Cat6/Low Voltage Termination in a wooden enclosure I have been bouncing around the idea of running CAT6 thru my older (1970s) house.  Single story with an unfinished attic

I have identified a bedroom closet as the potential location for the central wiring location.  The closet is on the outer wall of the house.

Rather than install a patch panel in the closet itself and have to deal with tidying up all of the resulting cables, I was toying with the idea of a wooden enclosure directly above the closet

Something along the lines of this
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/S89046815/
With a pair of 6U rails to mount the patch panels.  Rails would be mounted about 6" in on the client cable side and 9" in on the termination side

Nail some attic decking onto the joists and secure the enclosure onto the decking

Run all cables up into the attic
Drill a 4" hole on the side of the enclosure to feed cables from wall jacks (or maybe drill a series of holes and just run smurf tube directly into the enclosure)
Drill a 3" hole on the bottom and run a short length of PVC to feed the switch (24 port for now but possibly 48 later) or pass patch cables from router and VOIP up to the panel.

Would this raise any code violations?
Potential fire hazard maybe from terminating inside a wooden enclosure in the unfinished attic?
Any structural code issues from putting this near the outer wall/studs.

Any other problems this might cause that I'm overlooking?

No obvious code violations. You're talking about low voltage cable in a non-plenum area, and any cable you buy is almost certainly going to be plenum-rated anyway.

If you're using an enclosed box like the one you referenced, dust probably won't be a huge problem.

Heat will not be a problem if you're just pulling cable and terminating it in patch panels.

However; if you're planning to put any actual electronic equipment in that box, like network switches, the attic heat could be a serious problem even if you install fans in the box to vent hot air. The air you'd be drawing into the box from the attic will be hot.

Presumably, the entire purpose of putting the patch panel in the box is to put things like your cable or DSL modem, router and switch(es) in the box, too. Those may all be the same device, of course, depending on your configuration.

I suppose you could run some ductwork and use both intake and vent fans in the box to draw cool air through it from your living area. But that's getting pretty elaborate.

I would just put it all on a high shelf in your closet. But even then, it is possible that your equipment will generate enough heat that you'll need to vent the closet to avoid damage to the equipment.


electrical Socket not getting power I have a single pole switch that feeds power to a wall socket.

with the switch ON, and the wire that feeds the switch disconnected from the socket, the point on the switch shows 120V.
with the switch OFF and the wire that feeds the switch disconnected from the socket, the point on the switch shows 0V
So, the switch seems to be working
However with the wire that feeds to the socket connected to the switch, the voltage drops to 0V at that connection point when the switch is turned on

nothing is connected to the socket

HELP

Could be an internal switch failure that only manifests when the terminal screw is tightened? Try removing the switch and directly connecting the hot and "switched hot" (or using a jumper wire across the switch). If the receptacle functions then you have a bad switch.


How to fix a hole in laminate floor? I have a hole in a laminated floor as in the picture attached below:

 I have been trying to find some kind of wood sheet or tile of the same color to hide it but could not find any. I cannot take on replacing the board as I have little experience with flooring. So I have been thinking if it is possible to get a piece of the same kind and try to fit it in or perhaps find some kind of tile that I can stick on top of it.

This looks like the “Pergo” brand I installed in my place. They used to make filler that matched really well.
You clean the area and trowel the filler in and let it sit until dry. Don’t buy more than needed because the stuff I bought
dried out in an unopened tube after ~2 years. The patch has held up for +8 years and will look better than another brand.
Have you tried their web site to find it?


Should we skim-coat or drywall over a textured plaster wall to smooth it out? Our new house has textured plaster walls that my wife and I don't like.  We originally wanted to skim coat the walls to smooth them out, but a contractor suggested that we could put up drywall over it instead since we have some room to give on our baseboards and trim.  He also thought it'd be cheaper and quicker to do so.

In addition we are going to be doing quite a bit of rewiring (removing knob and tube) and there are plenty of places where the plaster is cracking, so there is some repair work to be done beyond just skim coating the plaster in places.

This is somewhat related to this question but rather than being a single crack we're talking about most of the walls in a 1400 sq ft home, built in 1925.

Something about putting the drywall over the plaster makes me uneasy...  Which should I do, and what are the relative pros and cons of each?

Our ceilings are also textured and we'd like to smooth them out, but I feel better about throwing drywall up over the plaster there.  What about that?

Here's my take on drywall vs skim vs full update.

Skimcoat

Skim coating over the plaster that is already cracking would not be a good idea.  Even if you use a harder more durable mud or plaster, it will still most likely crack because of the age of your house, and the fact that your walls are already cracking (and will probably continue to do so).  The other down side is the sanding mess.

I recently bought a condo that had nasty texture as well on the walls which I wanted to get rid of.  I decided for the first room that I would use a heavy 60 grit paper to remove as much of the larger chunky texture as I could.  I then skim coated with drywall mud to smooth out the walls.  It took several coats to get perfectly smooth, and a whole lot of cleaning afterward.  But, in my case, I know my drywall is sound and not cracking underneath, so I could reliable coat without having to worry about patching too much in the future.

Drywall

Using a thin drywall layer over the top may be a quicker and cheaper solution.  This will eliminate the cracking issues and will give you as smooth a wall as you like, with little mess in comparison to skim coating the entire wall.

I would still use a 60 grit paper or paint scraper (if it will cut through your texture) and knock down as much of the heavy texture to allow the drywall to sit closer to the surface.  This will help eliminate waviness in the wall where the texture might be outrageous (like it was in my house), and allow you to use a thinner drywall.

A possible major downside to this is electrical boxes?  Maybe someone with more electrical knowledge can speak whether adding 1/2 inch thickness to a wall would cause issues with the electrical boxes being set further in?  If so, again, I would sand and use 1/4 inch.

Full Update

If I was going to be living in this house for the rest of my life, I would consider a full update, especially if I was already going to be making changes to wiring.

This solution is costly, time consuming, and messsssy!  But, the upside is that you can fix/update your electrical to be safer, and more suitable to modern appliances.  You can also add low voltage through the house which (if you're a tech nerd like me) may be a nice plus. This will also give you perfectly smooth walls that won't crack and a feeling that your not hiding a mess in your walls.

Hope this is helpful!


All breakers tripping during generator transition New construction with a Koehler full house generator and Koehler transfer switch. All this work done by a licensed electrician. This is a seasonal home and so my ability to monitor is through the Koehler app. When I lose power I also obviously lose my broadband connection so I know - or assume- that power has been lost.

I recently lost connection with the generator and I had to travel to the house I found that all the breakers Han been tripped. The research that I’ve done that the arc fault breakers (which are required by code) are finicky and they have sometime tripped when power returned but it seems weird to me that even the 30 amp dryer breaker tripped.

My concern is that even though power company power and gen power is back but since all the breakers have tripped power to the house is not on so no heat or refrigerator power which defeats the purpose of backup power
Has anyone seen this before?

My first thought is to contact the power company to see what power is being delivered to the house.
When I test the system by switching between gen an Poco everything works fine. Would a whole house surge protector (like Siemens or Eaton) help with this?

Safety systems don't want safety systems

Goofus McGee got a job as a mechanic at a big warehouse. $100 million of stuff.  In the past Goofus has seen large engines get destroyed because somebody didn't check oil level, so Goofus likes to fit low-oil shutoffs.  While making the rounds, Goofus discovers that the fire pump diesel does not have any low-oil-level trip on it.  So Goofus fits one on there.

The next day, an employee throws a cigerette into a trash can.  No big deal; it's a 1-sprinkler-head fire.  Sure enough, the sprinkler opens, the fire pump diesel spins up, and promptly shuts down on a low-oil trip.  The 1-sprinkler fire becomes 2-sprinkler then 3 then 10, then the whole warehouse is engaged.  Total loss.  Goofus says "But hey, I saved a $100,000 diesel engine!"

In fact, you do not put low oil, low water, anything like that on a fire pump.  For good reason; you want the engine to destroy itself putting out the fire. Engines are cheap.

So here you are, with AFCIs "protecting" your refrigerator (food safety) and your furnace (freeze/flood safety). And no doubt your radon system and fire alarm.  Peachy.

This is a plain case of Goofus McGee legislating safety systems without slowing down to care what it is.  We often discuss that refrigerators should not have GFCI, they don't need it and they tend to trip it.  AFCI protects wires in walls (and to a far lesser extent line cords, but only where often jostled); I'll argue steel conduit is just as good for a fridge, fire alarm, radon, furnace, etc.

Unfortunately Internet routers tend to be a suitable case for AFCI, since they are so frequently wired up in a rat's nest of power strips and splitters.  However again, installed properly, I don't see a problem.

The breakers are tripping because of an Arc Fault

Whatever knocked out your power probably caused the arc fault.  Tree falling on wires, or what have you.  An arc fault is that kind of thing, and it makes a familiar crackly-snap sound on the wire*, and that's what the AFCI is listening for.

What may be throwing you for a loop is that other FCI device only trips on things that happen on its LOAD side; it cares not about ground faults happening on its LINE side.  AFCI is a completely different animal, and it is listening on the LOAD side of the device.   However, electrical "sounds" transmit right through (that being hard to avoid) and so the AFCI often hears stuff occurring on its LINE side.

I imagine whatever rended the wires off the poles was a heck of a wallop, so the AFCI breakers would have trouble not hearing that.

You could try putting a whole house surge suppressor, but its job is to suppress surges; the sound of a make-break arcing may have surge components, but it's mostly instantaneous brownouts.  Your surge suppressor isn't going to carry your power supply across that.

* Sound is jiggling air, so that sounds wrong. But a "sound on a wire" is electrons jiggling in the wire, in exactly the same motions, frequency and proportion.  In fact there's a simple interface to take "jiggling electrons" to "jiggling air": It's called a speaker, and it is that simple.  Put 60Hz AC on the wire, get 60Hz audible hum in the air.  The air movement and electron movement are in syncopation, and fourier analysis will apply identically to both.  So it's not out of line to say you can "hear" spikes.

There's another option for low power appliances

In short: why are you running your generator if you aren't even there?

The simple, cheap solution is a small, always-on DC battery system such as in an old-style off-grid solar home. Most internet router equipment is in fact 12 volts DC, and will cheerfully run off a common small 12V system.  Add a battery charger both from the mains-only panel and the generator-only panel (or better: a couple of vertically mounted, south-facing solar panels), and your Internet will be solid as a rock.

It would be nice to graft a refrigerator onto such a system, but the fridge takes 1KWH per day; 1 KWH is a car battery sized thing.  So such a setup would be more ambitious, maybe 8 golf cart batteries and 1000W of solar panel for an all-solar setup with no gen.

If you have the gen, that's fine; spin it up, recharge the batteries / warm up home, then shut it down.

What usually puts "getting rid of the generator" out of reach  for conventionally built snow-belt homes is the air handler needed for the conventional furnace.  They alway use either a huge blower, or a water pump, to circulate heat from the furnace to the rooms.  This simply takes too much power; the system would need to be fairly large, e.g. a Tesla PowerWall.

Now in the sunbelt we have a wonderful creature called an Empire furnace.  It works on convection and performs normally with the power out, relying on a passive wall thermostat. It can also play with smart 'stats like the Nest (while failing over to a mechanical 'stat when power fails). It mounts in a floor or wall, and can heat both sides of the wall, with 50,000 BTU. The units are in the $800 neighborhood.  They are just the ticket as a fallback heater to keep a house from freezing.  But they are almost unheard of in the snowbelt because, you know, conventional.  But they could be part of a power-loss strategy, especially for an unattended home.


Toilet bowls not filling with enough water My parents just built a new house, but they've been having an issue where neither of the two toilet bowls is filling with enough water. I took a look at them (I know nothing about plumbing but I know how to Google) and discovered that the refill tubes weren't attached to the overflow tubes and most of the water was just filling the tanks rather than the bowls. I clipped them on and it did help, but the water level is still lower than ideal in both bowls. There seems to be a good flow coming from the refill tubes and since it's a new house I don't think there could be any blockages, there's plenty of water in the tanks (they're filled to the water level line on the overflow tubes), and plenty of water in the flush. The fill valves don't appear to be leaking and the tanks are filling at a decent rate. The only thing I can think of is that the overflow tubes aren't the right height for these tanks, but is that likely/possible? It just seems like if the overflow tubes were higher, there would be more time to refill the bowls before the tanks reached the correct water level. Currently, the tanks are about half full and are perfectly level with the water level lines. Does anyone have any suggestions?

The level of water in the bowl is fixed and depends only on the geometry of the S-bend that is part of the toilet

If you add one drop of water into the bowl, it will raise the level at the left side and one drop will fall down the waste pipe.

The only exceptions would be

installing the toilet on a slope would change the amount (but still fixed)
if the waste pipe is not at atmospheric pressure due to inadequate venting

water can be sucked out
excess pressure would push water back into the bowl (and there would be a flow of bubbles into the bowl)

None of which helps you. To get more water in the bowl you need a different design of toilet.

The syphonic action might mean that if the flow from the tank cuts off sharply, there might be room for more water. However the toilet is designed so that the flow from the tank continues, refilling the bowl completely, after the syphon has initially drawn out all the bowl's contents.


What would cause the ceiling fan light to blink or shut off? The ceiling fan is over 30 years old worked flawlessly until now, light either blinks or shuts off altogether. But, when you turn the wall switch off then back on it lights up no problem for days, then back to it. Also, the wall switch has been replaced thinking it was the culprit, but to no avail... This fan is in my elderly mother's home, which she will be 90 in Dec. But the fan is in the kitchen above the table ...

Filament a likely culprit, but is the fan perfectly balanced? We all assume not perfectly. Bad connections, even good ones, break with enough movement over time. Potential chain of events:

Power on - rush of power bridges air gap, or gap doesn't exist, connection holds together

Running - something gets hot or vibrates loose, loses connection

Stop - cooling or lack of vibration allows physical gap to close enough so that...

Power on - rush of power bridges air gap, connection holds together, repeat

The connection could be filament to post, switch to wiring, internal in the fan, the place where a rat ate away connection material, anywhere in the current loop really, but filament, switch, and internal to fan are my top three suspects.


Why do my replacement light bulbs not function? I have a 3-light, old-looking street light at the end of my driveway. I'm replacing  the 25W incandescent light bulbs that have died with either 40W round  clear bulbs or 7W LED's.
I can NOT get  either of them to work. I've bent the contact up and still neither replacement bulb works.

Are these driveway lights controlled by a day/night control of some kind? If so, an incandescent control needs only 2 wires to operate but CFL's or LED's need a different 3 wire control. Try screwing in another incandescent bulb to see if that fixture still works.  If it does, and you have a day night control you will need to get the correct control. If you have a descent volt meter and know how to use it properly and safely you could check to see if you have voltage at the socket. If that light socket is old, it could have broken when you removed the first light bulb. One last thing, sometimes, when you buy a replacement bulb, if they are a cheap foreign brand, their quality control is poor and the bulbs contacts are not exactly as they should be.


What is the required distance of electrical panel from a door? How close can I place a main electrical panel from an interior or exterior door? Is there a difference in distance if the panel is placed on the hinged or non-hinged side, or if it is inward or outward swinging door?
The panel would be located in an attached garage.
I am only seeing 30" x 36" and clear above working space rule for an electrical panel.

The door's swing can't infringe on the clear working space
The situation you need to watch for here is where the door's swing infringes on said 30" wide by 36" deep working space around the panel, as that creates a situation where an unfortunate electrician taking measurements on a live panel can get clobbered into the panel by the door in a most shocking fashion.  You'll also want to make sure that the panel's own door, if present (as some small panels lack one), can open 90° while the door is fully open, as not being able to open that door 90° is also a Code violation (110.26(A)(2)).


Cutting small tiles accurately and safely I am re-tiling my fireplace with a mixture of tile sizes. The smallest tile that needs cut is a triangle of dimension 35x35x50mm - all tiles are 10mm thick. I don't think it will be possible to cut such a tile in half manually (would be preferable)? I have an electric tile cutter - how should i feed such a small tile into the cutting disc in a stable linear manner without cutting my fingers off...?

Not to discount the need for safety, but tile blades are relatively low-risk. I'd use heavy, well-fitting leather gloves to virtually eliminate the chance of injury.

Grasp the tile with both hands, elbows spread. By keeping your arms to the sides you prevent slips that would result in your fingers finding the blade. Press the tile firmly to the table or slide and move slowly past the blade. It's imperative that a firm grip is maintained and that the tile's orientation remains steady.

You could also clamp the tile, using a rubber pad, and cut with an angle grinder and diamond wheel.


How to install an outdoor outlet in new stucco (not retrofit) -- with details done right Previous questions pertain to adding an outdoor electrical box to old stucco (How do I install electrical through existing stucco (e.g. "old work") ).

What are the ways it's done on a wall that will be re-stuccoed?

In this case I'm interested in a design suitable for a weather side wall with heavy blowing rain and baking hot summer sun.  It could be flush mount or surface mount.

How can the all the details be done right: flashing, penetration, and protecting the house should the crappy foam seal on the outlet cover eventually fail. I prefer using metal, as I know plastic boxes get brittle in such conditions after only a few decades (short compared to the life of an old house).

These boxes by Arlington Electric are wonderful for exterior stucco walls.

Arlington In-Box

Arlington In-Box

Quickflash part E-AIB is matching flashing product, for helping water behind the stucco pass the box without damage to the wood:


Is it safe for baseboard water heater power supply to run insulated wiring over heating element? I have recently moved in to a new apartment and found a transformer (which takes 120V @60Hz and outputs 24V 20VA) into a wall outlet with two wires coming from it and leading directly into one of my water baseboard heating units.

I called it in with management and they see no problems with it. According to them, this powers the heating unit, and should not be unplugged. I'm a bit worried, though, for a couple of reasons: those wires for the transformer run into the unit, rather than across and into the end. I pulled open the unit and the wires are spliced in to the wiring, but they rest on the fins of the radiator on the inside of the unit, and I'm worried the insulation could melt, possibly creating a short between the two wires via the fins.

My other concern is how the wires themselves are attached to the transformer; they are screwed in at the insulation stripped ends, and I'm worried this could be a shock hazzard for children.

In case it matters, there are 3 sets of heating units, one in the living room, one in the bathroom, and one in the bedroom. There is a single wall-mounted thermostat which I presume controls all 3 heating units. I cannot test any devices currently due to it being summer and the central boiler not being on, and with my concerns, I'd be afraid to even if I could.

My question is, is this an unsafe wiring setup? For safety's sake, I will not be performing any modifications to the wiring setup, but I would like to know whether any of my fears are warranted.

To me this looks like an aftermarket repair to add or replace the control voltage. As far as a shock hazard it is low voltage so that is not a big issue but the wire does not look to be high temp but is hard to tell. There would be a code issue using this plug in transformer to power a permanently installed device.


Why does my toilet not leave enough water in the bowl after flushing? A little while ago I started having trouble with my toilet when flushing. It's flushing too much water, leaving little left in the bowl. It also makes loud noises at the end of the flush.

There's still some water left in the tank, so when I flush it very carefully a second time I can get it to fill up just enough.

I'm in an apartment on the first floor (second if you're from the US), in case that matters.

What could be causing this?

Here's a picture of the tank:

It looks like you are missing your fill hose. There should be a hose connecting the outlet at the top of your fill valve assembly running into your overflow tube:


How can I get wood filler to match the adjacent wood when staining a floor? I am trying to finish a wooden floor (pine), colouring it with stain. After that it shall be oiled.

The process for usual painting with paints has usually been that you sand it,  then apply filler, then sand again, then paint, then varnish.

Now in this case I tried to do the same process, except with stain and oil, but it turns out that when I apply stain , it will create large blotches of different tone, where it is overlaid on filler. Obviously one should remove filler as much as possible during the second sanding, however, as it is virtually invisible after drying, it is hard to judge when it is removed enough.

It is quite ok if the filler will create different tone in the gaps between the floorboards, but there are patches of it smeared a across half the board width every now and then.

Is there anything I can do beside trying to remove as much filler as possible during the process?

The short answer is that filler isn't commonly used to repair the surface of a wood floor. It may be used to fill gaps between planks where shrinkage has occurred, or to repair holes drilled for wiring, etc., but floors are usually either sanded aggressively to remove all surface damage, or the damage is left as "character".

You may be able to lightly dampen the areas of concern with water to check for remaining filler. Keep sanding until it's gone, then stain and seal the surface.


Latex Paint won't come off I am desperately trying to get all of this ugly dark blue latex paint off the walls of one of my bedrooms. Nothing works at getting it off. We've tried the wire brush. The scraper. Even spraying it down with mean geeen to try and loosen it. What can I use to get this off the wall so I can repaint?

Painter here.  If paint doesn't want to leave the surface, I generally don't ask it to.  I just paint over it.

Deep colors are a PiTA to paint over if your ultimate destination is an off-white (like most all housepaint). The key is to use a primer with high opacity and hit it with several coats until it is covered and the surface looks uniform.  Primer is cheaper than paint and is better suited to coverup surfaces of differing colors and textures.

The biggest problem you get laying it down uniform is that the roller doesn't put it down evenly.  That will be disturbingly apparent on the first coat, but don't give up.  The second coat will be much better, as the color will only punch through where both coats happen to be thin. Coat #3 will be vastly better still.  Somewhere around 3 or 4 you will reach "good enough".


Should I use an additive to my septic system? I recently bought a house with a septic system. In researching maintenance for a septic system I am getting mixed messages about if I should be putting an additive (Rid-X or bakers yeast) down the toilet every few months. Some places have even recommended putting some raw hamburger down the toilet instead every few months.

Some people appear to swear by it, others say they do more harm than good. I believe I use normal amounts of chemicals in my house. I run the dishwasher at least once a day, the washer a couple times a week, and then other household cleaners a few times a week.

Based on that usage, what is the best way to ensure that I minimize problems with the system?

No, Heck, No!

Every single offical source I have ever consulted explicitly states that they should not be used, and do more harm than good. Every bacterium required for the process lives inside you, and populates the tank "naturally."

Here is an excerpt from one: http://www.maine.gov/dhhs/mecdc/environmental-health/plumb/top-ten-tips.htm

  You do not need to put special additives into your septic system. In fact, some can do more harm than good. Those which advertise that
  they will remove solids from your tank, usually do. The problem is
  that the solids exit the tank and end up in the disposal field. Once
  there, the solids seal off the disposal area, and the system
  malfunctions. Also, although it hurts nothing, it is not necessary to
  "seed" a new system with yeast, horse manure, and so forth. Normal
  human waste contains enough bacteria for the septic tank, and other
  microbes are already present in the soil and stones of the disposal
  area.

The problem with "products that liquefy sludge" is that you WANT the sludge to stay in the tank until it is pumped. if it gets into the drain field, it will cause the drain field to fail, and then you need a new drain field ($$$).

But there is plenty of unofficial bad advice on the internet, and elsewhere, if you want to  follow that instead.

My advice for

  the best way to ensure that I minimize problems with the system?

as a somewhat informed septic system owner, is that you should have the tank pumped and inspected (that should have been done as part of the "Title V" portion of the sales transaction, ideally - read the report, if it was done) and if it does not already have one, consider having a filter retrofitted onto the (or in place of the) exit Tee. Those can significantly improve the odds of NOT plugging the drain field; but they are not a substitute for regular maintenance (pumping of sludge).


120V on hot and neutral wires… just started happening So last week i was cutting down a small tree with an electric chain saw. I was in a tough spot and the chain saw stopped working. I couldn't find any breakers blown, so i switched to another outlet to get the job done. Our outside fridge stopped working (we noticed the next day) and our electric tooth brush stopped charging as well (noticed about a week later). So at this point we have three outlets not working, let's call these three outlets the Front, Back, and Bathroom outlets. So, I started to investigate. Here's what I've noticed:

For brevity, i'll use H as hot, N as neutral, and Gnd as ground.

Bathroom - H to N measures ~0V, Gnd to H measures 120V, Gnd to N reads 120V

The Front outlet and the Back outlet measure the same. Removing the outlet from the bathroom there are two sets a wires coming into the box. I'll call these the Incoming lines and the feed through lines. If i disconnect the feed through lines from the outlet I get the following

bathroom: incoming H to N: 94V, incoming Gnd to N: ~17V, Gnd to H: 120V, feed through Gnd to H and Gnd to N: 0V

Front outlet: 0V everywhere

back outlet: H to N: 94V, Gnd to N: ~17V, Gnd to H: 120V

The 17V from ground to neutral seems really high to me. and it seems like i'm loosing 10V or so between hot and neutral (120 minus 17 = 103 not 94). I tried plugging a lamp in to both the Back and Bathroom outlets at this point, and it wouldn't light up with either (tired with LED and incandescent bulb). a small fan wouldn't work in either of these either. I would have thought 94V would have been enough to start the fan or the incadescent bulb up at least.

If i flip the bathroom breaker, the back outlet (and the bathroom) go to 0V everywhere. It seems weird that these would be on the same breaker... but I don't trust this houses' electrical stuff to make sense from past experience. Below are some pictures to maybe help clarify somethings.

It should be noted that all the outlets were working about a week ago until the front outlet died from the chainsaw being used on it.I took a look through the attic trying to see any breaks or shorts... but it was hot and most things were covered in insulation, so I didn't really see much.

I flipped on/off all the breakers, but the bathroom breaker was the only thing to cause a change in the front or back outlets.

Any ideas what could case this, or where to look next? I'm a bit stumped at this point. I can flip more breakers on/off if needed. Thanks for any suggestions!

Edit: added back outlet image with the outlet pulled out.

Edit: added the back of the box picture for the bathroom outlet. Note, the feedthrough lines are pulled somewhat together on the left.

Current flows in loops

Remember, current flows in loops. It's not like air, where you have the "hot" compressed air lines coming off the compressor, and there is no air return, it just dumps air wherever.  With electricity there must be 2 wires to complete the loop, and both are equally important!  We make all the fuss about the hot wire, but neutral is an equal partner in the deal.  Just an often-overlooked one!

So if your hot wire had broken, you'd have sussed that out in a minute.  Now you must "think upside-down" and look for the neutral wire break.

Part of your confusion is "phantom voltage". An isolated wire (disconnected at both ends) will pick up stray electrons due to capacitive coupling from hot wires nearby (i.e. in the same cable).  A hi-impedance (any cheap digital) voltmeter will see those electrons as an actual measurable voltage, even though they're not.  You've been spending way too many brain cells chasing that phantom, so let's nip it in the bud by removing the high impedance.

Kill the phantom

Start by plugging a load into a dead outlet and turn it on - preferably something tiny; an incandescent night-light is perfect.  This will connect hot to neutral (through the medium resistance of the load), and if neutral is disconnected, that will instantly yank it up to 120V. Goodbye phantom voltage.  You were seeing that earlier, until you unplugged your (I'll guess) toothbrush charger.  Plug something back in.  This will suppress phantom voltage.

Now you can troubleshoot upside-down: if you measure neutral and it rings out "hot", that means you're afield of the wire break.  If you measure neutral and it rings out 0V, that means you're on the panel side of the wire break.

I suspect the problem may be -- are you sitting down? -- at the neutral bar of the panel.

Speaking of "Panel"

That is the dreaded Rule of Six panel.  It also looks VERY full. All such panels are a serious hazard, because as you may notice, the 6 breakers sum up to way more than your service, and there's no master disconnect.

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, it's Square D QO, which is absolutely top shelf. Great panel. If only there was a way to keep it!

A year ago, I would have walked you through converting it to a "Rule of One" :) panel by adding a subpanel.  But then, NEC 2020 dropped.  NEC 2020 requires an outside disconnect switch on every new service, reasonably near the meter.  So now, my advice is to wait and see what this requirement does to equipment prices, and then, as soon as feasible, either add an outside disconnect which is also a breaker at service amperage (e.g. 100A if that's your service)... or replace your meter box with a meter-main which combines both.  That permanently cures the problem with Rule of Six panels, and it may continue in service forever with no concern.  And your QO panel is very high quality stuff, so you keep benefiting from that.


Dip Switch settings for furnace circuit board I have a 2-stage variable speed furnace installed with single stage thermostat. I would like to control W2 staging time delay using dip (DIP) switch settings on circuit board, but there is a sentence that confuses me. It could be my bad English. If you could help, I will appreciate it.

Manual reads as follows:

  “Leave both switches off when using a 2-stage stat or enabling a W1
  only call”

If I put both dip switches OFF (S7-1 and S7-2), does it mean that my furnace will never fire stage-2 and always be on Stage-1?

Following table is from the manual:
S7 Switches 1 & 2 for W2 delay.
-------------------------------
Switch Settings    | Options
----------------------------
[S7-1] |[S7-2]     | [Time]
----------------------------
OFF    | OFF       |  OFF
----------------------------
ON     | OFF       |  10 Minutes
-----------------------------
OFF    | ON        |  Auto
-----------------------------
ON     | ON        | 20 Minutes
--------------------------------
Note: S7-1 and S7-2 refer to dip switches.

Thanks!

You are correct -- turning S7-1 and S7-2 both off will disable the second stage of heat on your furnace unless it's called for explicitly by turning the furnace's W2 input ON.

Since you have a single stage thermostat, the first setting I'd try is Auto -- i.e. S7-2 ON and S7-1 OFF.  That lets the furnace control board make a choice on its own regarding how long to wait before kicking the second stage of heat on.


Is it possible to cut a threaded hole in wood? Is it possible to create a threaded hole in wood? I'm making a kitchen island where the structure is 20mm threaded metal pipe (water pipe). I can either get flanges to connect it to the top or thread the ends of the pipe into wood. My question is around the latter option.

I see some kits online for fixing threads and rethreading however I can't find anything to drill a thread into wood of a particular size. Should be easy right?

You can drill a hole and force fit a threaded bar into the slightly smaller hole to force a thread, however I would only recommend this option for hard woods, if you are using chip or even ply then I would not risk it.

I see you ask about 20mm pipe, which would not have threaded inserts which you could use.  The only warning I would have here is that you must have proper bracing on the bars to limit any torsion, i.e. any angular force on applied to the screw thread would easily force the rod out of the hole (at that diameter).. hence there should be three areas of bracing (end, middle, end).

If you could find 20mm threaded inserts, it would be great also.


Why did I get concrete honeycombing I mixed 1:1.5:3 by hand and using a bucket. I mixed the concrete on a plastic sheet but on hard soil not a concrete surface. I am not sure what I have done wrong. The portland cement bag suggested 1:4:3.5. It seems like that people here use more sand than coarse aggregates. I created this pad for a small sliding gate motor. Is it going to have problems?
What went wrong? Too little sand?

If you want no holes, you have to compact it, easiest is with vibration but that needs a special tool. Or you can poke a stick in and out of it for a while. I've had great success by fastening a bit of wood plank on the business end of a vibrating sander and using that as a vibrating float.
Don't worry though, you're not building a suspension bridge, it's not going to come apart. If it was a thin load-bearing shape like a slab, then it would be worrying to have it "pre-fractured" like that, but this is a big chunky block whose only job is to be heavy and take a few screw anchors.
If the holes are an aesthetic problem, you can always cover it with a mortar made with a mix of fine sand and cement, apply like plaster.
For next time:
Since this is not a load bearing item like a slab, you can put in a bit too much water so it flows better. It will be a bit weaker, and have a bit more cracks, none of it matter for what is basically a concrete boat anchor. Or you could mix in some concrete plasticizer, which makes it a lot easier to work with without compromise in solidity, but that's a bit expensive and way overkill for this job.


What to block a hole with to stop mice getting in? I have heard rustling sounds coming from my exterior walls, which I am assuming is mice (or some other rodent) scurrying around in the hollow wall.

I have found a hole about 2 inches in diameter in my electricity meter box where a thick electrical cable enters the house, which I think might be where the mice are getting into the walls.

What can I use to block the hole that the mice won't be able to move or chew through?

When sealing a hole around an electrical entry cable, the best product to use is Plasduct. It is a putty like material, gray in color. You will find it in most electrical departments at the box stores or your local hardware store.  Use it just like modeling clay, work it a bit to make it pliable, then stuff it into the hole around the cable as deeply as possible. I have never seen rodents or insects get through this stuff.


Floor outlet protruding under a rug I have an in floor outlet (under a rug) and I don't want the plug sticking up under the rug. Can I cut off the plug of an extension cord and directly wire it in with the wires of the outlet? Thanks in advance for your reply

No, you can't.

An extension cord is designed for temporary use. Many of us (myself included) will use an extension cord on a "semi-permanent" basis.

But it is quite different to have an exposed extension cord and a hidden extension cord. An extension cord is not designed - or rated & tested - for use in a hidden location. Use in that matter raises the very real possibility of damage to the cord from repeated walking on the carpet going unnoticed until it is too late (e.g., fire). Wires are also rated based on temperature, and a cord that is rated for a particular temperature based on being in open air may not be safe when used under a carpet, where it may heat up quite a bit more - also increasing fire risk.

The proper way to use a floor outlet is to have a cutout in the carpet around the outlet, and ideally a cover on the outlet when it is not in use to avoid dirt (or even worse, spilled drinks) getting into the outlet. I see that type of outlet in hotels & conference rooms and it is a little ugly but functional and safe.

If you are not going to use the floor outlet at all, covering it with a movable rug is OK. But you should never cover an outlet or junction box of any type (e.g., including if you removed the outlet, capped the wires and put on a blank plate) with any permanent flooring like wall-to-wall carpet. All electrical connections (with very few exceptions) need to be easily accessible.


How to connect wiring for ceiling fan? I'm trying to install a ceiling fan. There used to be one at this location which is now controlled by a wall switch. The ceiling box where the fan goes only has 2 black wires going down to the wall switch. It appears it was a white and black wire but only the black wire was spliced to the switch. How do I hook the fan up ?

Did you already remove the other fan?

If there is another fan already there then just replace it using the same wiring configuration if it worked the way you wanted it to.

The new fan may have a light kit (you didn't mention that) and it sounds like you only have one switch so you will have to decide if you want the wall switch to turn on the fan or the light. The other one you will have to operate with the pull chain.

Happy New Year!


Can you use 1 ecobee thermostat to control 2 zone valves for heating? I previously had a single zone set up with 1 circulator.  So i added an extra zone. Still have 1 circulator pump and  I also picked up a tacozvc 403-4 box to set it up.  My question is how can i rewire it to work? And can i use 1 smart thermostat with room sensors for convenience or do i need a second thermostat? (I would get another ecobee and pair them in 1 app for convenience). Apparently the ecobee is multizone though. I would like to use just one thermostat.

In the picture below is what have currently before having rewired anything.  I havent touched any of the exisitng wiring yet. I just have the piping part of it done and need to figure out the wiring.  I also drew up an idea of how i think it should work.  But just wanted some opinions before i start anything.  If i need two thermostats i would just use the green and yellow for the 2nd thermostat.

unfortunately the ecobee is not set up to do that.  Each thermostat only controls one heating zone, regardless of the quantity of room sensors.  The way the sensors are used is fairly flexible.  They can be included in an average with the t-stat and other sensors to trigger heat demand, and they can individually be included/excluded in different "comfort settings".  i.e. you can exclude the living room sensor for the "sleep" comfort setting when theoretically nobody will be in the living room.  You can also set them up as occupancy sensors for them to be included only when motion is sensed.

But yes, it would be pretty cool if each sensor (up to a limit) could be used as its own zone.  That would, however, require additional wires from the thermostat.  And the number would be limited- there's only 11 terminals available on today's ecobees, and lot of them will be used already, depending on what you already need hooked up.  So if your scenario had unused ecobee terminals, and if the ecobee programming was set up for it (it is not, at least today, and I don't have anything that suggests to me that that will ever change), then THEORETICALLY you could attach a separate pair of wires to the "zone 2" connections on your Taco ZVC-403 to control the second zone.  Your original ecobee/zone should have already occupied zone 1 in the ZVC403.

This question is a couple months old, so you've probably already figured this out, but to inject that ZVC into your system, all thermostats go into the ZVC, and the ZVC's "isolated end switch" replaces the thermostat wires into your boiler.  There's more to it than that, obviously, but Taco does have a bunch of helpful youtube videos out there to walk you through it.  Good luck!


When to install GFCI outlets? We're in the process of purchasing a home that is missing GFCI outlets in the garage, and the inspector recommended replacing those.

My first question: if we don't intend on actually using the outlets in the garage, is there any reason to do this? Is there any power surge or whatever that could cause a fire when there's nothing plugged in, or is it only when they're actively being used?

My second question: it seems easy enough, from the DIY videos, to do it ourselves, but we have no electrical experience and, well, I'm really scared of house fires and such. Is it really as easy as it looks to not screw it up? Is it pretty safe?

GFCIs (in proper operation) interrupt the flow of current when a ground fault is detected.
That is, if the amount of current flowing out of one of the sides of the socket does not exactly equal the amount of current flowing back in the other, it'll cut off power so that no electricity flows out of the outlet.  (Some configurations protect "downstream" outlets as well.)

The possible safety benefit comes into play only when something is actually plugged in to a protected outlet, and the real safety benefit is realized when (a) something is plugged in AND (b) whatever that is has a ground fault that would otherwise put someone or some property in serious danger.

The other slight possible benefit of replacing the outlets before use is the possibility of discovering some existing dangerous wiring issue if it exists in the current outlets, but the odds of that are relatively low and the odds of you putting such an error in (especially if you do it yourselves!) seem a whole lot higher.  If you're concerned about the existing wiring to outlets you aren't using, you can probably just turn off the circuit breaker to that circuit, so there won't be electricity in the outlets.  This assumes you're not using anything else on the same circuit.

If you're not using those outlets, there's no benefit to replacing them right away, and there is of course a cost to doing so.  You could buy replacements and wait on installation until some time when you have an electrician over to the house for something else, when the marginal cost of replacement is minimal.  Then you can benefit from GFCI protection if/when you do start using those outlets, and (assuming they still work) have one less item on the next buyer's inspection report to help that buyer feel more at ease.


How do I know my current R-Value for my attic? I am a first-time homeowner.  One thing that was noted on the house inspection was that we needed more insulation for our attic.  In my area, the recommended R-Value is 38 according to the ornl.gov site.  Apparently 60 is "best" according to the JM.com site (link).

But how do I know what my current R-Value is?

Ok that's fiberglass bat insulation, approximately R-3 per inch so a total of R-9.  You can easily add more insulation on top of that - either buy more rolls of bat insulation (UNFACED - which means no paper layer on either side) - or you could blow in cellulose insulation (buy at Home Depot and get the blower rental for free.

Downside to cellulose is you need a body suit, respirator mask (not just a simple dust mask) and two people (one to feed the machine, one to blow it in the attic).  Upside is it's 3.70 per inch so adding 15 inches would get you R-55, plus your existing R-9 is R-64.

Fiberglass bats, they're easier to install (roll em out, each layer criss crossing the previous) - but they usually come 3.5 inches thick - so you'll need to add 5 layers, which adds up pretty fast cost wise.

WELL worth it for the energy savings - but for a newbie, I'm gonna say spend more $ and get the bat insulation that's easier to roll out.  And wear gloves, long sleeved clothing, and heavy socks and tape your pants to your socks and your shirt sleeves to your gloves...

Fiberglass itches.


How do I secure a dishwasher under a granite counter? I purchased some Loctite power grab yesterday in hopes to attach my dishwasher to the granite countertop that it has not adhered to very well with just caulk. I'm having second thoughts, now, since this is a bonding agent that may cause permanent damage (perhaps not as bad as screwing directly into the countertop, but you understand what I'm saying).

Are my hesitations correct? Should I use something different? What should I use?

It looks like the person who attached the washer in before used a silicone caulk.

You have two good options with a stone counter top if there isn't a mounting strip already under the countertop.

Option 1: Install a mounting strip under the counter, going all the way to the side cabinets and securing with some adhesive to the underside of the countertop (I've heard silicon suggested, but I'd prefer something stronger). I'd also use a couple L brackets to secure the mounting strip to the side cabinets. Then use short screws to attach the dishwasher so you don't go through the mounting strip and into the countertop. This doesn't work if you're already tight for space between the dishwasher and countertop.
Option 2: Get a side mounting kit to attach the dishwasher to the cabinets on each side. It may be a separate purchase from the manufacturer.


dripping water from the shower area Just moved into our new rented apartment and having trouble keeping the water from dripping out the bath tub area.

the side of the shower curtain that is closer to the shower head is okay as we have secured it with a shower curtain clip. The side opposite has a ledge that extends beyond the end of the tub. The water that drips and splashes from the side flows down to the opposite side of the tub and onto the ledge and then drips on to the floor. Unfortunately, The shower curtain is not long enough to stretch this far out to be clipped on the other end too. The only way I feel I can prevent water from flowing down and eventually dripping to the floor is if we created a slant (incline) to prevent the water from flowing down like it does now. But as mentioned before, we live in a rented apartment and can not make any structural changes to the bathroom. Any advise would be much appreciated. Thank you very much in advance!

Perhaps you can run a line of sealant from the wall to the edge of the bath, creating a route for the water to take into the bath. Sealant is easily removed, so this wouldn't count as a structural modification in my eyes.

This should do the job, provided your bath is flush with the ledge. Here's a little diagram in keeping with your own:


Rigid or Flexible bathroom exhaust duct In my 2nd floor condominium, I need to replace bathroom ceiling and exhaust fan. Old ceiling has been removed. My contractor is going to install new ceiling. I want to replace old exhaust fan and duct work too.
I want to replace old flex plastic duct with rigid solid metal duct for smoother air flow. But I am stuck in this dilemma.
I am assuming that connecting fan with rigid duct will be easier if I install it before ceiling is in place, because once ceiling is placed, I won't be able to connect ( and seal the joint with tape) duct coming out of fan housing with rigid duct in ceiling. With some tilting even if I manage to connect both ducts, I won't be able to seal the inaccessible joint because of ceiling.
If you agree with my assumption, then it leads me to  think that I should install it before new ceiling is in place, so I can connect both ducts and tape the joint. But then, my contractor has to make sure that the ceiling is installed at right level so that flanges of fan housing is flush against ceiling and the grill can be mounted flush to the ceiling. I don't have much confidence in my contractor and I don't want to end up with argument with him.
Is there an easy way to install fan after ceiling is installed and still use rigid duct work and be able to seal the joint?
I would also like to know if using rigid duct is good idea or not, if in future I need to replace the fan again, how easy it will be to push the rigid duct out of the way to remove old housing. With flex duct, you can easily push it out of the fan housing and remove it, but I can't see how it will be possible with solid duct.

Rigid duct is absolutely better--it's much less likely to accumulate lint and clog or create a fire hazard. However, I wouldn't be concerned about using a short length of semi-rigid (metal) duct at the fan end to allow for some install flexibility.
You could also make all the connections and rely on some pivot at the opposite end of the initial straight run to accommodate height variation. I can't imaging your builder not being able to work with that.


Can I use metal studs for framing a shed? We're building a shed on a pontoon so it will float.  Therefore we need it to be light weight yet sturdy enough to hold up to snow in the winter.  Will metal studs provide enough strength and support for this project?

Yes.
But I have to have at least 30 characters to submit an answer.


How can I improve my gasoline can spout? As anyone living in the United States that has bought a gas container in the past several years knows, fuel/gasoline container spouts have changed. The new spouts have a locking/safety mechanism and I have yet to find one that isn't a real pain. The locking mechanism is a minor annoyance, but they leak more often than not when I dispense gas into my lawn mower.

How can I fix/rig my gas can so it works more like the old gas can spouts?

I'm sure nobody would counsel you to sidestep rules and regulations, but if you google "ez pour water spout", you might find something like a water spout that's similar to an old gas spout that ships to 50 states. (For what it's worth, I might possibly be a satisfied user of this product, but use your own judgment.)


Is the outlet type indicative of problematic wiring I'm fairly competent as a DIYer, but I don't have the ability to dig in to this problem directly yet.

I'm considering buying a very historic house (more than 180 years old). The wiring coming out of the breaker box (and it is breakers) appears to be relatively modern. That is, it has plastic sheathing rather than a paper-like stuff that I have seen in some older houses.

However, all of the outlets I saw during the tour were un-grounded three-plug outlets. That is, you could plug three lamps in with out needing a splitter. However, nothing had a ground pole. (I'll post a picture if I ever find one).

Does this indicate some complication (beyond lack of ground) that I should be aware of with the wiring in the wall?

You, or your house inspector, would want to investigate if the "modern wiring" makes it all the way to the outlet boxes (in which case a simple replacement will get you grounded 3-prong outlets) or if it stops short and leaves you with old ungrounded wire to the actual outlets (in which case you'll want to lower your offer by several thousand dollars to pay for the rewiring.)

The triple outlets could just be a fashion choice, but you need to know to make a reasonable offer on the house.


Small leak in 1 inch buried PVC water line I have a 1 inch line buried from my house pressure system to the barn, and it has a very small leak somewhere. Is there some additive that could be circulated through this line to stop the leak? Rather than digging it all up.

Start digging. And next time, use 160 or 200 PSI black polyethylene (NSF-PW rated - ie, suitable for potable water, per Fiasco's comment) rather than PVC. (You may not "need" the pressure rating, but it gets you a thicker wall which makes the pipe even more durable .vs. the normal 100 PSI stuff. And digging is something you don't want to have to do over.)

In any case PE pipe is much more durable than PVC when faced with rocks, movement, etc.


How do you finish a window installation? After the window has been secured in the rough opening, how do you finish the inside part of the installation? For example adding a window sill and trimming out the inner portion of the rough opening, not the finishing trim around the window. Also does anyone have any videos or pictures of the process? The type and maker of the particular window i am installing is a ThermaStar by Pella 28" x 36" 10 Series Vinyl Double Pane Single Hung Window. Thank you

google "trim interior window" =

video:
http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/video/0,,20046338,00.html

steps:
http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/how-to/intro/0,,218130,00.html

Assuming you have already:
1) insulated in the rough opening with low-expansion spray foam
2) sheetrocked to the rough opening


30 ampTankless Water heater I have a shop that has a 100 amp service underground from my home's service entrance. The service entrance in the shop has a single pole 30 amp going to a disconnect in a closet pre-wired for a water heater(220v wiring). The 220v wire in the disconnect has the 2 hots connected and the neutral free. Will this work on a 2 gal/min electric tankless heater?

The small tankless I have in my barn is very similar,  30 amp 2 Hot’s but the little array that actually heats the water is metals and has a place for the equipment ground. It would be a good idea for safety to connect the ground.
 Will the heater work without the ground? Most will. The heating element is 220v and all but 1 of these small units I have worked on were controlled by switches for flow no flow the switch could not close and heat the water. Don’t expect much out of this small unit it will get the water hot but how hot depends on the incoming water temp and the flow. For us it is just enough to heat the water to bathe horses before showing them.


What purpose does a 3+1 outlet/circuit provide when the neutral bus is grounded? I'm trying to wrap my head around what the benefit is of having to use a 4-prong outlet for newer appliances when it appears the neutral and ground both end up in the same spot.

In a dual pole circuit, you have red (hot), black (hot), white (neutral), green (ground).

That makes sense but...since the neutral and green both end up being grounded, given the neutral bus bar is grounded at the panel, what is the actual benefit in this case?

Yeah, the root problem is, you see they are both tied together in the panel, but you don't know what that thing is... or you don't even realize that is a thing.

Its name is the Neutral-Ground Equipotential Bond.  Since we don't know what it is, let's get rid of it.  SNIP!

Life without an Equipotential Bond

Now, your 2 hots are 240V apart, and neutral is in the middle, giving you 120V from neutral to either hot.  None of these have any relationship to ground at all. We cut that, remember?   So our old assumption that "Neutral is always near ground" is now void.

Neutral is probably near ground.
But it could be 120V from ground (I actually had that happen once, when the "snip" happened for real in a panel and I didn't know it).
There could be leakage in the 9600V supply transformer, and L1, N and L2 could be 9600, 9720 and 9840V from ground, respectively.

See, having the hots and neutral "rattling around out there" at random voltages isn't good.  We want to do something to peg neutral at a relationship to earth.  Hey, it could be through a 1 volt 2000A transformer - now neutral is pegged 1 volt AC from ground.  But it's pegged.  It could be a car battery - so now neutral has a 0 volt AC and 12 volt DC bias from ground. (both of which would be cool for diagnostic purposes).  But the point is, it's no longer floating.  We've pegged it.

2kA transformers and car batteries are neat in theory, but if you have 100 houses to wire this week, you want a simple/cheap equipotential bond - one with 0V bias -a piece of copper.

Actually, you can go cheaper still, simply by using the neutral bar as the equipotential bond, i.e. just putting neutrals at one end of the neutral bar, and grounds at the other end.  Actually, we could just inter-mingle them.

And this is where you show up.  And see a bunch of neutrals and grounds spammed onto the exact same bar, and go "WTH? Why 2 wires to the same thing?"  The whole logic of how we got here is not apparent to you, and it just looks redundant.

Well, you can do your part to fix that. Go out and get accessory ground bars for your panel.  Move all your grounds to the ground bar.  (and while you're at it, fix any illegal double-taps, especially the deadly "put a circuit's N and G under the same screw" nightmare... because if that loses connection, you have the bootleg scenario below).  For more style points, remove the bonding screw/strap and replace it with a nice big fat copper wire between N bus and G bus.  Route it so you can put a clamp ammeter around it (why would you want to do that, haha! ;)

Now we can return to our assumption that neutral is relatively safe.

Fault current return

The other thing is, electricity travels in loops.  Power doesn't want to get back to ground, it wants to get back to source.  Source being e.g. the neutral at the transformer.

So suppose our safety grounding actually worked, and it caught a bolted ground fault.  Do we want that fault to just be "caught" indefinitely?  No, we want a breaker trip to occur, and that means we need to flow enough current back to source (neutral) to trip the breaker for sure.  Again, the neutral-ground  equipotential bond gives us that path: Down the ground wire, over the N-G bond, and over the neutral bus back to the transformer.  A satisfying 500A of bolted fault flows, and the breaker goes SNAP!

Or if we're in GFCI-land, a satisfying 0.007 amps of current flows, and the GFCI goes "Unequal current! Snap!"

Let's bootleg ground everywhere! What could go wrong?

When you say "Hey, we don't need 2 wires", and just attach ground to neutral since they're the same thing in the panel, that is called bootlegging ground.

Now, in ranges and dryers, appliance manufacturers got a special exception cut so they wouldn't lose appliance sales to people who had 3-prong dryer/range outlets.  They said "For grounding the dryer and range, let us bootleg ground legally. The socket is behind equipment and is rarely disturbed."

Of course you can do the same at any receptacle you please, just by jumpering ground to neutral.

So what happens if the neutral wire breaks?   Think about it.

Normally, the appliance quits, but its conductance pulls the neutral wire up to 120V, since the power can't get back.

Since we bootlegged ground, the ground is also pulled up to 120V.  We have electrified the chassis of the appliance.  And yeah, this has killed people.  It's always written up as "defective wiring", implying it was wired wrong... and that's true, except in the case of dryers and ranges which were legally bootlegged.  There, the wiring was "correct" by Code (certainly not correct in any real world evaluation), and a simple wire failure caused it.

The electrical system ought to endure simple failures like a loose wire without it becoming hazardous.


1/2 HP sewer pump, outlet reduction 1 1/2" - 1 1/4" I have a 1/2 HP sewer pump to drop into septic tank and pump it out. The old pump has a 1 1/4" outlet, and the new pump has a 1 1/2" outlet.  Because I want to use the old  1 1/4" hose, I want to put a reducer 1 1/2" - 1 1/4" on the pump.  Will this cause the hose to blow off pump? Would a reduction 8 feet up the pipe be better?

Reducing the hose diameter will increase the potential back pressure on the pump but if properly connected the reduction will be fine. Since you already have the 1-1/4" get a reducer and install it right at the pump.


Are there any tricks for using an oscillating multitool? I recently got myself a Ridgid JobMax and I think I love it. I did spend quite a bit of time, however, trying to get through an old (100 year old home) 2x4 (dimensional). I don't know if the wood was just really hard or if I am just not good at using the tool yet. I did watch some YouTube videos and started using more of a sweeping motion with the cutting blade and that helped. I'm just wondering if anyone else has any good tips or experience using this tool that would be helpful to me.

Like you, I find it more effective as a cutter through harder surfaces if you move the blade across the surface you wish to cut.  I also apply light pressure to the tool while "sawing" with it.

Although in your case, it probably was simply that the wood was very hard.


How to prepare window stool for tiling in shower Vinyl windows were retrofitted over existing tile. Removed what concrete and tile I could from inside shower which of course chipped into some of the tile and concrete between the window and frame. What is the best way to prep this area to create a smooth surface prior to installing barrier and backer board?

As far as getting the existing material any farther back, don't sweat it. The part that will need the attention is the vinyl face of the window frame. Build up the framing with a 5-10 degree slope to the inside of the shower on the bottom  and square with the other 3 sides. Set them so the framing is even with the edge of the window frame. then add the cement backer. Tape all the joints with fiberglass tape and modified thinset, keep it neat. After it has set for a day, paint it all with liquid applied membrane like Redgard(r) or similar. make a nice line onto the face of the window, high enough to seal, but low enough for the tile to conceal the membrane, let it cure, then set your tile.


Where can I find a replacement bracket for my glass counter top? Sorry if this is obvious but I'm having a hard time contacting the manufacturer so I wanted to ask here.

I'm trying to replace my mounting brackets on a bathroom sink I have and was wondering if there are any generic or similar parts that would work.

I actually found out that I can actually just use glass shelf brackets.


Can I lean a ladder against tempered glass without damaging the window? We are building, and just now after the windows have been installed is that I realised they are really high up.

The window is made of tempered glass 8mm thick, 3.5 m wide, 2.5 m high and starts at 3.5 meters above the ground, so it is 6 m at its highest point.

I was thinking about putting a ladder against the window when I was going to clean it, but I'm not sure if tempered glass can withstand the pressure of ladder and someone climbing it for cleaning.

Even if the windows were super thick, it wouldn't be strong enough to handle the pressure exerted by a properly positioned ladder.

A ladder is supposed to be sloped 25%, like this:

With someone standing near the top of the ladder, that means roughly 20% of his weight is directed as lateral force, directly into the wall or window, conveyed by the points of the corners.  That could easily be hundreds of PSI, enough to crack almost any glass.  That force is temporarily multiplied as each step is taken with something like acceleration and deceleration (this is the basics of physics kinematics, F = ma).

Wrapping the corners of the ladder with something soft (like a thick towel) would greatly reduce the pressure by spreading its force over a much larger contact area.  However, the same total force is still applied, and that could well exceed the loading limit of the glass or its frame.

Leaning against glass is a high risk, low benefit undertaking.  If the window breaks and the ladder moves, will that make you fall off?  Will sharp, heavy pieces of glass fall onto you or be blasted into your face and eyes?  Will you fall onto a window shard still held vertical in the frame?

There are many solutions which are easy, painless, and relatively inexpensive:

Lean the ladder beside the window
Get a longer ladder which can rest on the wall above the window
With climbing gear, belay yourself from above
Rent scaffolding, a cherry picker, or a self-supporting ladder like an A-frame or orchard ladder.


Replacing 1880s basement windows I have a home built in the 1880s.

Trying to get it ready for winter my problem is three windows that are rotting out in the basement walls.  This is a field stone and rubble foundation with old dry mortar surrounding the casements.

My question is what would be the most inexpensive way to go?  I'm a totally disabled war veteran and this also has to be something I can attempt to do as money for the windows and the labor I am sure are beyond my reach.

If the framing around the window is essentially intact, insert replacement windows are fairly cheap and fairly easy, though you'll lose some glass area.. If the framing is rotting you'll need to deal with that; in that case either inserts or completely new framed windows may be the right choice. For the latter, make sure you install them with proper flashing & water barriers.

If you can't afford to replace the windows, all you can do is try to patch things well enough to not leak too badly and not fall apart. I have one basement window that I have temporarily just slapped a sheet of plexiglass across, held in place with caulking.... temporary ugly kluge but it does seal the opening better.


Can the discharge of the water powered backup sump pump be connected to the discharge of the primary sump pump? When installing a water powered back-up sump pump can the discharge of the water-powered back-up sump pump be connected by a Y to the discharge of the primary sump pump? I read that it shouldn't according to the Uniform Plumbing Codes and IAPMO PS119. Also what is the proper distance  between the back up sump pump float and the primary?

Put check valves on both discharge lines upstream of any "Y" connection to prevent back feeding through the unused pump.


"Hot water" cold after heavy rain This is very odd, but every time we get a heavy rain, the hot water in our house is lukewarm at best.  We have a fairly modern gas-fired hot water heater (GE GG40t06avg01, mfg 2011), and at all other times the water is piping hot, no problem.  I can't seem to  figure out what the connection could be - is the rain getting into the gas lines, and watering down the gas?  Has anyone ever heard of this kind of problem?  Any suggestions would be of help.

is the rain getting into the gas lines, and watering down the gas?

No. That isn't possible. Any way for water to get in would be a way for gas to get out. You'd have noticed this - it would be a life-threatening emergency.

  Any suggestions

Maybe check the flue and vent?

Maybe call a gas engineer?


What are these cloth covered wires? Continuing to install some new light fixtures and I pulled these wires out of an old switch box. There are 3 wires sheathed in a cloth-like material. The three wires are then wrapped altogether in another cloth-like-material, and finally that is all in a ribbed metal conduit. I looked around online but couldn't definitively figure out what these are.

Are these safe to use? What time period are these from?

In answer to your question the wires you are looking at are part of a cabling system known a BX. It is a lot like AC or MC only it doesn't have a grounding conductor and the conductor insulation is a type RH or RHW which is a rubber insulation wrapped in cloth. The other cloth is just fill.

This type of wiring was used in the late 1940's, 1950's and early 1960's until a more modern plastic insulation type offered better protection. Bx was known to be the cause of some fires during its use and was outlawed in many municipalities. One because as you can see there was no anti-short bushing (sometimes referred to as red devils and other names), which cut the insulation and started a high resistance short. Also when exposed to harsh (outdoor) environments or high heat at a junction it would dry out and crack exposing the bare conductor. Also as I have mentioned before there was no acceptable ground connection.

I wouldn't go so far as to say this type of system is alright, but the key is the insulation if it is still malleable and covers the conductor well it should be OK. If it shows any sign of drying out and cracking it should be replaced, and if you are reconnecting it back up use the anti-short bushings to protect the wire.

Stay safe.


Can I screw a wall light mounting plate directly into the pine wall covering the junction box? I have 3/4" thick pine rough-cut paneling covering my wall studs.
I'm attempting to replace three dated wall-mount candelabra sconces attached to boxes underneath the paneling. (Picture 1)

The old lamps are attached to the box via a middle threaded pipe. (Picture 2)

The new lamps have conventional side-mount screws. The mounting plate wants to screw into the box, but the hole cut in the paneling for the box isn't big enough to allow for this.
Can I simply screw the mounting plate into the 3/4" paneling itself? (Picture 3)

I'm trying to determine if this is a safety issue, and I can't for the life of me figure out why it would be any less safe than the current fixture.

You should be fine as long as you also install a box extension. It looks like you will probably need to cut your recess a little bigger in your paneling.
NEC 314.20:

Flush-Mounted Installations. Installations within or behind a surface
of concrete, tile, gypsum, plaster, or other noncombustible material,
including boxes employing a flush-type cover or faceplate, shall be
made so that the front edge of the box, plaster ring, extension ring,
or listed extender will not be set back of the finished surface more
than 6 mm (1∕4 in.).
Installations within a surface of wood or other combustible surface
material, boxes, plaster rings, extension rings, or listed extenders
shall extend to the finished surface or project therefrom.

So if your wall material is one of the non-combustible ones listed, you can have the box be up to 1/4" recessed. But the wood requires the box to be flush and you can use an extension to make it so.
And you are right, it wouldn't be any less safe than the current setup, but the current setup is unsafe and not up to code. If there is a bad connection in that box and things start to heat up in there, you want something fire-rated in between the heat source and the wood paneling.
In addition to the above, you will also need to follow the instructions provided with your light fixture. If the instruction say don't do this, then you shouldn't do it.


Installing retaining wall for pool. Sump pump drain line in area Can I leave a space for sewer drain when putting retaining wall up so, rock wont rest on top of soil where sump pump sewer pipe is?

Update with more detail:

My home has a sump pump that kicks the water out to a sewer pipe that leads underground to the back of my lot to a drain sewer. The backyard slopes so I had to dig out the area for my pool, and at the high side it was about 2ft. I am installing retaining wall blocks that are 6inches tall, 12 inches deep and 17 inches wide and hollow in the middle to be filled with crushed rock.

Because a 6 inches base is required, and minimum of 6 inches of the first row be burried, I needed to dig down another 12 inches. So I ran into this sewer pipe where I need to put the base rock, and it will sit up an inch or so higher than the base rock. I am looking to leave a small space when placing the base blocks so no weight will be directly on this pipe, and then just build the wall as usual. Is there anything I should be aware of, or is there something else I should be doing?

Currently I dug out the base and left the compacted clay covering the pipe on each side about 3 inches. Would it be better to dig out and expose the pipe within the base and just put the base rock all around it and try to tamp it as best I can? Or is it better to leave the compacted clay soil around it and work the base rock around the clay covering the pipe?

Thank you.

Diagram:

Well, without much finding of information on this, and trying to do this project alongside a full time job, and rain delays, I moved on and did what made sense.

I just left a space where the pipe was with a couple of inches on each side to reduce side pressure, and hand tamped the base around the pipe. The hardest part was getting both sides of base rock level with each other, but got it done.

I just made sure to start the blocks at the pipe to get the right gap.

After leaving the space and filling the gap with crushed stone, and because the bottom layer is mostly burried anyway, the gap isnt noticeable, and the wall seems pretty stable.

Again, this is just a small gravity wall.


Why do the oven and burners work but the pilot light won't ignite? Texas Gas Service turned off our gas for the weekend. We just got it turned back on, and the stove and oven will both light -- but the pilot lights won't.

They worked fine before Friday. Obviously this has something to do with the fact that they turned off our gas temporarily. How do I repair the pilot lights?

Why did they turn off the gas?  To do some work?  If that is the case then there is probably air in the line.  The pilot orifice is small compared to the burners which means it will take longer for the air to "bleed out".

Alternatively, there may be a button somewhere that you have to hold down (to get the gas flowing to the pilots) in order to light the pilots to light. Once lit you usually have to hold this "button" down for 10 to 20 seconds.  Have you ever lit a non-electronic water heater?  Same thing here.

Where I live, if the gas gets shut off for any reason (non-payment of bill, work in the street on the main) the gas company must (for safety reasons) come into your house to relight any appliance with a pilot.


Wrong voltages on underground cable Asking for a friend who's not too big on the internet... ;-)

Background:

On a farm. 1000' underground three wire power run to a well. Buried about 3 feet down.
There is about 200' of three black cables from the barn to a fence post. There there they come above ground and a switch from three black wires to two black and one yellow which run underground from there to the well. (I'll call them B1, B2 and Y for now with Y assumed to be ground/common. (an assumption of intent, not fact!))
At the barn's circuit breaker panel... 240 volts measured across the wires at a double breaker. 120 volts from each of those wires to ground. These are presumed to be B1 and B2.
At the "fence post" joint, and at the well... B1 to Y is 120 volts, B1 to B2 is 120 volts and B2 to Y is 0. (i.e. no combination is 240 volts.)

I'm confused by the 120 volts between B1 and B2 an the zero between B2 and Y.

Current theory:

Y an B1 are good.
B2 is broken and in contact with wet soil. (I.e. grounded)

Make sense?

He bought an underground wire locator (a TX to attach to one end and an RX you walk with to find the break). So far it has not been too useful in finding where the break is, most likely due to very wet and saturated ground, but when testing the end of the lines, it seems to indicate that B2 is the problem.

It sounds like you answered your question. With no voltage on b2 and reading 120v b1-b2 it looks like b2 has opened and is in contact with earth since there was 240 at the breaker panel.
 Some tracers may get confused with 240v because the 1 hot continues, I have seen this and disconnected the good hot then finding the break was fairly quick as the signal disappears at the break. Make sure to open the disconnect since you know the break is prior to that and the signal won't be able to return through the pump windings, makes for a clean signal.


How to connect old wiring to new light switch? I'm trying to replace an old light switch.  Need help to understand 1) What type of new switch to use, and 2) How to connect with the old wiring.  There are only 2 thick black wires, connected on either side of the switch.  I'd appreciate any advice.  Thanks!

Photos of old light switch

That is a single pole switch.

You should replace it with the same thing and just put one of the wires on each of the new switch's terminals.

Good luck and stay safe!


Can I install insulation on the ceiling of an old unfinished basement? Can I install insulation on the ceiling of an old unfinished basement? I have a bungalow home with hardwood floors.

Actually adding insulation is both beneficial for sound reduction and heat retention.  When you insulate your floors you prevent heat loss from your basement, especially if you live in Northern States where it gets cold like me.  This also helps keep rooms at even temperatures which makes your HVAC system operate more efficiently.  Also, if you're outside walls in your basement are not insulated then I wouldn't install it in the floor. As it would be more beneficial to get those outside walls done first then insulate the floor. You'd be well on your way to a finished basement as well.  Python is right about doing it completely or not at all.  Hope this helps!


What type of hinges do I need for this cupboard? We are tiling our bathroom and want to tile the built in cupboard, which has 2 doors inset into a wooden frame.  So that we don't need to leave a wide gap between the tiles at the edge of the door and the tiles on the frame, we need a hinge that will pull the whole door completely out and clear of the frame, but don't know what will work as there are so many types.  We already made a mistake by buying hinges like those on kitchen units which don't work, so don't want to keep buying the wrong ones!

It sounds like you need a "concealed door hinge" This will let you close the doors flush with the surface and the hinge will not be visible when the doors are closed.

Here is a link to a hinge page with a few possibilities.

http://www.mcmaster.com/#standard-cabinet-hinges/=onl7hs

We order from McMaster Carr regularly. They are a reputable company.

They also have magnetic push to open latches, so you don't have to have any hardware at all like handles showing either.

http://www.mcmaster.com/#magnetic-latches/=onlapj

Good luck on your project!


How to get sink off of countertop? We are getting new countertops, and we need to remove the sink before they install them. The sink is attached with a hardened glue.

We can't seem to get the sink off without bending the metal.

How can I get the sink off?

First check and make sure that you have removed any fasteners under the counter top holding the sink in place.

Next, you can try wedging a putty knife in between the lip of the sink and the counter and working your way around. Depending on the adhesive used, a solvent like paint thinner may help. A heat gun or hair dryer may also be able to soften the adhesive.

If you're still having trouble, you can always take the sink off with the old counter top and work on it later.


How to wire a USA 50amp 2 phase double pole breaker supply for a UK 240v high capacity shower pump I have recently moved to the USA from Scotland. I brought with me a "Waterfall" 3 bar shower pump, operating on UK 240V, 50Hz A/C,rated at 4 A, 850W, IPX2.

In our house we have a disused 50amp supply in the basement, which used to supply a hotbtub, feeding through a seperate in house double pole circuit breaker, with confirmed red, black, white and earth wires in a 3/4" cable, for which I have three questions.

How do I wire this feed to power the UK shower pump.
Can I alternately/in tandem use a single red or black wire to feed a dog grooming room( currently frequently tripping a house 30amp supply) running 2 x 17 amp, 115v dog dryers, plus an 115v air conditioner rated at 10.8 amps/1200W. Total amps = 44.8 A.

Ideally I would like to run both the 240V shower and 115v dog grooming room from the same supply, not simultaneously,  complying with USA electrical code. Thank you in anticipation of any replies.

Roy.

Ed Beal nailed it: it needs to be a subpanel.  That will serve you so ridiculously well that you'll be back here saying "enough already!"

First, tear out that 30A Breaker!  Common plug-in circuits are only wired for 15A or sometimes 20A (if they have the larger 12 AWG wire) and you're tripping a 30. This is how you burn down houses.  Replace that breaker with a 15A And Stop Overloading It.  This is the work of the last guy, a fool who upsized the breaker because he was sick of it tripping and just kept upsizing breakers until it stopped tripping.  He couldn't be bothered learning how not to trip breakers.

Now let's talk about what options you have for that 50A circuit (assuming it is a 50A circuit -- is the wire really 6 AWG?  Or did the same fool put a 50A breaker on 8 AWG?  (if so it must be a 40A breaker, but that won't affect anything that follows.)

Option 1: Pump only

This pump may not enjoy American 60Hz.  However you hook up the two hot wires (black/red) to hot and neutral on the pump. Doesn't matter which.  White is unused, cap it don't cut it.  Bare/green ground goes to earth on the pump.  In your main panel, change this circuit's 50A supply breaker to a 20A 2-pole GFCI breaker.  Yes I know how much those cost.

Option 2: Dog dryer(s) or A/C; pick 2.   No pump.

This scenario lets you run 2 dog dryers, or 1 dog dryer and 1 AC. You cannot power the pump.

In the main panel, change this circuit's 50A supply breaker to 20A 2-pole.  It doesn't need to be a GFCI breaker, but if it is, you won't need GFCI receptacles.

Back in the room, bring the fat #6 cable into a junction box. From there, use #12 cable to fork off 2 more junction boxes.  Each of the end junction boxes gets a 20A NEMA 5-20 receptacle, and it must be GFCI (except as above).  In the central junction box: all grounds go together.  All white neutrals go together.  Red goes to one of the hot wires from the receptacles.  Black goes to the other hot from the other receptacle.

Option 3: Subpanel

This powers both dog dryers, the A/C and the pump at the same time.  And actually has a full circuit's worth of power to spare.  And it will be a safer installation, as things associated with "wet" will have GFCI protection.

Get yourself a modest sized panel such as a Siemens 12-space main-lug panel.  Don't go smaller than 12, you'll hate it later.    So this is what it looks like.  Neutrals and grounds omitted for simplicity.

Now let's take a look at what's happening here.  You notice the odd bus routing in there?  That's because the panel has two poles and the buses are arranged so adjacent breakers are on opposite poles. I also took the liberty to use black for wires on pole L1 and red for pole L2.

Everything but the A/C needs GFCI protection. For the pump there's no choice but a pricey 2-pole 20A GFCI breaker.  (15A would also be acceptable, it's just such an odd duck that I hate to spend $80 on one.)

For the dog dryers, I used 20A plain breakers the cheaper GFCI receptacles, note they are the 20A variety. A 17A device needs to use the funny plugs with sideways neutrals.  Since the dryer maxes out the circuit, I would have preferred to use 1-socket receptacles (like for the A/C) - but those are not available in GFCI @ 20A.  Don't plug any other big load into these dryer circuits!  Cell phone chargers and LED lamps are fine.

The A/C unit gets a 15A breaker and a 15A single socket.  You could also use a 20A breaker and 20A single socket (with the T neutral).  The single socket is so we can avoid GFCI.

Now let's tally up the amps on each pole.  For continuous loads, we must derate by 125% - so your 10.8A air conditioner becomes 13.5A derated.

L1: 4A pump + 17A dog dryer + 13.5A air conditioner.  Max load on L1: 34.5A.
L2: 4A pump + 17A dog dryer.  Max load on L2: 21A.

It would be bad if both dog dryers wound up on the same pole with the air conditioner, so that's why I put their breakers adjacent.  In fact, just tape them together.  No need for a handle-tie.

Let's assume further that the last guy was a fool and used 8 AWG cable on his 50A circuit.  8 AWG cable is actually rated for 40A, and in that case the breaker in the main panel should be changed to 40A.  Even then, we are in good shape.

We could definitely support one more 20A circuit on the L2 pole. And here's an idea: the circuit that comes into this room that is constantly overloaded: cut it in two at some middle point.  Feed half from the main panel and half from this panel.  It would really matter where you cut it, so you would have to do a careful load survey of the sequence of the outlets and where the heavy loads are.

If the service is honest-to-goodness 6AWG 50A, then you could even support 2 more general circuits in addition - though not at max load of course.  It's OK to oversubscribe panels a fair bit; you just can't do that with known loads.


Wall Mounting a tv, how much can my wall take? I am looking to mount a 20lbs tv on my wall in a new condo. I am under the impression that the wall has been framed with 2x3 studs. I am unclear as to how much this could support. However, in an impulsive move, I bought a 15lb single stud mount for my television. I am wondering with the combined weight of 35lbscould damage my wall, given that it is an interior wall and the stud size is smaller than I had assumed.

My tv is 32inches (20lbs)
My mount is the Kanto M200 Wall Mount
My stud censor suggests that my studs are 13.5" apart (which I find odd, but that's what mapping my wall shows.)
And the wall is 115" long

Don't know if any of that helps.

Any answers would be much appreciated

A stud can hold much more weight than a 20 lb TV.

However, since your mount extends, that 20 lbs will actually add a lot more force to the mounting location.

You will still be fine as long as you are mounting directly to a wall stud. You should be certain that you are screwing it to the center of the stud.

Also, follow the installation instructions with the mount. With such a small mounting footprint, I think it is more important that you get everything correct.


New 1/4in plumbing shakes when cold water shuts off; worried? I had a 1/4in line run from my basement to a new kitchen refrigerator, using a saddle valve coming directly off the 3/4in main (it's the first tee off the street essentially).

Every time cold water shuts off in the home (whether it's the kitchen or bathroom sink, or the fridge's water dispenser) there is an audible shake and bang from behind the fridge, I am assuming the 1/4in is vibrating against something.  I have amazing (A M A ZING) water pressure in my home, best shower I've ever had, every day.

So I'm going to pull the fridge and brace the copper pipe, but there has to be something else going on here, this doesn't sound normal. I am worried about the lifetime of this pipe and my wood floors.  Do I need to reduce pressure somehow?  Even if I brace the heck out of it, something is causing it to buck and that's bound to affect something, somewhere.

You probably have always had the problem but adding the T made the problem noticeable. As far as I see this there are 2 problems. First the plumbing is loose and needs to be secured you may have not heard it in the past but it was there adding the T may save your plumbing because now you know it needs to be anchored. 2nd be prepared to replace the saddle valve these things are trouble waiting to spring a leak at the worst possible time according to Murphy's law. Do you need to lower the pressure NO! Pipe movement is a flow issue pressure can make it worse but why sacrifice wonderful water pressure when all that is needed is to anchor the pipe.


Washing machine with ammonia like odor My washing machine started to emit a very strong ammonia-odor.
I googled around and seems that this happens when doing laundry at low temperatures.
I do my laundry at 40 degrees (can't even remember last time I did at 60).
I did 2-3 runs without any clothes at 95 degrees.
The odor decreased a lot but still needs more so that it smells fresh.
Can I use vinegar or some other trick to make the odor go away faster?

Can you run the hot empty loads with some bleach in the water? Bleach smell may be strong if you use too much but it should help get rid of any residual organic slime left from low temperature washing.

If you do not like to use the bleach try to have the hot empty load run with regular laundry detergent plus a scoop of OxyClean powder.


Wiring new range hood exhaust fan motor Now, my current range hood exhaust fan motor has 3 wires coming from the harness, a red wire, a white wire and a black wire. The NEW motor only has 2 black wires coming off of it- how do I hook it up?

The old motor had two hot wires in addition to the white (neutral) so that the SPDT switch could select high or low speed. The new motor is one-speed, though you could replace the switch with a variable speed fan control if you want to adjust the speed and noise level. N.B. The link is just for illustration, that particular control might or might not be suitable.

If you don't mind a one-speed fan., then simply wire one or both switch wires to one black motor lead and the other black motor lead goes to the white (neutral) wire. If you connect both, there will be two ON positions and one OFF, but if you connect the wire for the middle position and cap the other lead, then there would be two OFF settings and one for ON.


How can I fix the mounting of these outlets in this box that is taller than the outlet? I have 4 outlets in my garage mounted in an exposed box where they do not seem to be centered. (This seems to be a 4-11/16" box.)

Removing the cover plate reveals that each pair of outlets is only mounted to the box by one corner, which seems pretty sketchy.

How should I fix this so that the outlets are mounted properly? It seems like I have a few different options:

Replace the cover plate with a 4-11/16" cover with openings for 2 duplex outlets and mount the outlets to that.

Add a 4-11/16" 2-device mud ring, mount the outlets to that, and reuse the existing cover plate.

Replace the box with a smaller 2-gang 4" box, mount the outlets to that, and reuse the existing cover plate.

Replace the box with a smaller 4" junction box, replace the cover with a 4" cover with openings for 2 duplex outlets, and mount the outlets to that.

Are all of these acceptable options? What are some reasons to prefer or avoid any of these approaches? I assume that replacing the box would be more work since I'd have to disconnect and reconnect the outlets. If it matters, each pair of outlets is on a separate breaker, and I am in the US.

All your listed options will work.

Folded edge covers always fit a bit wonky, unfortunately they don't make a crushed corner version for 4-11/16" boxes
Gap between faceplate and mud ring that looks incorrect, possible hazard
A lot of work, 4.5" face plate will extend past edge of box, less hazard
A lot of work, will look the best, possible damage to sheetrock that can be complicated to repair

5th option? Really option 2.1, maybe a flat device ring, a regular sized 4.5" faceplate will mount flush against device ring and be smaller than existing 4 11/16" box. Probably most expensive fix.


New Rheem RTG-84-XLN-1 Error 12 I just installed a new Rheem RTG-84-XNL-1 tankless water heater. The unit has been throwing error code 12 off and on since it was first run. The manual and their tech support only entertain the idea that there is insufficient gas supply. Here are the numbers:

10 wc from the meter
10 wc static at appliance
1 to 2 inch wc drop when unit fires
electrical is well grounded and unit powered via a disconnect fed by a home run
gas and water bonded
burner is running and I can see string blue flames when the error gets thrown
burner tubes look good. Wiring is tight and rods aren't cracked
unit specs require 4 wc min and 10.5 wc max (as per the machine panel)

Two things that may be worth noting:

there is water accumulating in the bottom of the chassis. At first I thought this was a leaky internal component but after further inspection it appears to be condensation
it seems like it tends to error out when particular fixtures are being used. For instance, every time I have turned on the master bath shower it has worked fine - another shower (also upstairs) always seems to anger it.
the house is two stories with a split level basement with the unit installed at ground level attached to the exterior of the basement at a location where the basement is level with grade. All that to say that the hot water runs are pretty long.

The Rheem tech did say that the unit requires < 1inc wc drop, which contradicts both code and their installation manual, which states:

The gas system is designed to operate at a certain
maximum pressure drop. A pressure drop greater
than what is permissible can cause operational
issues with the gas appliances. The National Fuel
Gas Code (NFPA 54, ANSI Z223.1 2012) allows
for three pressure drop levels, a 0.3 inch W.C.,
(see table 2); a 0.5 inch W.C., (see table 3) and
a 3.0 inch W.C., (see table 4) pressure drop for
natural gas

My inclination is to demand they send me a new unit. Is there anything else I should be looking at? Is this condensation (or what seems to be) normal? Could the water plumbing somehow cause this?