kitchen remodel.  We currently have 10/2.  While I have quite a bit of basic home and other electrical experience, we want to be sure that we add this new run properly since I haven't done that before.

I've already started running the 8/3 and began about 1/3rd of distance by cutting out some ceiling and running one end down through an exposed HVAC return vent in the kitchen wall, through a few studs behind the fridge, and have wired it up to the installed oven next to there.

The other end of the wire is a lot more fun since the house is 2 story without attic access anywhere.  From the opened ceiling above a walkway, we intend to bring the 8/3 down into 1" EMT behind some new large cove moulding for about 6 feet, then into the wall and down about 6ft to run through a fireblock and under our stairs (an unfinished and not exposed area that I'm having to cut into from garage to access).  From there we'll go back up the insulated exterior garage wall on the opposite side of the stairs.  At that point I'll add a surface mount 4x4x1.5 steel box, and then 1" EMT again along the garage ceiling and into the wall above the panel.

I know all about protecting the romex from damage (hence the EMT behind cove moulding and on garage ceiling), as well as stapling in the wall every 4' and securing the EMT to the ceiling, as well as most of the other basics.

My main questions though before we work on the rest of this:

1)  Is it ok to have this cable non-continuous?  It may be significantly easier to run this cable through some of the EMT bends in the garage by having a splice (with junction box and proper #8 wire nuts of course) in at least one place, but obviously continuous wire (and especially ground) is better.  Additionally we bought a 125ft bundle but the total run should only be about 60-70ft, so that's a lot of extra to pull.

2)  For the EMT to wall transitions in the garage, is it best to use a junction box?  I imagine so because the connection from there to EMT can be very solid, and then the hole at the back of the junction box is centered and provides more distance from the edge of the wall surface to the wire (1.25" distance NEC rule).

3)  For the ceiling to EMT (behind cove moulding) to wall transitions, should we use bent EMT pipe through the sheetrock with tightened Romex to EMT adapters on the ends within the ceiling/wall, or could we just use a straight EMT pipe and add nailing plates on the back of the cove moulding at the ends where the cable comes out and goes into the ceiling/wall?  The latter seems easier since I don't have a 1" EMT bender (though realize I have to find one for the garage ceiling work).

4)  We have to add a new 40A double pole breaker in the panel for this.  Is it recommended to try and match the existing brand/model breakers exactly?

5)  Should we upgrade this circuit to AFIC?  We don't currently have any and I'm not sure of the usefulness only on a 240v to oven/micro combo.

Thank you!

OK here we go.

1) There is no violation to splice the conductors as long as it is "mechanically and electrically sound". Just remember that the splice is where things can go wrong, and they must be done in a junction box and accessible for maintenance.

2) It is alright to use a junction box for a transition. Just remember that when you are bring the romex out of the box with no conduit, the opening must be bushed. You can use a plastic snap in or a connector or a chase nipple with a lock nut.

3) In this case your are really not using the EMT as a conduit per say, but as a chase for the romex and to prevent damage to it. You can also buy pre manufactured 90's if you need to use them rather than expensing out a bender, and fitting them may be easier for the non skilled. See my remarks on bushing in 2). Also see your own remarks on the 1 1/2 in 2) as far as nail plates go. I prefer the overuse of them than take chances.

4) It's always a good idea to match the breaker with the Panel manufacturer although other manufacturers breakers will match up in certain panels.

5) There is no code requirement to use an AFCI with a range circuit.

Hope this helps, good luck.


Towel hook in bathroom ceramic tile grout I few years ago I installed tile on the wall of my bathroom. I needed a little hook for a hand towel in the tile, so I drilled two little holes into the grout in between two tiles and screwed the hook to there. Just recently, the screws just slid right out. How can I screw the hook back in? Could I just use bigger screws? Or could I get some sort of glue substance, and put it in there and then slide the screws back in and let it set? What do you recommend? Here's a photo:

Fixing this could take several directions.

If you have access to the other side of the wall from where the hook was mounted it may be feasible to open up the drywall from that side and install some wooden backer between the studs that can accept slightly longer screws from the tile side. Fixing up and re-finishing an access hole in drywall would be be far easier that trying to re-work the tile wall.

The size of the face plate of the hook looks like it would cover up a bit larger hole made between the tiles. Such hole may actually need to chip away at the edges of the tile some too. With a larger hole you can push through a fastener called a toggle bolt which would anchor to the opposite side of the wall material in the mount area. If you choose to use a toggle bolt approach consider applying a ring of silicon sealer between the bracket and the tile on the back side of the bracket. When this sets up it will take up the sheer load on the hook. Toggle bolts work best for pulling the load directly up to the wall and the hook could slide around on the wall due to the larger hole size and force that was parallel to the wall surface. The silicon can help prevent that problem.

Use care in how you go about enlarging the hole as you could end up cracking the tile if you try to force a regular style drill bit into the grout line. A small diameter tile hole drill would be recommended.

For this application I would discourage the use of other types of expanding wall anchors such as the cheap plastic things you press into a hole before applying the screws. They will eventually fail in much the same way as your current fail.


Attic Blow-In Fiberglass Insulation with air handler This weekend we're installing insulation in our attic. I've gotten everything ready except for my air handler for heating and cooling, which is located in the attic. I've got 30 bales of fiberglass insulation which will be blown into my attic.

Should I construct a plywood wall around the air handler to prevent the insulation from getting close to it? Should I just create a slope so that there is little to no insulation near the air handler? Or can I just blow the insulation right up under and around the air handler as if it wasn't even there? For reference, we're shooting for about an R-40 value, which is approximately 16" of insulation.

Contact with insulation will not directly harm your air handler. However, there are a couple of reasons you should try to keep the insulation away from the air handler:

Insulation under the air handler could be a problem if you ever have a condensate leak.
You should be able to access the air handler for any future maintenance or repairs.

Condensate drainage: when used for cooling or dehumidification, your air handler will collect moisture from the air that flows through it. For attic units, this is usually drained through a small PVC pipe to the outside of your house. If this drainage pipe ever develops a clog, the condensate water can back up and leak from your air handler. Because of this, air handlers installed above living space should have a drip tray underneath, along with a safety float switch. Should your air handler develop a condensate leak, the water will leak into the tray (instead of down into your ceiling), and the float switch will detect the pooling water and shut off the cooling. This gives you a reason to go inspect the air handler, so you can detect and fix the condensate clog before it leaks down into your ceiling and causes other damage.

If you place insulation under your air handler, it would interfere with the flow of any future leaks into your drip tray. The blown insulation could soak up the water itself, channel the water off the tray, or physically interfere with the normal operation of the float switch. Depending on the plumbing layout, it could also be carried into the condensate drain piping and cause a clog. For all those reasons you'll want to keep the underside of the air handler clear. And if you don't already have a drip tray with float switch, consider getting one -- way cheaper than cleaning up from a major leak.

Maintenance access: you may need to access your air handler for maintenance, such as filter changes (though your filter might be somewhere else, such as on the return air grille) as well as occasional repairs. Make sure you can still navigate around any insulation to access the air handler, and that any access panels on the air handler can still be opened.

So: don't surround the air handler with insulation. If you can simply avoid that area when blowing insulation, and you're maintaining access, that's probably good enough. For bonus points, build an enclosure out of rigid foam boards around the air handler. That will not only protect it from the blown insulation, but provide some extra reduction of any heat loss or air leakage. The foam boards can act as wall board with minimal structure, but make sure you have a simple way to open the enclosure if needed.


Main Breaker Panel in Garage w/o Garage Doors We have a recent second floor & garage addition, and the main panel was moved to the garage from its old location.
Due to COVID and our general contractor's procrastination (we have since fired him), we can't expect garage doors installed until at least January, but we would like to have our electrical inspected before the permit expires in a few months.
As it's a garage, I think it would generally be considered an indoor location, but without doors, I'm not so sure. So far, the only relevant portion of the 2017 NEC (what the WA L&I office currently uses for inspection) I can find is Section 110.26(E)(2)(a)(2):

a. Installation Requirements. Outdoor electrical equipment shall be the following:

Protected from accidental contact by unauthorized personnel or by vehicular traffic

Does "unauthorized personnel" mean we need a lock on the panel? Are there any other considerations that we need in order to pass inspection where the panel is located in a garage with no doors?

It is a indoor location, the finish work is not required to be complete to get your final.
If the panel is a 3R type it could even be outside (the only difference is the cover and how it sheds rain) but as long as the panel is not getting rained on or if you have Sheetrock walls around the panel it will normally pass even without doors.
If the inspector has questions answer them. As long as the wiring is covered and the area is not subject to rain, I would be asking for a final on the electrical because that’s when I get paid.
Note all the live connections are in boxes the panel covers are on this is what the second part is discussing  no lock needed as I said it could be outside (not locked) and be ok.


Filling a hole made in a wood stud Bottomline, I think I've made a huge mistake.

I was drilling through studs in a load bearing wall to pass a cable. This is on a doubled-up stud going perpendicular into a joist. Definitely load bearing.

There was not a whole lot of space to position my drill perpendicularly and in my frustration trying to get this done I foolishly angled the drill bit to make the hole. (I really wasn't thinking and what I had done dawned on me afterwards)

My fear is that I got really close to the edge of the second stud as my drill bit was so angled and that this could be potentially unsafe.

Is there any thing I can fill the hole with like Liquid Nails which will harden and return the studs to good?

Edit: Note the drawing is not to scale, It's a 3/8 hole - it doesn't look that bad in person. I tend to be paranoid about these things.

It depends on what loads the stud carry and the spacing. by code you can notch out 25% of a structural member or drill a hole in the center 40% for a bearing wall and 60% for non load bearing. But to be safe you can add  a plywood plate to the edge of the studs and put in about 15 wood screws. This will help carry bending and compression loads.

Inspector Jeff

ICC/FL/SC licensed combination building inspector and building designer


Are there any dangers associated with rigid foam insulation? Is there any danger of bad fumes/gasses being released from polyisocyanurate or polystyrene rigid foam insulation?  I'm planning on insulating my bedroom from the inside (ie: putting the insulation between the studs), and I'm wondering if I need to worry about fumes over the years.

My guess is there's no issue, as people use this stuff all the time, and my vapour barrier will prevent any air movement anyway.  Still, it was brought up by a hardware store I called, so I'd like some sanity-checking opinions.

Edit: Since I've been able to find precious little information on insulating the inside of exterior walls with rigid insulation, I've decided to go with Roxul (fibreglass-ish) insulation instead.

To answer my question though, I've asked people IRL, and they pretty much scoffed at the idea that rigid foam insulation gives off fumes.

According to the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) for TRYMER(TM) 3000 Rigid Polyisocyanurate
Insulation, there should be no problems (for this specific product anyway).

I also found the MSDS of an example Expanded Polystyrene Board, which does mentions off-gas issues. Though it only applies to large amounts of "fresh" polystyrene, being stored in a "confined, unventilated area".

  fresh  polystyrene contains residual pentane and if large  amounts of
  EPS materials are stored in a confined,  unventilated area such as a
  semi-trailer truck,  pentane may off-gas and create measurable
  airborne  concentrations.

If you know the specific product you'd like to use, it shouldn't be that difficult to find the MSDS for it on the internet.


How do I retrofit a junction box in an insulated wall? Typical cold climate construction: Drywall, 6mil vapour barrier, fiberglass batt insulation. How do I retrofit a junction box and maintain the vapour seal? To be clear, by 'retrofit', I mean the drywall is up and I'd like to install this without having to repair any drywall.

Typically for new construction, you'd use an insulated and sealed box:

The vapour barrier is sealed against the gasket when drywall goes up.

Obviously, there's no way to get this box into a wall without removing a large chunk of drywall.

Does a product exist for this? How do you get a box into the wall and maintain the seal with the vapour barrier, without any access to the inside of the wall beyond the hole the box will fill up?

(actually fishing the wire to this box is beyond the scope of this question)

EDIT:

This worked brilliantly.

I cut a square hole out of the existing vapour barrier, then pushed the vapour box in behind it and spread it out. I then used tuck tape to attach from the back of the existing vapour barrier to the vapour box (using several small overlapping pieces), and had enough room to fit in a regular old work box.

I think you'll have to get one of these vapor barrier boxes, and fit it before installing your electrical box.

Seal up where the cable penetrates, then install your electrical box.

The other options would be to cut a larger hole and patch drywall, or seal it up from the back side (but that would require access to the other side of the wall/ceiling).


Can I control where in the toilet bowl the flush water goes? When I flush the toilet the water mostly comes in from the front of the bowl. Is there something I can do so it covers more of the back?

There are more and bigger holes toward the front of the bowl:

Rear:

Front:

This is the design of the toilet. This pushes any solids and paper to the “well” in the back. If you don’t think you have enough flow a product like CLR can be used (turn water supply off, flush put clr in tank and flush” you may want to use a towel to keep the clr in the holes for a bit longer , then turn water back on and see if that opened things up. CLR is a product that dissolves Calcium, Lime & Rust. It works quite well on plumbing fixtures and I have done the above procedure to clear the rust stains so the toilet looked better for longer.


How can I eliminate the smell of gas and smoke when burning my new gas fireplace? Yet another question in my long running series of new house questions.  I closed recently on a newly constructed house and in my final walk through with the project manager he demonstrated how the gas fireplace works.  When he turned it on a god awful smell started permeating the room, the stench of smoke.  The room got a bit cloudy and the smoke alarms in the house went off within minutes.

He said this was perfectly normal and that we just have to run it a little bit every day for a few days and this will go away.  I have never had a gas fireplace before so I assumed this break in period was normal.

Fast forward a week later of running it two or three times a day every day and while it has gotten a lot better, it still smells and STILL sets the smoke alarm off.  I keep trying to call him to ask him to take a look at it and he is not answering his calls.  I have two exotic birds and they are very sensitive to fumes and chemicals, so I am too worried to ever burn my fireplace after I move them into their new home.

Is this normal and is there anything I can do to help break this gas fireplace in a little faster?  I have never experienced this in my friends homes that have gas fireplaces.

EDIT

Fast forward almost a year later... the smell did eventually go away but it took a very long time and constant use.  The maintenance checkup from the home builder looked at the fireplace and found that the fireplace was NOT properly sealed by the general contractor!  This also explains why when I wasn't using the fireplace that I could feel a bitter cold breeze blowing into my house from the fireplace.  The project manager all the while told me this was normal but it was the maintenance sub contractor that told me it was installed incorrectly and he did fix it for me.  I haven't had problems since.

This does NOT sound at all like a normal situation. Either your gas fireplace has a serious flaw or the unit is vented incorrectly. I would stop lighting it and immediately get a professional in to look at it. At the same time you should use every avenue at your disposal to get the builder, contractor, and gas fireplace installer on the hook to look at this unit and replace it if necessary with a properly functioning and correctly installed unit.


Can I use a pool pump to drain a shallow well? I have a shallow well with a broken pump at the bottom that I need to service.

The local classifieds are saturated with pool pumps and I got the idea to use one of those, but I'm not sure about power and pressure.

The well is about 10 feet deep and we'll likely be digging it deeper. I know my pool pump is totally capable of moving a lot of water from the same level to the same level, but I'm not sure of its ability to pump 15 feet uphill. I figure the lack of filter will free up some power. I'm looking at a 1 hp pump. It has a basket in it to act as a filter, but I might improvise an intake filter out of a 5 gallon bucket with a few hundred 1/8" holes in it just for safety's sake.

Any ideas on a pool pumps capability to do this?

(I'll be replacing the submerged well pump with an above ground one)

Priming one will be a pain in the posterior, after which it will probably work until it loses prime. I know, because I've done it (well - almost - not a well, but a large amount of water from about 8 feet down). I'd suggest buying a pump that will be less of a pain in the rear to use if you are going to spend money on this. I did have a free pool pump sitting there. They will not self-prime at all - It takes a large amount of water and a degree of persistence to get all the pump and hose full of water, put the output hose in a large buckefull of water, drop the inlet hose in the well and plug in the pump before it back-siphons all the water out of the bucket. If you have too many bubbles trapped, it won't go and you have to try again. Expect to spend at least half an hour fiddling with it to get it to start. If it's a long way down to the water, it gets more difficult to start or re-start.

A typical shallow well is sand-bottomed, so you'll be sucking sand through your pump. Not generally a good thing.

If you have a hill available, grab enough hose to run down it to a level below the bottom of the well, fill it with water, cap the ends, get one end into the well-water and the other to the point below the well, and uncap the ends - a siphon. Be sure to keep the well end submerged - it will move water until it sucks a significant quantity of air. With enough drop on the hill you can use a siphon to suck some sand or muck out of the bottom, too, with no pump to mind the debris. With a big enough hill you can put the end of the hose in the well, pull the lower end of the hose uphill a ways, fill just the lower end of the hose with water and then run it downhill, and the slug of water in the lower hose will pull water through the upper hose. If the water level to the highest point of the siphon is more than about 27 feet, you're out of luck for siphoning.

I would agree with @gregmacs comment to pull the pump up for service rather than pumping the well dry (if indeed, you can keep up with the inflow rate when pumping) - that is the way that sumbersible pumps are serviced. If your setup is missing the magical pipe joint (the pitless adapter - a cute little tapered wedged affair with an o-ring) as used on drilled wells, figure out a way to get one in place. If the pipe comes out the top, you don't need one, just pull the pipe up, pump and all.

You speak of digging the well deeper - how is the well cased/lined now? Does it have concrete well tiles in place? If not, digging it deeper can be a rather hazardous affair due to potential collapse. There are other hazards inherent in digging in a well (drowning, having buckets of dirt dropped on your head, gas pockets...), which is one reason that drilled wells are more common now.


How do I wire a GFCI/Switch Combo? I'm replacing an old GFCI/Switch combo.  In the old one there are two wires coming into the line side, a hot wire and a neutral.  On the load side there is one wire leading up to the lighting fixture.  In this configuration the outlet only works when the switch is on.

On the new GFCI/Switch combo there is a load and line side, and two black wires coming out of the back that are meant to control the switch.  How do I rewire this in order to give constant power to the GFCI while controlling the light fixture with the switch using the single remaining wire?

I tried splitting the hot wire to go to both the line side and to one of the black switch wires, while connecting the other switch wire to the wire going up to the light fixture.  This resulted in a large spark.

I found some helpful diagrams at do-it-yourself-help.com.
GFCI Protecting the Load

Wiring Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter Switch
With this arrangement a
receptacle, switch and disposal are protected with the ground fault
breaker built into the device.

Not GFCI Protecting the Load

Wiring Ground Fault Interrupter and Light Switch
With this
arrangement the receptacle is protected but the switch remains outside
the circuit. This arrangement can be used to control a light or other
device where the extra protection of a gfci is not necessary.


How to reinforce a curtain rod I have a ceiling that literally cannot be drilled into. An experienced handyman couldn't do it with high quality masonry bits.

I'm wondering if there is any easy way to reinforce a curtain rod, so that it will span a longer distance without slouching.

There isn't much room on either side.

Best thought I've got is to put a valance across the top of that opening, and put a middle support from the valance to the rod. Or switch to a 1" rod.


Rewire Metal Halide Security Light to Use Standard Bulb I have a Utilitech AHR100-00 http://www.lowes.com/pd_319896-33229-AHR100-00_0__?productId=3435358&Ntt=utilitech+security+light&pl=1&currentURL=%3FNtt%3Dutilitech%2Bsecurity%2Blight&facetInfo=

This the second one I have had and both failed in the same manner - they start turning themselves off and on all night.  I have read this is a ballast problem.

I would like to rewire it to use a standard bulb.  I have the following in mind:  Disconnect the capacitor from the black wire between the supply and photocell, disconnect the white wires to the capacitor, ballast and ignitor, and connect the red wire exiting the photo cell to the black wire entering the lamp socket.

Will this work or am I missing something?

Manual with wiring diagram:  http://pdf.lowes.com/useandcareguides/845473031966_use.pdf

Thanks

You have it right. Remember that capacitors can store power for some time, so be careful when handling. I would recommend removing the ignitor, capacitor, and ballast to ensure some future user does not attempt to incorrectly re-wire the fixture. Remember, safety first: turn off and secure the power supply prior to servicing.


Is there anything to help reinforce PVC pipe? I am plumbing a pond and have some above-ground PVC pipe. I used the purple and blue glue to attach the pipes, but am concerned some pipes could still come loose. I plan to wrap the pipes with duct tape, but wonder if there is a better solution, as duct tape doesn't do well in situations involving lots of water. How can I reinforce the pipes to make sure they can't fall apart?

Either you glued them correctly (I prefer "cleaner, then primer, then glue" for the most reliable connections) or you'll need to re-glue them after the joints fail.
Nothing you add to the outside will change that.
You do need to paint or otherwise cover them to prevent damage from the UV in sunlight, since you mention that they are above-ground.
Duct tape is a poor choice, it falls apart outside rather quickly.


Is there any way to either 'break in' or live with tamper resistant outlets? I've read of many people have trouble with TR outlets, mostly plugging into them.

What mechanisms are there for either breaking them in, or otherwise living with them when you don't have Little People underfoot?

A:  Several sources claim they loosen up with time.  Other sources have claimed that outlets have broken before accepting a plug.  The latter seems to be more common with off-brands.

So:  If you are doing your own work:  Plug something in a dozen times BEFORE installing the outlet.  This way, if you have a defective one, you can find it/break it before going to the bother of wiring it in.  You don't even  have to use a cord.  Have a spare plug kicking around?

If you are doing a bunch of these, it may be worth using a drill press or bearing press to push the plug in.  The ideal plug is one that has a neck on it smaller than your chuck size.

A small wooden box with a flange that could be clamped to the drill press table, with bars across (bolts?  Large nails) positioned so that the plug could pass between, but when you raised the drill the box would keep the outlet from following.  Slide the outlet in from the side.  Probably could set up a cottage industry doing this for electrical contractors.

B:  When I was a kid, we still used slide rules.  I found that the best lubricant for a sticking slide rule was baby powder.  Any powder that is basically scented talcum powder should work. I have since used talcum powder anytime I need two pieces of plastic to slide past each other.  Apply with a small watercolour paint brush, or a blower.

This is a lot easier to do and to clean up if done as prevention before.  Lay the outlet on it's back, dust it with talcum powder, insert the plug a few times.  Gravity carries the powder into works.  Shake a bit, tap in various orientations, brush off the excess.

One source mentioned silicone spray.

C:  Sources have claimed TR outlets are 'elder proof' Much like child proof caps on drugs are more resistant to older fingers than younger ones, I've found lots of complaints about the difficulty for older people using TR outlets.

This may be an answer:

These come in various formats.  Outlets on front, sides, ends... Some even have USB charging ports.

This means you only have to struggle ONCE with the outlet.  If nothing else, the ergonomics would seem to encourage putting the device in perpendicular and simultaneously into both outlets at once.


should I catch mice first before fix a broken crawlspace vent cover? Find one mesh of the crawlspace vent cover is broken. Also, home inspection found some clue of rodent.

I guess if I just fix the vent cover, the mice could die in the crawlspace. And before they die, they could try to bite something like water pipe..etc. which could cause damage.

So does it make sense to catch all the mice first and then fix the vent cover?

Any better idea is very welcome.

Critters can squeeze their bodies into any space their head will fit into.

Humans, not so much.

There are ways to fix and exit using flexible mesh that allows them to leave, but not return.

I watched one of those exterminator tv shows years ago and saw their setup. It was ingenious. You may find an episode or explanation on YouTube.

We had a turd of a neighbor kid who got mad at us and dumped her pet rats over our fence. The havoc they caused was a six-month battle of wills but I prevailed and they never got inside the house.

Glue traps are great if your a cold hearted so and so like me who doesn't lose sleep when they start screaming after they get stuck and before their nose does, suffocating the buggers. My husband couldn't handle it. So I had to go with snap traps.

Broke both thumbs and two fingers, but I got them put out. And replaced daily as the body count rose.

I suggest peanut butter. Just enough to coat the trigger mechanism, though. They are not stupid creatures and will steal your bait every chance they get.

For the bigger Norwalk rats, I used live traps and had a slick-sided barrel with enough water to make them have to swim...until they couldn't.

Check with your local animal shelter. They often have these things that you can borrow after leaving a refundable deposit to cover the trap should you not return it.

Again, unless you are willing to kill these things, you will never win the battle.

In the meantime, start putting steel wool in any opening you find and firmly attach metal mesh or sheet metal on both sides of the opening. Yes any left inside the barrier will die. And smell to high heaven. But you have to stop the flood in before you have a chance of beating the stragglers down.

Also, clean up anything that could be food. Secure wiring and check the insulation on any exterior wiring. They love that stuff.

If you have a zoo close by, see if they will let you buy lion or tiger poop. It will stop just about anything from coming around. And it stinks... it is poop... but you have to use everything available to win this war.

As an aside, steel wool in your weep holes, should you have any, will also help stop hornets and wasps (or bees) from entering there and nesting in your walls. Just replace it regularly as it does degrade.

Good luck. Put your game face on. This one is not for the weak willed.


How do I prevent water from leaking down my chimney? When it rains hard, I get a decent amount of water coming in through my chimney. Is this normal?  What can I do to minimize this?

It's a relatively new house; it has a guard on top, and the chimney is in great shape.

Is there a chimney cap? If not, start there. If there is a chimney cap, and it's a brick chimney, odds are you have cracks and/or missing mortar--at which point I'd say your chimney is unsafe...both as a combustion exhaust (you don't want fumes leaking into the house) and as a safety issue (falling bricks hurt). I'd call out a licensed chimney inspector/cleaner/sweep.


Can I use dedicated pool heat pump for heating water in the house? I'm going to buy a small heat pump dedicated to pools (around 3.5 kW total output). The pump would not be used for 6-7 months a year (autumn/winter); can I plug it into an existing water heating system to pre-heat water before it gets into the gas boiler (to use the pump year round and save on the heating bills)?
Yes, there are tangible savings from switching to a heat pump (it's around 2x cheaper than using gas boiler in my location). If you're unfamiliar with heat pumps: they're NOT electrical boilers, these are sci-fi devices that give out more heating power than their electrical consumption. The unit that I want to buy uses ca. 0.6 kWh of electricity but provides ca. 3.5 kWh of heat.
Please note that there is a dedicated heat pump unit that essentially does what I want (work in conjunction with an existing boiler), and it is supposed to be installed inside the boiler room (with an option to vent the cold air outside). I don't remember the brand so couldn't find it online; but this dedicated HP is rather expensive and, most importantly, I'll invest in a pool heat pump anyway that won't be used for 7 months in a year.
Those are my concerns / ideas why it might not work / possible problems, am I missing something obvious but critical?.. :)

Pool heat pumps [PHP for short] work when air temperature is higher than ca. 12C/50F — I will run it in the house, in the boiler room
PHPs are designed to heat water up to max. 35C/100F — not a problem, I'll use it for additional heating only (e.g. wire the heat pump instead of a recirculation pump)
Maybe PHP will never be switched on because the water in the tank will always be hotter than 100F?.. — the boiler is programmed to run during the day only, I think the water gets quite cold during the night
PHPs are built to handle corrosive pool water — hmmm that doesn't sound like a problem, more like a pro ;)
BUT maybe PHPs won't be able to handle water heated to 50C/120F?..
Maybe PHPs won't be able to hold/run water at around 2 bars pressure (what I have now in the tank)?

Anything else I might be missing?

There's no free lunch. Really.
Saying a heat pump is an over-unity engine ignores why it works: It takes something from something else; i.e. it creates an externality. Ignoring those is a common error of over-unity believers.
Heat energy is the level of excitation of atoms.  It generally stores on a per-atom basis not a per-gram basis.  What's relevant there is that water is the densest thermal media known, because it has 3 fairly lightweight atoms in a small space.  Raising 1kg of water 1 degree requires reducing a great deal more than 1kg of other stuff 1 degree.  1kg of air is a lot of air.
Also heat pumps aren't always one particular efficiency.  Their efficiency varies based on conditions.  For instance if  you have 10C/50F pool water on a 35C/100F day, the heat pump is "pumping downhill" as I like to say, and it will be quite efficient there.  Raising 20C pool water to 23C/75F on a 11C/52F day is a great deal harder and less efficient.  The 6:1 efficiency you claim is only valid in certain test conditions.
"To keep the heat pump in its working range, I'm placing its condenser inside the utility room".
The heat pump will steal heat from the room and place it in the water.  That gives you 2 choices, neither one good:

allow it to chill the room, reducing the heat pump's efficiency badly, until it gets to 10C/50F, at which point the unit shuts off, or reaches 1.0 efficiency at which point it amounts to electrically heating the water "the hard way". Or
divert additional heat into the utility room, which you then have to pay for. Now if your regular hot water heater is gas, and your house's furnace is gas, then it's six of one, half dozen of the other.  Except you are paying the pumping costs also.  So it's a net lose.

"I'll just eject the chilled air outside, then. SOLVED!"
Except when you push air out of your house, you draw a vacuum (negative millibar) inside your house, and air simply leaks in somewhere else.  This "makeup air" now needs conditioning.  Now you have 2 problems.

You are "heating the great outdoors" by intaking -5C air and ejecting 10C air.
The makeup air is much drier than the air that went into the heat pump.  Here we must do a deep dive into latent heat of vaporization, but the upshot is that water vapor in the air stores a great deal of energy - 2,258 J/g or 1 megajoule per pound.  When your process has the effect of reducing humidity, it's throwing away this latent energy, which must be made up for real.  Effectively, "heating the great outdoors" and "humidifying the great outdoors" is the same thing.

Some of this latent energy goes into the water - the heat pump's evaporator (of freon) condenses water, and that 2,258 J/g went into the hot water, which at least isn't "humidifying the great outdoors", but still presents the same problems I discussed in the first part.  Your humidifier must make up for this lost humidity, by boiling water into the air, again at 2,258 J/g.  Even if it's a sparger humidifier (which sprays a fine mist which spontaneously evaporates, there's still no free lunch; that evaporation happened by stealing the 2,258 J/g out of the air, reducing its temperature and the heater must work harder to compensate.
If you want a heat pump water heater, just buy one.
They are readily available.  However they solve none of the above problems. They're not the panacea one might make them out to be.
However... if the heat pumps could be water sourced.... (i.e. their interchange fluid is water instead of air)... different deal.  Now you can pump water out of the aquifer and put the heated/cooled water back in (at a different height obviously, so you aren't trying to chill water you just chilled).
And if you're where I think you are, you have a second option, as long as you don't mind a house that is 7' or 13' wide (depending on if you're willing to limit yourself to broad canals).  You can interchange to canal water (uptake from one end of the boat, discharge to the other).  Or simply run a bunch of glycol loops before you pour floor insulation, and use the boat's entire steel bottom as your heatsink, without ever having to clean a clogged filter! Covering an entire boat roof and upper sides with walkable solar panels has not been done. So much opportunity for innovation!
Other complications
Placing the heat pump on the intake line to the water heater is a lost cause.  Water only moves through that pipe while hot water is being used. (cold water pushes out the hot water, that's how the pressurization works; the volume of actual water in the tank remains the same). Doing that would be like having a "tankless on-demand heat-pump water heater" and that would require a positively enormous freon engine and evaporator, we're talking 20,000 joules/second (aka watts).
Having the heat pump recirculate through the water heater (out the drain valve, in the cold) won't work either, because its maximum temp is below the  water heater's minimum temp.
"It will work at night when the water heater gets super cold"  Actually, any competent, modern tanked water heater will hold usable temperature for at least 12 hours after power loss; and if it doesn't because it's old, they make rockwool insulation kits for them.   Of course, hot water won't be replaced as it's used, but yeah, you can get a shower before the system turns the heat back on.
"Storing water around 100F, what could possibly go wrong?"  Actually it'll breed all sorts of bacteria, including legionella.  (you may not have heard this because it's relatively new science, partly arising from the fiasco in Flint, Michigan.  Tiny amounts of bacteria were in water pipes because of a botched water-supply changeover [from the regional lake-water system shared by most suburbs, to obsolete plant drawing from the Flint River]. That, plus the "petri dish" effects of water heaters kept at 40-55C, created a perfect storm.)


Where should I connect the green ground wire in main panel next to meter? I am wondering what would be the correct location to connect the unconnected green ground wire in main panel next to meter. The detached garage has it's own ground rod. It is being fed by the double pole 50 amp breaker in main panel next to meter. I attached photos. The bare aluminum cable in main connects to ground bus bar in breaker box located inside house. The ground rod under meter connects to inside meter box only.
The hanging #6 green wire and 3 other black #6 wires run 60ft underground in conduit to detached garage sub panel. Two black #6 are on each pole of double 50 amp breaker and other black #6 is on neutral bar of main box next to meter.

Fit a ground bar to the main panel, land it there

While, since you're working in a main panel here, you could commingle neutrals and grounds by landing your new ground wire on one of the neutral bars, it's cleaner to avoid that altogether and install a separate ground bar into the main panel instead for the ground wires.  Since you have a Square-D main panel, the correct part for your situation is a PK12GTA or PK15GTA -- you should be able to find it at a local electrical supply house or order it online for about $10.  Simply mount it to the main panel's cabinet in the holes provided, with the meter pulled for the duration (there should be a set top left or top right -- if not, the install instructions give guidance on drilling a set of mounting holes), then attach the ground wire to the newly fitted ground bar.  Once that's done, have the electric company turn the power back on, and enjoy your new subpanel!

(The previous installer committed a bit of a no-no by using a black wire for a neutral and phase-taping it instead of using a white wire, but that can be rectified down the road if it ever becomes an issue.  I would suggest phase taping it white at this point, at a minimum, to avoid needless confusion due to the previous installer's non-standard phase-taping scheme.)


Which numbers identify inputs and outputs in circuit breaker I have always though that the numbering on the circuit breaker is in as such that the input wire (supply line) is 1 (3,5,7) and the output wire is 2 (4,6,8). However today I discovered that in my panel the input wire is 2, and the output wire is 1. Is this correct? And does it matter?

It can go either way. often the feed to a panel goes "backwards" through the main breaker (compared to the other breakers).


What could cause a toilet to bubble occasionally, even if sewer line is clear? I've had a problem for the last month with my toilet emitting air bubbles when I shower. I've had sewer blockage before due to tree roots, so I thought this might be the cause. I had the line snaked out to the street and then back through the house, but it still didn't seem to help. We then tried to snake through the actual toilet bowl, and that helped a bit, but the plumber said that it may be mineral deposits and that I would probably need a new toilet.

In the meantime, we haven't been using that toilet, but this morning it started bubbling again when I showered. I've never heard of mineral deposits in the actual toilet causing this. Has anyone else? I just want to make sure before I go to the trouble of replacing the toilet.

Regardless of how clear the drain lines are, if you have blocked, obstructed or inappropriately sized plumbing vent stacks, the bubbles could be emanating because the air being displaced as the drain line fills from the shower, have no easier path of resistance than your toilet.

TL:DR You've cleaned and investigated downstream, maybe it's time to look upstream.


How can I make 3 wire sub-panels compliant with current codes? The sub-panels in my house are all split-phase 3 conductor with neutral and grounds mixed.  Is there any way to make this compliant without running new 4 conductor feeders? (Some of the feeder cables are not accessible without major renovations.)  What are the possible dangers of this setup?

TL;DR: your subpanels are seriously screwed up.  Fixing it will require running wires, because the last installer was likely an idiot

We start this journey in NEC 215.6:

  215.6 Feeder Equipment Grounding Conductor. Where a feeder supplies branch
  circuits in which equipment grounding conductors are required, the feeder shall
  include or provide an equipment grounding conductor in accordance with the
  provisions of 250.134, to which the equipment grounding conductors of the branch
  circuits shall be connected. Where the feeder supplies a separate building or
  structure, the requirements of 250.32(B) shall apply.

Since all your panels are in the same structure, 250.32(B) is irrelevant (and so is the length of the feeders -- the NEC doesn't care about how long a feeder is provided the voltage drop is within limits), so we move on to 250.134:

  250.134 Equipment Fastened in Place or Connected by Permanent Wiring Methods
  (Fixed) - Grounding. Unless grounded by connection to the grounded circuit
  conductor as permitted by 250.32, 250.140, and 250.142, non-current-carrying
  metal parts of equipment, raceways, and other enclosures, if grounded, shall
  be connected to an equipment grounding conductor by one of the methods
  specified in 250.134(A) or (B).

  (A) Equipment Grounding Conductor Types. By connecting to any of the
  equipment grounding conductors permitted by 250.118.

  (B) With Circuit Conductors. By connecting to an equipment grounding
  conductor contained within the same raceway, cable, or otherwise run with the
  circuit conductors.

  Exception No. 1: As provided in 250.130(C), the equipment grounding conductor
  shall be permitted to be run separately from the circuit conductors.

Once again, we ignore the reference to 250.32, but now there are several issues at hand.  First, 250.140 is also irrelevant, as it deals solely with electric ranges and dryers, not feeders.  While 250.142(B) looks promising,

  (B) Load-Side Equipment. Except as permitted in 250.30(A)(l) and 250.32(B)
  Exception, a grounded circuit conductor shall not be used for grounding non-
  current-carrying metal parts of equipment on the load side of the service
  disconnecting means or on the load side of a separately derived system
  disconnecting means or the overcurrent devices for a separately derived system
  not having a main disconnecting means.

  Exception No.1: The frames of ranges, wall-mounted ovens, counter-mounted
  cooking units, and clothes dryers under the conditions permitted for existing
  installations by 250.140 shall be permitted to be connected to the grounded
  circuit conductor.

  Exception No.2: It shall be permissible to ground meter enclosures by
  connection to the grounded circuit conductor on the load side of the service
  disconnect where all of the following conditions apply:

  (1) No service ground-fault protection is installed.

  (2) All meter enclosures are located immediately adjacent to the service
  disconnecting means.

  (3) The size of the grounded circuit conductor is not smaller than the size
  specified in Table 250.122 for equipment grounding conductors.

  Exception No.3: Direct-current systems shall be permitted to be grounded on
  the load side of the disconnecting means or overcurrent device in accordance
  with 250.164.

  Exception No.4: Electrode-type boilers operating at over 1000 volts shall be
  grounded as required in 490.72(E)(1) and 490.74.

none of the exceptions to it apply at all to your situation, and the reference to 250.32(B)'s exception is also, again, irrelevant.  In addition, 250.30(A)(1) is inapplicable as it deals solely with separately derived systems (such as a generator) and not utility mains service.

This leaves us with 250.130(C):

  (C) Nongrounding Receptacle Replacement or Branch Circuit Extensions. The
  equipment grounding conductor of a grounding-type receptacle or a branch-
  circuit extension shall be permitted to be connected to any of the following:

  (1) Any accessible point on the grounding electrode system as described in
  250.50

  (2) Any accessible point on the grounding electrode conductor

  (3) The equipment grounding terminal bar within the enclosure where the branch
  circuit for the receptacle or branch circuit originates

  (4) An equipment grounding conductor that is part of another branch circuit
  that originates from the enclosure where the branch circuit for the receptacle
  or branch circuit originates

  (5) For grounded systems, the grounded service conductor within the service
  equipment enclosure

  (6) For ungrounded systems, the grounding terminal bar within the service
  equipment enclosure

Unfortunately for you, point 5 here isn't a blanket authorization to do what was done in your house, just the ability to run a new ground wire back to the neutral busbar in your service panel.  So, you'll have to run ground wires back from the subpanels to a point tied into the grounding network, then separate neutral and ground at all the subpanels.

As to Longneck's concern about broken ground wires -- while running a single ground wire by itself may be Code (it depends on how your AHJ interprets 250.130(C)), there are two vastly better options:

Run new RMC from the main panel to the subpanels via whatever route is convenient and use the RMC itself as a grounding conductor as per 250.118 point 2; this RMC can be sized to accommodate a future feeder upgrade as well, if such a thing is ever needed.  However, this approach does have a much higher upfront cost, as running conduit's quite a bit of work.
Run a single bare conductor type MC cable as per 250.118 point 10(a).  This is easier/faster than running conduit, but means you'll have to tear both it and the old feeders out to run new feeders in the future.  It does address longneck's concerns about a single bare wire being snipped, though -- cutting MC cable is not something one does save for a full-scale demolition!  (The 6/1 I linked is adequate for any subpanel you'll ever find in a residential setting, by the way -- Table 250.122 allows for a 6AWG copper grounding conductor for all circuits up to 200A.)


Adding NM cable into side hole on service panel, code securing? Service panel in basement is mounted directly to block wall just below the joist. I want to add new circuit cables, NM-B-14-2, through side holes using a knockout clamp. If the side hole is more than 12” below the joists do I need to secure the cable between the hole and the joist? How should it be secured?

The simplest thing is probably to attach a 1x6 flat to the block wall on either side of the panel as a cleat for staples.  That will let you keep it tidy without too much work or expense.


Any ideas on how to keep a refrigerator from moving without wheel locks? I've got a frig on a tile floor without any wheel locks, and it likes to slide forward every time I open a refrigerator door quickly.  So far I have tried:

toilet shims shoved under the wheels.  Since they are plastic on
ceramic tile, they kept sliding out.
I glued rubber toolbox liner to the toilet shims and tried again. They stayed longer this time, but still wind up coming out.

Does anyone have any tips on how to keep the refrigerator from moving forward when I open the door?

Most refrigerators have adjustable feet that can be "unscrewed" in order to level the fridge.  All you need to do is "unscrew" these feet until the wheels are slightly off the floor.


Repair Faux Wood Grain on Cabinetry I had a question about repairing the boards and side boards of kitchen cabinetry. I am not actually wanting to fix the actual cabinets, but the sides of the cabinets are made with some type of wood and then it looks like they pressed with a faux wood grain veneer or contact paper. On  another cabinet (not shown), the faux wood grain paper/veneer or whatever you want to call it, has started to chip off. I think it’s either cause of old-age, humidity, moisture, etc. Since it’s just a faux wood grain finish on top of a cheap wood, what is the best way to repair it? I thought of a few options which range from a cover up to a complete replacement:
-try to match a wood filler crayon or marker and just cover up the missing portions. This would be a quick fix.
-find a matching tape or contact paper and just cover up the relevant portions
-find a paint that would cover up the portions
-find a contact paper roll or veneer finish and completely cut the paper and paste it onto the side of the cabinetry.

I really want to stay away from a replacement and would rather just find a quick fix or cover up. From your experience and insight, what do you think would be the best? What color do you think would match these faux grains?
picture of wood grain on side of cabinet

Repairing this type of material is difficult, although I have seen it done.  It is an art project of matching paint colors and drawing in the wood grain.  I doubt it will hold up though.  Covering it up is your best option and there are several ways to do it.

1 - I think your best bet is to find a cabinet refacing supplier.  There are many on the internet and you should be able to find an end skin.  This is either a thin sheet of plywood or veneer and many are self adhesive. In cabinet refacing, they cover the outside surfaces of a cabinet and replace the doors so they have a lot of color and wood options.

2 - You can buy what is essentially wood grain contact paper and cover it up.  Be sure that surface is as clean as possible before applying the new contact paper.

3 - I see a small strip of wood at the bottom.  I would have to see what the whole cabinet looks like, but you may be able to take that off and replace it with a wider strip of wood if the damage is confined to the lower part of the cabinet as it appears in this picture.

4 - You can go the a local wood store and buy veneer or thin plywood and stain it to match.

Good Luck!


What could be causing a new 20 amp dedicated circuit supported by a GFCI breaker to trip? I installed a dedicated 20amp circuit home run to support a single duplex outlet in a bathroom. The GFCI breaker is wired correctly. However, When I plug in a load  such as a light  a  the breaker trips. Could there be an underlying problem with existing circuits in the home which could be causing this issue such as a neutral and a ground touching each other somewhere on an existing circuit or circuits throughout the house?  The panel is a G E T M 2020C  and the breaker I installed is a THQL 1120 GFP. I believe that the issue is being caused by some sort of feedback through the neutral bar causing a ground fault condition when a load is plugged into the new outlet. I would appreciate any feedback.

A GFCI breaker only detects ground-faults on the circuit it's protecting. It measures the current flowing on the ungrounded (hot) conductor and the grounded (neutral) conductor, and opens the circuit if there is a large enough difference between the two. A ground fault on another circuit would not trip the breaker, unless it was adding or removing current from the circuit (i.e. it was at fault with this circuit).
If this is a dedicated home run circuit with only a duplex receptacle, there are only 4 places a fault could be occurring.

The breaker.
The wire.
The receptacle.
The device plugged into the receptacle.

The Breaker
Make sure the breaker is connected properly, and that it is properly seated in the panel.  The white grounded (neutral) conductor from the circuit, should be connected to the terminal labeled "LOAD NEUTRAL".  The black ungrounded (hot) conductor, should be connected to the terminal labeled "LOAD POWER". The white grounded (neutral) pigtail, should be connected to the grounded (neutral) bus bar in the panel.
It might also be worth replacing the breaker, as they can fail or be defective.
The Wire
If there is a fault anywhere along the length of the wire, this could cause the breaker to trip.  You'll want to test the continuity between the circuit conductors, but you'll first have to isolate them.

Disconnect all circuit wires from the service panel.
Using a multimeter set to measure resistance, or in continuity mode, test the continuity between each combination of wires.

There should be infinite resistance between all conductors. If not, you have a fault.
If you can manage it, inspect the entire length of the cable for damage.  Make sure a staple or nail hasn't accidentally punctured the cable.
The Receptacle
It might be worth it to replace the receptacle, just to rule out the possibility of a defective device.  You'll also want to inspect the wiring, to insure it's wired properly. The black ungrounded (hot) conductor, should be connected to the brass colored screw terminal. The white grounded (neutral) conductor, should be connected to the silver colored screw terminal. The green or bare equipment grounding conductor, should be connected to the green grounding screw terminal.
Also make sure that when the device is mounted in the box, none of the conductors are coming into contact with each other. This is especially true with the bare equipment grounding conductor, as it's easy to create a fault with the bare wire in a cramped box.
The Device
Try to plug in a few different devices, and possibly check the devices themselves for ground-faults.

I can't think of any situations where a ground-fault on a circuit, would cause the breaker to trip on a different circuit. Unless the two circuits are at fault with each other, of course.


What is the difference between 'planed square edge' timber and 'planed all round'? I am buying timber to use a curtain batten, between the rail and the wall. So I want the edges to be flat. I see wood sold as 'planed all round' and 'planed square edge'. What's the difference? Which do I want for curtain batten?

Planed all round means all flat surfaces have been planed.

Planed square edge means you have one edge planed straight and can measure from there. It's one step up from rough sawn.

Timber finish terms for reference

PAR - Planed all round (both edges and sides)
PBS - Planed both sides
PSE - Planed single edge (gives you one straight edge to work from)
Rough Sawn - raw milled stock

Further designations used in wood grading:

S4S - Surfaced four sides
S3S - Surfaced three sides
S2S - Surfaced two sides
S1S - Surfaced one side
Rough

Note that PSE is not necessarily the same as S1S. The board edge (narrowest dimension) is planed straight and true with PSE. For Cedar trim, for example, you have a wide dimension planed smooth.

The Red Oak I used for window trim was S3S, made for nice top and sides, would have been pretty rustic for the rough side to show.


Cabling into concrete So I've been doing the installation of a lot of cctv systems recently and the most time consuming part of it is always the cabling. Currently I am using coax cable clips to hold the cable. The issue is that using the cable clips if I hit a hard section of pebble dash or concrete and mortar I end up with about a 5% success rate of getting the clips in which is not in any way shape or form efficient.

So what I was wondering is what i sthe most efficient way to cable into concrete (external walls) that is a durable and not too offensive looking.

I've had a look at using a ramset but I can't work out how that would functionally work with the cabling in a safe manner (i.e. not firing 2mm away from a finger).

If a staple gun style thing existed which could fit over a coax cable that would probably be optimal.

Why not use a powder actuated tool (like Ramset) and use short drive pins with a washer?

Insert these in a line where you want the cable. Before firing, wrap a wire/cable tie of some sort under the washer.

 Images and links are illustrative, not an endorsement of goods or sources.


What is the best way to apply Shellac-based primer? We are preparing to shellac-prime all of the walls on a rental house due to nicotine odors.  Is it best to apply this product with a roller or airless sprayer?

Shellac/alcohol based primers like Bulls Eye work great for sealing stains and odors in many applications, however they do put out a lot of alcohol fumes. Spraying increases the amount of volatile gases in the air and should only be used in a very well ventilated area and with proper protective respirators. You can actually get very intoxicated, legally drunk from hours of exposure. There is always a risk of fire or explosion if a large concentration of alcohol fumes are exposed to an open flame or hot spark, so be very careful.

I have dealt with the identical problem of neutralizing smoking odors in an apartment. I believe you will have equal success using a good latex/water based primer. A water based primer is easier and safer to use, and I'm sure you will see good results. Because to the large areas you need to seal, I'd recommend avoiding shellac and go with latex.


Electrical breaker popping I bought a small house from about 1970 (or there about.) It currently has only one receptacle in the living room and well I will admit I am most likely overloading this receptacle as my computer, TV, Game system, Monitor, and internet/wifi, are all plugged into the same spot. I know this is not a good idea to have them all one the same plug, especially since my plug has tripped once already. But is there any easy fix to this issue?

Sounds like an issue I recently faced. My wife was drying her hair in our bathroom. Two of my children were taking a shower (running the lights and fans). Circuit breaker popped and that half of the house went dark. Turns out someone had spliced into the light circuit inside the attic (the attic lights made it easy) to add these extra outlets to the bathroom. My wife, who had the misfortune of picking one of these outlets (she has an original outlet on a different circuit), put the circuit over amps.

My guess is your lonely outlet has some friends, and may be a "We need an outlet here" hack into a smaller circuit. Determine what is on this circuit first. If you're sharing your circuit with, say, a refrigerator, that could be a big problem.

One way to potentially solve this is, if it's an interior wall adjoining another room, to see if there's an outlet on the other side of the wall (on a different circuit, or you'll just exacerbate your single outlet problem). If you have this type of setup, measure to where the outlet will be along the living room side (make sure you figure out where the studs are as well). Then you can use an old work drywall box and fish a wire through the hole into the existing box and splice off of it. I've done this myself and it's a great way to add more outlets without having to do any extensive wire work.


How can I remove mold from the underside of garage roof sheathing? Home inspector found mold in roof under sheathing in my garage.  Mold professional says they spray a fungicide to kill it and then spray with a tinted paint.  Extremely pricey!  You cant clean it off because of the roof nails everywhere.  Is this the only way?

Sounds like you’re the “seller” and the “buyer’s” inspector found the problem.

In real estate sales, I think it is better for the seller to reduce the asking price and let the buyer “fix” the problem. If you try to fix the problem, I can guarantee you that it won’t be good enough and you’ll be re-negotiating the cost and repair later.


Swapping G8 Halogen Under-cabinet fixtures for LED I've got 6 under-cabinet fixtures that use G8 20V bulbs. I'd like to swap them for LEDs. I've tried putting in bulbs but there's some difference in the voltage load and there's a lot of flickering. So my next step I guess is to swap the fixtures. They're direct wired around the perimeter of the kitchen, controlled by a switch. Should I expect this to be somewhat straight forward (is anything? :-) )? Should I expect there to be more to swapping one for the other than connecting the new one up to where the old one was, moving the old fixture wire connection to the new fixture wire connection? I haven't opened one up yet but I assumed the fixture is connected to the wires in the wall via some wire nut or similar.

Are you correct in the questions?  Should it be G8 20 watts not 20V.
To replace the G8 20 Watt/120v build it is a direct straight replacement.  Since you did do the swap, but it is flicking, there could be two issues

The replacement LEDs were not dimmerable and you have a dinner in the switch
The replacements are dimmerable, but the dimmer is not rated for LED bulbs.


Wiring question for detached room Would it be possible to power the detached room from the breaker box with two 30 amp breakers to the room with UF 10-2 wiring underground from the breaker box and then landed into the junction box at the room where I would join it with previously wired 12-2 wiring, one for a small 115/15 amp window unit and another for separate receptacle?
Also, mentioning the fan switch and small appliance will be running on the same 30 amp breaker and the other receptacle to another 30 amp breaker.
 Pardon my father built this dwelling about 10 years ago and we never got around to powering the room.

Yes, but you'll have to change the breakers to 20A.  You can't have 12AWG wire downline of a 30A breaker.  (NEC 240.4).

And I presume you'll want to fit common 15A or 20A receptacles, and those are only allowed on 15A or 20A circuits.  (with an exception allowing 15A receptacles on 20A circuits; no other substitutions allowed.)  NEC 210.21(B)(3).

Another problem is you're talking about running two separate 120V circuits to an outbuilding.  That is not allowed.  You can only have 1 circuit of any particular voltage, unless by nature the circuit has a special requirement e.g. a lighting circuit that needs to be switched from the main building. (NEC 225.30) You can have exactly one 120V circuit, and if you want to plug anything into it, it must be 15A or 20A. (210.21b3).  You can also have a 240V circuit.

The normal way you handle multiple circuits to an outbuilding is one single feeder that feeds a sub-panel.  You can only have one, but the subpanel can support any number of 120V, 120/240V, and 240V circuits.

The subpanel can be any amperage.  It can then have any number of 15A or 20A circuit breakers in the subpanel protecting individual branch circuits, or circuits of other sizes.


Cutting marble tile w/ an angle grinder As the title states I'm resorting to cutting my marble tiles with an angle grinder. The grinder and the blade are brand new. I didn't want to spend a lot of money on a wet table saw since all I'm doing is my 9X6 bathroom. I have an 8.5 amp Black & Decker angle grinder, 11,000 rpm, and an appropriate size continuous diamond blade with a max rpm of 15,000 and good with dry/wet use.

I got through about 6in. when let off the power to check the tile out and the blade rattled as it was coming to a stop. The top flange came loose on the angle grinder! I'm afraid to keep going. I've seen people use cut off blades with angle grinders before so I don't really understand what the issue was. Any ideas?

I'd have to guess that you may have installed it incorrectly, or failed to figure out what "correctly" is for your particular grinder/blade combination. I cut a lot of tile with a dry diamond blade on a grinder, and I do recall that the setup for the thin diamond blade was different than for a standard thick grinder blade, though I can't recall how it was different without the thing in front of me.


Why is my (white) painted plaster going brown on the borders of the underlying plasterboard? We've recently had our spare bedroom ceiling plastered, and there was a loosish bit of plasterboard that was secured by the plasterer before skimming the entire ceiling.

After painting it I observed a strange brown patch following the line of the underlying plasterboard. The only thing I have ever seen that is similar to this is the brown marks that appear on painted wood where a knotting solution hasn't been applied, or from the corrosion from underlying rusted nails.

The spot itself is directly below an attic water tank which looks like it may have leaked in the past (when the previous owners still lived here). However a thorough examination of the area revealed it to be bone dry (as was the area before plastering, and is now).

Does, anyone have any thoughts as to what might be causing this and steps I should take to remedy it?

I had this exact situation when flashing around a chimney leaked and I had some water spots on the ceiling by the fireplace.  The stains from the water can still come through even after the drywall is dry, so you need to apply a sealer and repaint.  I used Kilz; you should be able to find a similar product if that's not available where you live.


How to get a "wide" shim instead of a long shim So I have a long gap between a joist and floorboards on one half of 6 foot joist that I'd like to close.
I'm toying with the idea of just adding shims to the top of the joist rather than lifting up one end of the joist from the sill and adding shims to one end.  (There were already 1/2" shims on both ends since we had to bring a nominal 8" joist up to an actual 8").  We already tried to jam and lever up the one end of the joist and it doesn't seem to budge.
My question is how can I get an extra wide shim?  I've seen shims online but they all seem to be "long" rather than "wide".  I'd like to get a shim across 3 feet of the joist with a bigger gap on the end vs the middle.  Something like this "floor board" sliver that these Irish carpenters talk about seems ideal.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prvQRhagLjI

If I cut it myself, can I just chisel a piece of wood out and then sand one edge to a taper?  I don't own any power tools or a table saw :(  Just a chisel, sandpaper and a Japanese saw.

Larger shims I usually just cut to fit from plywood.   The layers in the plywood allow you to change the depth pretty easy by chiseling and just lifting the layer up until you want it to end.


Aluminum wiring with dark discolouration on outside We are in the process of doing renovations on a home which was built in the early 70s in Toronto. The home has aluminum wiring in most places except the basement which was completed later.

When some walls were removed we noted that sheathing on some of the wiring is discoloured, looking almost burnt. Is this "normal" with aluminum wiring? Any thoughts on what could have caused this? How do you recommend that we address this?

Again appreciate any pointers from the experts here.
Thanks

Yeah, it looks like slow-cooked wires

The type of damage you have appears like the cable jackets have slow-cooked themselves from extended overheating due to overload.  While properly terminated aluminum wiring is normally OK to keep around, the overheating damage means that the cause of the overheat/overload should be found/corrected, and the damaged cabling runs replaced outright.


How can I identify the source of a leak at the hot water heater? My water heater has a slow leak. From what I can tell so far it is coming from either the cold water inlet or the hot water connection. The cold water inlet seems to be the culprit to me because that is the side that the water is dripping down the side of the tank on the floor. However, I am not 100% sure that is where it is leaking because there is a pool of water on the hot water connection side, as well as the anode rod area.

What I have done so far:

Dried out all the water inlets and anode rod area.
Ran the hot water and looked for the leak.

What happened was the cold water inlet very slowly filled up, and to a lesser extend the hot water area filled up with some water. The anode rod area did not fill with any water.

So what is my next step, should I just try to replace both hot/cold connections? Is there any way to know for sure which one could be the culprit? Or is there another possibility I haven't considered?

The water heater is about 8 years old (AO smith brand, 50 gallon electric 2 heater elements) so I'm not quit ready to just replace it.

Dry all the suspect areas well.  Wrap a paper towel around each inlet/outlet. Turn on your hot water draw and start checking the paper towels. the first one to get wet is where your problem is.   Then it my just be a matter of tightening a connection or removing and replacing a soldered fitting.


How do I run new water lines from the basement to the second floor through a finished wall? I am redoing an upstairs bathroom that has galvanized steel pipes currently running to it for water supply that run straight up from the basement. I am debating between using PEX or copper for the new supply lines. From what I have researched, if i use PEX, it will slap against the wall of the 1st floor since i cannot attach braces inside the finished wall without removing drywall. Is this true? Also, if I do use copper, what size is recommended for a bathroom: 1/2" or 3/4"? What type of braces does copper need to support it? I am planning on bracing it in the basement and at the 2nd floor where it enters.

Copper pipe should be self supporting for the height of a room as long as you clip it as close to the floor/ceiling as possible, but if you've got particularly high rooms or high pressure you still might get some banging.

There are various types of pipe clip you can get, some screw into the wall others nail, you just need a suitable anchor point.

1/2" (15mm) pipe should be adequate for most purposes, but I'd go with the size closest to the current pipes. Bath taps (in the UK at least) usually have larger diameter (3/4") to basin taps (1/2"), so you might want to use 3/4" (22mm) pipe if you've got a large bath.


Installed LASCO MagnaFlush Toilet Tank Kit, Now Toilet Runs All the Time? About a week ago the worn out old ballcock system broke on the toilet. My landlord picked up the LASCO 04-4059 kit:

I went ahead and did the install as part of our rent-deal and the toilet now functions as it should but... runs constantly, specifically making a hissing gargling noise which it never did before. From what I can tell I followed the (terribly written) directions perfectly.

Today with some Googling I got pretty certain that the issue was that the new flapper wasn't forming a perfect seal. Cleaning the rim of where the new flapper sat made no difference, so I tested the seal with a piece of flat styrofoam and that seems to make a perfect seal.

Nonetheless the toilet still runs even with the seal and I do notice a slight bead of water sometimes along the side of the pump though that might be just a very occasional drip.

So I'm not sure if it's an issue with the pump or the float. Strangely if I tap the float or put my hand in the water and change the level the gargling stops for a little while. Adjusting the float level does control the water height but makes no difference with the noise.

Also I ran a test to see if I turned the water off at the valve at bedtime with the tank full whether it would be full in the morning. Strangely it was near empty in the morning which initially convinced me it was the flapper but now I'm not so sure. There was no standing puddle around the toilet in the morning either.

When I re-hooked the supply line I reassembled it as it had been prior and from what I can tell there's no evidence of a leak... no water on the floor around the line etc.

Assembling the supply line connection as previosly installed I did end up with these extra parts from the kit which are not mentioned anywhere in the directions.

As there's no evidence of a leak I don't know if they're extras or the source of the issue.

Frustrated too because as of this post I'm now at 2:30 on the 1-hour at $30/hour install deal with the landlord.

Any help appreciated. Thanks.

runs constantly

Generally when someone says it "runs constantly" it means they are talking about the ballcock valve (the fill valve). A new fill valve that constantly runs usually means that the installer did not flush the internal components of the fill valve after installation. Oftentimes debris is dislodged from the supply system (supply line, stop valve, supply pipes) that can affect operation of the new fill valve. It is standard practice for a plumber to open the top of the fill valve assembly and open the stop valve a bit, flushing the new valve diaphragm and washers. In fact I will bet $$ that the installation instructions recommend this.

However, a clue in your post makes me suspicious:

  turned the water off at the valve at bedtime with the tank full whether it would be full in the morning. Strangely it was near empty in the morning

A leaky fill valve would just run all the time, but the tank would not empty. Now we need to suspect the flush valve assembly (which includes the flapper). You tested the flush valve seat surface with a piece of styrofoam and it did not leak, so the flush valve seal is OK.

So on to the flapper. Generally a bad flapper causes a slow leak into the bowl, resulting in the fill valve running intermittently, to refill the tank as the leaky flapper allows the tank level to slowly drop. The "constant" run you describe would only occur if the flapper was leaking catastrophically (using "catastrophically" in a relative fashion). I suggest you put a few drops of food coloring in the tank, this will immediately tell you whether or not the flapper is leaking (cuz you will see the dye in the bowl).


Does snaking a shower drain resolve a leak? We recently moved to a fairly new condo (less than 10 years old).  The condo was empty for a few months before we moved in (the inspection went fine).  However, the first night we moved in, the master bathroom shower clogged when my husband used it.  He waited until it was a maybe 1-2 inch high before stopping the water and waiting for the water to go down (maybe 5 minutes).  He then turned it back on to finish showering and it clogged again (and took about another few minutes for the water to go down).

The neighbors downstairs experience a lot of water coming out of his light fixture (imagine pouring rain).  The plumber came and snaked our shower drain.  However, would the snaking be sufficient?  Is it actually possible that a clog would cause so much water to pour downstairs (and therefore unclogging will resolve all issues)?

Thanks in advance!

No. A clog doesn't necessarily result in a leak (usually doesn't, in fact), and there should be no water in the downstairs ceiling.

You have two distinct issues here, or possibly a complex issue involving both a clog and a leak. Were it my home I'd open the relevant areas and find the true cause of the problem.

  Fixing the clog might mask the leak, however, and make it less
  apparent. When the pipe is full of water, water was apparently
  streaming out of the leak into the neighbor's unit below, but now that
  it's fixed, the water may merely be dripping out, making his ceiling
  wet, but not enough to notice... until the mold sets in. So it's still
  a problem, but now it's a hidden problem. ~Johnny


Cut a granite counter top What's the best way for a DIY granite counter top to be cut?  What tools do I need that will do the job without breaking the bank?

I have done this with granite tiles in two different sizes, 12 by 12 inches (30x30cm) and 18 by 26 inches (45x65cm).  Not a full slab, but it should basically work the same.

Tools

You have two tasks involved: cutting it, and smoothing/polishing the edges.

For both cutting and polishing, I used an angle grinder.  In my case, I bought a 4-1/2 inch grinder like this one for very cheap from a discount tool import store (about US$20; works great).

For straight cuts, I used a diamond blade (metal blade embedded with diamond chips).

I clamped a board to the granite to use as a guide rail or fence, and ran the grinder along using a guard like this:

For the round sink opening, I cut out most of it with a series of straight cuts using the diamond blade (inside my desired line), and then smoothed out the curve using a masonry grinding wheel on the angle grinder.

I wore a respirator dust mask and ran the shop vac while cutting, to collect as much dust as possible.

To smooth and polish the edges, I used polishing/"surface conditioning disks" designed for stone and masonry, in the angle grinder.  They come in a set of various grains from coarse to fine.  Just like sanding, start with the coarse and work your way up to the fine.

All of the above parts were done dry; no water involved.

I finished by hand with some diamond polishing pads that come mounted on spongy rubber holders.  These are done wet; using water to lubricate the process and wash away grit while you are doing it.  I used an old plastic milk jug and poked a pin-hole in the side near the bottom, and let it dribble out water continuously while polishing.

All in all, I would say it was easy and inexpensive; it just took time and created a lot of dust.  Get a proper respirator face mask and don't use those little paper masks; your sinuses and lungs are worth proper protection.

I'm sure I spent less than US$100 on the grinder and cutting/grinding/polishing supplies.  I already had the respirator but they aren't too expensive either.

For the 12 inch tiles, I also used a small tile wet saw, built like a tiny table saw.  It produced nice clean cuts, but since that involves moving the tiles on the saw, it didn't work for the 26 inch tiles, and would not work for slab either.

Results

I used granite tiles for kitchen and bathroom counter tops.  At the time I did the kitchen, I was only aware of square granite tiles in relatively small sizes like the 12 inch ones here.  When I later did the bathroom, I discovered the larger size tiles, which were large enough to run a full tile from back to front edges.  This 5 foot wide counter is only four tiles for the main surface.

Here is the kitchen with 12 inch granite tiles:

And the bathroom with 18 by 26 inch granite tiles:


Can I "flip" a light switch (top/bottom position) I have a Decora 3 way switch, on the metal part it clearly label one side as the top.  It is installed correctly right now.

So right now, if both switches are on the "off" (down) position, the light is on.  Functionally there is nothing wrong about it, but the positioning just looks weird to me.  Can I just flip the switch myself (as in, keep all the wire in place, and simply rotate the switch by 180 degree)?  I don't know if switch must be install according to the "top" position.

Some kinds of "quiet" switches have mercury-wetted contacts and must not be installed upside-down. If the manufacturer went to the trouble of putting a "top" label on the switch then it probably is one of that type.

If you insist on changing the on-off operation of a three-way switch, you should not move the physical device. You should interchange the travelers. Identify the common wire on the switch, then disconnect, swap, and reconnect the other two wires.

Don't interchange the travelers on both switches, or you will get your original functionality back.

BTW you really should think this through before altering anything. If you change the action of one switch, you will create the situation where one switch is up and one switch is down when the lights are on, both switches are down or both switches are up when the lights are off. I can't see how this is any kind of aesthetic improvement.


How Do I Wire My Nest Hello Doorbell With A Plug In Transformer? I wired up a nest hello doorbell to my existing chime. It rings fine but lacks enough power to operate properly. That’s ok, it was a little expected.

Unfortunately, changing the old transformer is not an option due to its placement and some external factors.

Per hello instructions, I have bought a plug in transformer. This allows the hello to work without the chime.

What I would like to be able to do is power the hello with the plug in transformer and  have the chime ring at the same time. Is this possible to achieve safely?

I have attached an image of my chime currently wired.

Make sure your new transformer has enough power for both your chime and the hello. I would not continue to use the old transformer. I would disconnect the power to the old transformer and rely on the power of the new transformer to operate both the old chime and the hello.

It looks like your old transformer is connected at the "0" and "3" terminals. Remove those and cap them off. Connect your new plug in transformer there.


Does mould growth definitely indicate a leak? I've moved into a new place that had some mould growth on the ceiling in one of the bedrooms. I found a leak in the roof that corresponded and patched that up and cleaned up the mould. A few weeks later, it's back. I couldn't see any additional moisture up in the roof though. Can mould subsist on paint? Or the latent moisture in the room? Or does this indicate there is moisture getting through still, possibly just a small amount that wasn't visible when I checked it.
Thanks

Does mould growth definitely indicate a leak?

No, not at all. Mold can grow in any suitable environment, which just means sufficient moisture and sufficient food.
Unfortunately, neither of these need be present in very large quantities.
It's relatively common to find mold growth on the ceiling in a poorly-ventilated bathroom, or even on other surfaces. Likewise, on walls in a humid basement.
These issues should be addressed with a two-pronged approach: improve the ventilation so that the humidity is kept low enough to prevent mold growth, and on painted surfaces use paints specifically formulated for humid environments and which have mold-retarding chemistry.
Of course, none of this means that the roof isn't still leaking. If you're at all concerned about that, you should go check it again to make sure moisture isn't getting through the roof. But certainly, the presence of mold doesn't prove that the roof is leaking.


Oven warmer trips GFCI and bake element doesn't work I have a Kenmore gas oven model 790.75663201. Started the warmer for the first time since I bought the house five years ago. The GFCI next to it tripped after a couple of minutes. Happens every time. Since then, the bake element doesn't ignite. The broiler and stove top work fine though. What could the issue be?

Igniter grounded out and failed
Since your stove appears to use an electronic hot-surface igniter for the oven burner, and it's most likely a GFCI that tripped instead of a regular breaker, then I suspect the igniter grounded out and failed when you turned the warming function on, which led to the GFCI trip.  You'll need to replace it (or have an appliance tech replace it for you) to revive the oven, most likely.


is it worth upgrading from 14 AWG to 12 AWG I am looking to replace all the OLD 14/2 wiring in my "new to me" house with 12/2 wiring do you believe this is over kill?

In my opinion, no.
Additional Capacity
If you need the additional capacity on a single circuit, you'd be better to simply replace that single circuit, or add an additional circuit.
Additional Outlets
If you're adding additional outlets (I'm talking outlets (lighting, receptacle, etc.), not just receptacle outlets), consider installing a new circuit rather than expanding an existing one.
Technology Upgrade
If you're replacing the wiring anyway (removing old knob & tube, etc.), you'll want to install 20 ampere circuits with 12 AWG conductors where appropriate. Though it still may not make sense to simply install all #12 wire.
Free Wire
If you have a ton of 12 AWG wire laying around that you got for free, and you just feel like spending hours pulling cable. Go ahead.


code requirement for cooktop gas hookup to be in another cabinet? The manual on my kitchen cooktop states:

  If a built-in wall oven is to be installed below this cooktop, the
  grounded outlet and gas supply piping must be located in an adjacent
  cabinet.

Is this a US code requirement? Or just a concession that there is no space for a gas hookup in the cabinet when a wall oven is installed in a base cabinet (since they go all the way back to the wall).

I want to move the gas line to inside the toe kick area of the cabinet with the oven and cooktop, as the 5" height there is more than enough space and is accessible when the oven is removed.

I believe it's so that you can maintain easy access to the plug and gas valve if anything were to go wrong.

  "is accessible when the oven is removed"

You don't want to have to move the oven to shut off the gas.