Drain Help - Cannot Divert to Street I have a drainage issue in my back yard that we've dealt with for years. I have a few ideas, yet I thought I'd post one to see if it will work first.

We live in a typical SoCal track home surrounded almost entirely by cement installed by the previous owner. There are a number of drainage issues on the property that are hard to remedy since there is so much cement. With careful planning these issues could have been avoided in the beginning, but now I'm having to deal with them. That and staying within a reasonable DIY budget makes this a real challenge.

We just had our patio cover rebuilt and don't want a previous issue returning when we get a major rain. The problem was the bottom of the wood columns sitting in a few inches of water long enough on and off over the years to get saturated and eventually split and rot, not to mention water and dirt rings left on the concrete after the water finally dries.

Our patio cover's cement has a brick border. The problem is where a small grass area meets that border as they slope toward each other leaving an area for water to sit sometimes for a day or two after a serious rain. That same area is where the patio cover's columns are. To install a drain that would go out to the street would never happen taking into account the huge amount of cement that would have to be cut to allow this. The distance and what's in between would just make it a nightmare. I don't mind a project that takes a few days, but I'll move before I need to put that much work in this.

I'm considering a two stage project, one, having a gutter installed at the rear of our house and divert that water into a rain barrel (or two if necessary). Since water will still be coming off the patio cover's roof and excess from the pool in the summer the second stage would be digging a 2 1/2' - 3' trench along the grass where it meets the brick border. Then either simply filling it to the top with stone or filling it with stone, less about 4" and installing a trench train and cover that would allow the water to percolate straight down into the stone. My question is how much water could this second project handle and will it percolate down fast enough? Could it actually handle all of the water and forget the gutter and barrel all together saving me money? Yes I know a rain barrel's a great idea, but even that area where it would sit is tight, let alone two.

Just as a note, the soil (under the 4" or so of top soil) we have here is more like sand and rocks, hardly soil in my book. In a flat normal area it would take water like a champ and drain very quickly, but the problem area I'm writing about above really puts it to test.

Also, the grass area is triangular, roughly 15' on each side.

Sorry about the long winded post, but I wasn't sure what details would be needed. Hope I've provided enough.

Thanks for any help or advise.

Sounds like it will be a lot cheaper and easier to create a drain field in your grassy area.

Good luck!


roller shadowing after painting long walls ok, here we go. I hate to even ask this because I know how this goes... BUT.... The painter I started working with years ago sucks and moving on to working with much more experienced painters, I realize they are also having the same results! The roller marks on the walls even after two coats! They all seem to act like it's just normal and that I am being too picky. First of all I am NOT referring to ridge lines where you push too hard on the roller, I am talking about the shades of paint where you can see the up down up down pattern. I have tried several brands of roller covers, several nap lengths, rolling right to left then back again, tried applying paint quite thick. My god I just don't get it because I have read this question from others before and actually, everything I stated above was the suggestions they gave.  Honestly I am a very popular painter and come highly recommended and have been for years but when this does happen, I just can't seem to find any rhyme or reason for it.

There are a few factors that contribute to a quality job, or conversely, shading when roller painting walls.

1) Original color, 2) surface prep & priming, 3) quality of application equipment, 4) quality of paint, 5) technique used.

Drastic color changes usually require a prime coat. The proper primer base color or tinting can be an important step to hide the original contrasting color. Cleaning old walls of all soap, grease, smoke and other residuals goes a long way to assure a good bond of new paint/primer.

The quality of the paint you select is extremely important. A spec grade paint or bargain basement product will be low in pigments or use a lower quality acrylic base. A cheap paint in a light color over PVA on new drywall may pass and be fine, but rarely cover well when changing color over existing paint.
Over the years, I have applied hundreds, if not thousands of gallons of paint. I have migrated between brands as technologies changed, but always found that a mid to upper grade gives the best results. Expect to pay $30 to $45 per gallon.  The most important traits of a good paint is the workability time and spreadability. Very thick paints are hard to spread evenly and require a 10% to 20% addition of Flowtrol. If your paint tacks or starts to dry too quickly, it is difficult to work the wet edge or blend with the cutting lines. Very thin bodied paints tend to dry very quickly and should only be used in sprayer.  applications.
I have been given sample gallons of the super expensive "one coat" paint/primer, and guess what, they don't perform much better than any other decent grade paint. I have yet found any situation other than covering the same color, when one coat is satisfactory.

Use only high quality roller covers. I will only use Perdy White Cloud 3/8" covers for most applications. If the nap of your covers flattens out too quickly, the coverage will be inconsistent.

The most important factor in getting good coverage with two coats, is technique. Everyone knows to work into a wet edge, but that is only half the deal. Good consistency is a directly related to evenly applying the paint. Cover smaller areas at once, not more than about 8 to 10 square feet per roller load. Do not work too much paint out of the roller between reloads. This does not mean to put the paint on too heavy, rather it means try to maintain even wetness of the roller.  Use long, light overlap finishing strokes, but do not overwork the area. When working alone, do not cut more line than you can roll before the cut starts to dry. About every 6 to 8 feet of wall, inspect it at an angle so you can see any thin spots or holidays. Looking at steep angles uses the available light to highlight imperfections. You should still have time to go back and touch up problem areas if you look carefully before getting too far ahead.

If you are seeing a lot of uneven shading after your first coat, the technique may be wrong. One coat is never enough, but it should be applied with the same care as the second coat. A poor quality first coat application makes a lousy background for the second or finish coat.


Can I use 1/4 inch copper tubing with a compression needle valve to run propane to a gas light? Can I use 1/4 inch copper tubing with a compression needle valve to run propane to a gas light? I am worried that gas would leak from the compression fitting

You'll need to look into your local code to find out if it's approved. Where I live, compression fittings aren't allowed for gas but flared fittings are. If you're not sure, you should contact a licensed gas fitter in your area.


If a roll is 6′ wide with a total area of 84 square yards, what is the length? If a roll is 6′ wide with a total area of 84 square yards, what is the length?
The answer says 126 ft.
I keep getting 42
The explanation says:
"86 sq yd x 9 sq ft/sq yd = 756 sq ft"
756 sq ft ÷ 6 ft = 126 ft.
I still don't get the explanation. What the exact steps to solve the problem? Could the answer be wrong?

I think this is really a math problem and not DIY. But if this is referring to buying carpet or other roll products for a house then it could by DIY:

Area = Width x Length which is the same as Length = Area / Width
1 yard = 3 feet

Total area = 84 square yards = 84 x (3 feet/yard) x (3 feet/yard) = 756 square feet

Width = (756 square feet) / (6 feet) = 126 feet

42 is the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything but it is not the correct answer to this math problem.

I suspect that somewhere you multiplied or divided by 3 (== feet per yard) instead of 9 (== square feet per square yard), as 126 / 3 = 42.


Setting 6x6 posts in concrete We are  building a pergola-swing with two 6x6 posts as the main supports. The posts are to be set in a 12" diameter sonotube footing, 36" deep. I am unsure as to how much concrete to buy being that there is only about a 3" gap around after the post is in.
I have calculated the volume of the cylinder (4071.5 cubic in.) as well as that of the post(1089cubic in.)
I took the volume of the cylinder and subtracted the volume of the post to get a volume of 2982.5 cubic in
Than I determined that a 50lb bag of concrete is 648 cubic inches. (.375x1728=648)
2982.5cu in/648cu in=4.6--> 5
Based off my calculations shown above, I figure I would need 5 bags per post x 2 posts for a total of 10.
Just looking for someone to look over my work and verify it for me.
Thanks,
-Nick

Your math looks right on. I couldn't verify the concrete but it looked pretty similar to other stuff I've used.
The 12" Sonotube seems small for a 6x6 post. Their site recommends three time the post width so that would mean an 18" Sonotube. you might want to look into that. that means you have to do your calculations for concrete over again.. lol


Conduit to NM-B cable transition My neighbor asked me to help him run power from his breaker panel to his shed out back adding two outlets and two lights. I added a 20 amp breaker and pulled #10 wire from the shed to the house in 3/4 conduit and in a junction box about ten feet inside the attic I transitioned from thhn #10 to NM-B cable and added the 20 amp service breaker.

Everything worked fine but my concern is should there be more to the transition than a box and some wire nuts?

Assuming it's like you describe, and you've done the work to code, that sounds fine.  With #10 you certainly won't have to worry about voltage drop.

I trust your THHN wire is also rated THWN-2.  Most is.


Can anyone identify this light switch brand? We've got a bunch of light switches and covers in our house but in the process of removing them to paint around them, one got broken.  Can anyone help me identify it?  They were put in by the builder of our townhouse (Sydney, Australia) which was constructed in the last five years or so.

The first picture is of an unbroken switch of the same style.  The second picture is of the naked (uncovered) switch.

Your switch and cover plate look very similar to the XLP770 series as shown here:

See here for a distributor web page:

http://www.sparkydirect.com.au/p/935748/switch-1-gang-10amp-250v-white-hpm-xlp7701we.html

See here for manufacturer's Excel Range brochure:

http://www.hpm.com.au/Uploads/HPM%20excel%20range.pdf


What is the correct way to wire a 4 prong oven receptacle? I think I wired this the right way but I can't find an online reference that I trust enough to flip the breaker back on.

This is how I wired it.

Is this correct?

That is correct.

See NEMA 14-50R

Source

G - Ground
W - Neutral
X - Hot
Y - Hot

If you look at the terminal screws on one of these receptacles, you may notice they are different colors.

The green tinted screw is ground.
The silver screw is neutral.
The two brass screws are hot.

This is a common pattern in most electrical devices, and can easily be remembered with a simple poem.
Black to brass, or you'll fry your ass.

As @HillBilly.Developer pointed out, since the red and black wires are both hot it doesn't matter which one is connected to X or Y. Each hot wire will have an electric potential of 120V to neutral/ground, and 240V potential to each other. This is because in US residential wiring, the house is fed from a transformer with a center tapped secondary. So the building is supplied using two hot legs (L1,L2) which are 180° "out of phase", and the center tap (N).

Because of this, any device in the house can be powered using either 120V, 240V or both. To supply 240V to a device, a hot wire from each leg of the system must be present at the outlet.

In our situation one leg of the system is the black wire (L1), and the other is the red wire (L2). So either way you hook them up, you'll always have 120V potential L1 to N and L2 to N and 240V potential L1 to L2.


How can I determine where power enters my bathroom light circuit? How do I determine if the power source is going right into the 3-gang box of switches, or directly to one of the fixtures (1 vanity light and 1 light/exhaust fan combo)?  What is the best way to install new light fixtures (say over the shower and/or bathtub), taking power from the light of the light/fan combo?

Essentially, we are looking to have the current switch that turns on the light of the light/fan fixture also turn on the new lights.  The other two switches will remain connected to their respective fixtures (the exhaust fan and the vanity lights).  Thanks!

OP seems to have done a scarper but for anyone else reading this:

The one sure way to find where the power enters a circuit is to completely disconnect each cable and drop a test load across its wires.

I detach the cables one at a time and re-connect each one before going on to the next. This saves having to mark everything first -- although it does involve a lot of running back and forth to the circuit breaker panel.

My favorite test load is a neon indicator lamp on a short piece of lamp cord with two insulated alligator clips. But almost any kind of lamp can be pressed into service.


What size hole do I need in masonry for an anchor that takes a 1/2" thread? I bought these ladder hangers from Home Depot today. I have used anchors before, but I tend to not make the right size hole. What is the ideal size hole for an anchor that takes a 1/2" thread? How much smaller should the hole be than the anchor?

Those hangars are designed to go into wood, but you should be able to install into concrete using lag shields, just as you would use with a lag bolt. My only concern is that lag bolts have a standards and ratings, where this ladder hangar might be of unknown strength, and could simply shear off in the lag shield. I wouldn't park my car next to or beneath it.

The lag shield has a specified hole size required, which should be documented, such as this one.


How do I fix this 3 way switch mess? I just moved into my house and replacing switches and receptacles when I come across a 3 way circuit not working correctly. I pulled the 2 switches to find someone had replaced one with a single pole switch. Unfortunately they did a sloppy job and didnt pigtail their hot wires properly, so wondering if someone can tell me how to properly rewire this to my 3 way switch. Thanks in advance.

OK.  A 3-way switch complex acts exactly like a plain switch.  Meaning if you take the two 3-ways and the /3 cable between them, and pretend they're not there, you see what else is going on.

In this case, if you ignore the 3-ways and /3, all that's left is a /2 cable to the top box.  That makes this a switch loop.

Normally, in a switch loop, the white wire carries always-hot * and the black wire carries switched-hot.  Code has two things to say about this:

if a white wire is used as hot, and always-hot is in the cable, then the white must be always-hot*.  Correct that if it's wrong.
A white wire used for "hot" absolutely must be marked with black tape.  This has been overlooked in these boxes, so you should correct that.

It appears the last guy wired the 3-way loop with the white wire being always-hot.  That is fine, but again you need to mark the white wires at each of their ends with black tape.

The remaining wires in the /3 (red and black) are travelers.  I recommend you mark both travelers with yellow tape (readily available as part of 5-packs of colored tape). Travelers don't need to be distinguished from each other.

Then it's easy: On the 3-way switches, the travelers go on the brass screws, and the remaining wire (whatever it is) goes on the remaining black screw.

*The white wire is used for always-hot so a voltage tester will always show it as hot; that means it won't be confused for a neutral.  The switched-hot wire will test as "at neutral" when the switch is off, because it's connected to neutral via the light bulb.


Is my bathroom wet-venting plan reasonable? I‘m relocating my bathroom fixtures and laid out my plumbing using a wet vent. I would likefeed back about whether this is a good plan. Do I need another vent for the shower or suggestions on different layout?
See drawing. The cleanout is the existing drain.
Added different layout with toilet going perpendicular to drain,
Hi All,
I relayed the plumbing but have to move my drain out to make room to fit the fittings.  I jog the drain with (2) 22.5 elbows, is this allowed 22.5 to use in horizontal? See Dwg-3, Thanks

2: (https://i.stack.imgur.com/qVl63.jpg)

All of these layouts look good. The venting should be fine. You're connecting the lines with wyes, not tees, which is good. 45° Bends in the 3" cleanout line should be fine; a snake will easily make the turn.
Altogether, it looks like you've put a lot of thought into this. My one recommendation would be to check your state venting code to see the maximum distance allowed between a drain and its vent, just to make sure everything is close enough. I don't foresee a problem, but it doesn't hurt to check.


Skim coat with plaster of paris mixed with joint compound Has anyone skim coat a plaster wall with a mixture plaster of Paris mixed into joint compound? What was the result?

Don’t mix use the correct product.
 Mixing can affect the strength and texture.
For a light skim coat use a topping mud or topping compound or add water to standard joint compound or mud.

Prior to coating make sure to clean the surface, the leading cause of failure is surface contamination. Dust is a big one, smoke , oil all of these may be hard to see but can cause failure. I love TSP Trisodium phosphate, make sure to use gloves.  After cleaning a nice wide knife and topping mud I can skim a large room in no time.


Do you know how I can tell why I have two hot wires? All the outlets in the house are working and have connected neutral wires. However one unit has a both hot and neutral wires reading hot. And the light isn’t working. Can’t figure out why or where a neutral isn’t connected. Please help.

You have the right idea that a neutral may be open.
This is common with back stabs (the push in connectors on outlets)   I start closest to the service panel checking receptacles. Looking for the first one on that circuit  that gives the problem. Check that and if it is good back up to the last working one if things start working and there were backstabs they will fail again. Many of us never use backstabs and recommend the screw terminals or replace with new receptacles. There can also be a broken wire or a loose wire in a wire nut but the most common failure is the backstab from no visible damage and they start working when checked to the wire burned off and part of the receptacle melted.
So find the first failed one or the last working one and it will be in one of those 2 locations.


Why doesn't my furnace start? Pilot Light ignites and continuous clicking Why doesn't my furnace start?

Pilot Light ignites up and continuous clicking.

Video: https://streamable.com/i0av0

I was reading this question: gas furnace pilot light is lit,,won't produce heat, making a clicking sound,,,

And wasn't quite sure what the answer was referring to that I had to clean.

Any help would be wonderful.

It helps to have an understanding of how the gas control works.  The gas control valve operates a solenoid-operated valve that delivers gas to the burners when your thermostat calls for heat.

The pilot flame should always be burning, and heating the thermocouple bulb that is situated adjacent to the pilot flame.  The thermocouple feeds a signal via a thin copper tube to the gas control valve, indicating that the pilot is burning and that it's OK for the control valve to open and deliver gas to the burners.

In my ~35 years with a furnace similar to yours (it was replaced about 8 years ago with an electronic ignition furnace), I occasionally found that either:

The pilot light's orifice had become dirty and was not producing an adequate flame to heat the thermocouple,
Or, more often, the thermocouple bulb had become slightly corroded and was failing to sense the pilot's heat

The pilot light's orifice can be removed and cleaned.

The thermocouple's bulb can also be removed and cleaned.  I typically used a bit of bronze wool (I hate steel wool!).

As to the clicking sound that you report, I don't know what that might be.  Perhaps it's the solenoid in the gas control valve attempting to open gas flow to the burners, but it's prohibited from doing so by the thermocouple's failure to sense a burning pilot.

Note that the tube from the thermocouple does not contain any gas or electrical signal.  It functions on the basis of heat at the thermocouple's bulb causing the inert gas inside the tube to expand.


Understanding Amps usage My home has a strict limit of 45 Amps, for what I can use. I assume this means I cannot draw more than 45A at any point in time, otherwise the fusebox will jump?
I know I am close to this limit, because when I was at a lower Amps rating, I had to ask my electricity provider to increase it. 45 Amps is the maximum I can have with my current installation.
I need to install an electrical water heater (to replace a gas one). Before I do so, I want to make sure I understand how many amps it will draw. It says "power 2000W". Given that my country has 230V, does it mean that it will use 8.7 A (2000 / 230) ?
That's what would make sense to me, but I am getting quite confused after searches on the internet that say the power indicated on an appliance does not necessarily translate into power drawn from my electrical circuit. If someone can explain why that is, that'd be fantastic.

Yes, the amperage draw for your 2000 watt water heater will be about 8.7 amps. To calculate the amperage of any heating element divide the watts by the voltage. If the amperage draw is too high for your application, you could exchange the heating element with a lower wattage element. Hope this helps.


What vent type and configuration does my furnace use? I am trying to replace my 33 year old furnace. The brand is Carrier and model is 395BAW048095.
I couldn't figure out the correct vent type and configuration (down-flow, multi-position, up-flow).
I wonder if someone can give some guidance and offer some suggestions for good furnace brand/model that can replace this one. Thanks!

You know which way your filter is installed, right? You'd need to in order to change it. That tells you flow direction. So does the air come out of your furnace at the top or bottom?
Most are upflow, and I suspect the same here. The lower panel covers the fan and fan motor, which drives air up through the heat exchanger and out the top. Sound right?
Be aware that modern furnaces tend to be more complex than those from the era you're replacing, and as such can require more knowledge to set up and tune for your duct system. Also, most are going to be direct-vent types that need different exhaust venting than what you have now. You may want to employ an HVAC technician for this project.


Steps to finding out what part of my fridge is tripping its GFCI outlet? My Kenmore fridge kept tripping the circuit breaker in the GPCI once every 10 hours or so. I have had the fridge for almost 9 years now, and the problem started a month ago. What I tried so far is that I plugged the fridge to another GPCI outlet with nothing else plugged-in and the problem persisted.

The manual says nothing about this problem. Having a Kenmore technician come and try diagnose for the problem costs $129 with no result guaranteed. So I thought I should try doing diagnosis on the fridge myself. But where can I start (e.g., how do I know if it's the compressor drawing too much current or something else that needs replacement)?

Any guidance or reference to tutorial would be helpful. Appreciate it.

Installing a GFCI on a refrigerator basically disregards the use-case for GFCI.   It's a well-grounded, all-metal box, with all the mains electric gear in the very bottom back of the machine, totally inaccessible in the vast majority of people's installations... and you are unlikely to drop it in the sink.

As such, there is no practical safety benefit to putting a fridge on GFCI, unless the branch to the fridge is totally ungrounded.

What the "Take your shoes off at the airport" gang cannot wrap their minds around, is the concept that dueling safety systems makes safety worse.  Consider a remote warehouse with a big Cat diesel fire pump.  Some epsilon-minus decides that every diesel on the property needs a low-oil-level shutoff, to keep people from running forklifts etc. a quart low.  Well, there's a fire. The fire pump trips out on low oil, and the warehouse burns down.  That's dueling safety systems, and you don't want that.

The fridge has One Job: keep food safe. It's not a big shock risk, so GFCI won't save any lives.  GFCI gets in the way of its One Job. It's bad enough with a dedicated GFCI, but with a shared GFCI, the GFCI could trip, someone could reset it to get a different appliance back up, the fridge would re-chill after bacteria had its way with the food, and nobody would be the wiser.

The above receptacle is legal in any kitchen.  It is also legal in any garage, basement or other place you might put a refrigerator that normally requires GFCI, if you get a waiver from your AHJ: the local inspector.  This is a perfectly sensible setup, and there's no good reason not to grant it.

Why is it tripping? Because like lots of fridges, it has some small leakage between hot and earth, perhaps when a compressor cycles off: there's a big inductive spike because inductors are trying to keep current constant, and they spike voltage until insulation breaks down somewhere to sink it.  It really is a ground fault, but it's a trivial and unavoidable one.  Fridges do this.

In the DC world you'd put a freewheeling diode on that inductor. In AC a VBO (Voltage Breakover) would the job, being "insulation" that breaks down at a specific voltage e.g. 200V before regular insulation fails. MOVs can do that too. That would be placed between hot and neutral, arresting the spike to neutral instead of to safety ground; as a result currents would be equal and the GFCI would ignore it.   A capacitor might also help, being able to absorb some current from the inductor.


It is safe to insulate my uninsulated oven? I have a Hotpoint gas range. I got it because it has no electronics and will probably last until the bombs fall and the ants and cockroaches take over. It is awesome, and cooks my food as well as any range can be expected to.

However, because apparently ranges with complicated and easily breakable computers are "in" right now, it was a cheap model, and I've discovered that the gas heater for the oven/broiler is totally uninsulated. So a lot of heat leaks into the kitchen, which helps during winter, but hurts during summer. The oven burner is rated at 18,000 BTUs, so it's not an insignificant amount of heat to be adding to the house for a typical one-hour bake cycle.

Therefore, I would like to insulate the burner compartment and the oven. For this, I was thinking about using spare mineral wool insulation that I have left over. This stuff is rated to more than 2,000 degrees and is totally non-combustible. It's about R-4.2 per inch, so I could probably get about R-8 or more in the hollow side panels where insulation pretty clearly goes in the more "high-end" models.

Does this sound sane?

I personally would not insert any insulation anywhere inside an appliance, even if you see a spot where it looks like another model is insulated. You risk starting a fire, blocking airflow or vents, trapping moisture... Also note that the broiler will get well over 2000 °F, even a normal household candle can be 2500°F. So I wouldn't necessarily consider your mineral wool safe if it is anywhere near the burner.

Possibly you could insulate the sides or back of the oven. The manual should include any clearance requirements, if any. As long as you maintain those you could be ok.


Why am I reading zero volts phase to earth? When i measured the voltage reading on the socket I got an unusual reading
phase to neutral is 220V (expected reading )
phase to earth is 0V (unusual) ??
neutral to earth is oV (expected reading)

I do not understand why the phase to earth reading shows 0.... Could you please explain the underlying problem

That is a simple "open ground", or "open earth" situation. The safety connection to "earth" is open somewhere in the circuit.

This is a problem that should be corrected. May I ask what prompted you to make these measurements?


CertainTeed DiamondBack- Waterproofing needed for tile? I picked up some DiamondBack CBU to tile a shower enclosure, as it seems like it would be a lot easier to work with than Hardibacker (I can't cut the stuff without making a huge dusty mess, so if you have hints, I'll take them) and also matches up to the 1/2" green board that abuts it. When I look at the installation instructions, they don't have a waterproof plastic sheet (say, 6 mil plastic) nor a waterproof coating (such as RedGard) on the surface.

Incredulous, I called their customer service line to verify. While friendly, their customer service rep seemed to have as much knowledge of the product's ability as I did. He said that the outer layer doesn't require it and that I need to butt the panels tightly against one another, seal changes of plane (corners, etc) with a flexible sealant and use an ANSI (i forget the number) rated thinset.

Has anyone used this product? Has anyone used this product without adding a waterproof layer? I am a bit nervous and, with the slicker coated surface on the DiamondBack am afraid that, if I defy the instructions and waterproof that I'd have issues with it and, ultimately, the tile's adhesion to the board.

According to the manufactures install specs, a separate vapor barrier is not required if you seal between panels with a waterproof sealant/caulk.  I found the complete install specs for you here:   http://www.certainteed.com/resources/CTG-2509_Diamondback_Install_Guide_Eng.pdf


Why did my generator trip the feed breaker in the subpanel? I connected a Predator 9000 generator to an Intermatic pool subpanel through a 2 pole 30 amp breaker to backfeed the main panel through another 2 pole 30 amp breaker. There is a GFCI receptacle on the subpanel but was inoperable and its breaker was off.
When all breakers are off in the main panel including the main breaker I flip on the generator feed breaker in the subpanel then the breaker in the main panel that feeds house circuits. Either the the breaker in the subpanel trips or the breaker in the main panel trips or generator bogs down then they trip.
I converted the generator to floating neutral and it still happened.

Frame challenge:
You need a generator interlock. Full stop.
You need a mechanical device that positively ensures the generator cannot backfeed the power grid.
You cannot replace this with a checklist, or with "being super smart". The rest of us need to do that, and you are not smarter than the rest of us - especially not during a power failure when you're running around trying to get the lights back on, in the dark, in the rain.
If you doubt that, consider the difficulty you're having solving this problem, in good conditions. You are not Superman and you CAN make mistakes.  The interlock's job is to ensure those mistakes don't kill someone. And it is mandatory.
So the idea of backfeeding your pool subpanel is Right Out, because it makes the proper interlock impossible.  You are either going to have to
a) lay a new cable, or
b) "permanently" re-task the pool supply cable to be the generator supply cable, resulting in the pool ONLY being powerable off the generator.
Yes, I'm aware that's exactly what you're trying to avoid.  The rest of us don't get to do that, neither do you.
I say "permanently" because there is nothing wrong with doing permanent and proper wiring seasonally, as long as it is proper and to Code.
Now, if you get us some information about your main panel, we can guide you to some good choices in generator interlock. (We're not normally a shopping site, but we can give some guidance).
Why?
Because power flows both ways, as you well know from your efforts to backfeed the pool sub.  It also backfeeds out onto the neighborhood grid.  It also backfeeds through transformers.  When you energize the 120/240V side of a 120/240--9600V transformer, the high side of the transformer energizes at -- anyone, anyone, Bueller?  Correct, 9600 volts.
And that's how you kill linemen with a Harbor Freight generator.


Converting closed tread stairs to open tread stairs hopefully I'm using the right term. It might be called closed stringer stairs to open stringer (on one side). Please correct me so that I know the correct term for this. I also refer to it as "cut-outs". Anyway, I have two sets of stair cases - one in the front of the house and one off the kitchen in the back.

Front stair case:
Used to be carpet and I'm putting down sand and finish hardwood. Right now, the 1st 3 steps are closed tread, meaning the edge of the treads and risers on both sides butt up against the stringer so that u can't see the outline of the stairs if u are looking at them from the side. I want to change the look so that u can see the outline of the sides of the stairs on both sides, which is what i believe is called "open tread stairs". This means the treads and risers would come out farther in each side with a bullnose on each side edge.

PCan i just cut out the wall and skirtboard using a recip saw along the rise and run of the stairs and then put the tread and risers over my cutouts OR do i need to reframe the side walls? Or, do i need to reframe the 3 steps entirely? If reframing each wall, what would that entail? Any examples/videos/pictures would be a huge help! If reframing the steps, do i use the same number of stringers (3) but just no skirtboard since it's open on both sides or maybe i use 5 stringers with the 2 extra going on each side (drywall going over them of course) to support the longer tread and risers?

Back Stair Case:
Currently both sides are closed. One side of each stair run is up against a main wall, so I only want to open one side of each stair run (the side the camera is facing - which is simply where the skirtboard goes up to). How should I go about accomplishing this?

My contractor got sick years ago and it's super hard to find anyone to help that won't sub it out and charge me a massive fee, so I'm trying to do it myself.

Thanks for the help!

I've attached a few photos. The first 3 are of the back stairs. The 4th, in case my description is of what I want them to look like after is not clear, is of what I'm referring to as "open stair tread" (possibly called open stringer..let me know if not correct terminology). The photo shows the landing as being open but my landing will remain closed since it's a full wall that encloses the landing.

The 5th photo is of the front stairs. Only the first 3 steps need to be converted from closed tread to open tread.

A stringer is what supports the treads of a staircase from below. The treads sit on the stringers. There are likely three - one at each end and one down the center, continuous up any single run of steps. The walls that skirt your steps on the outside and hide the step’s edges are merely decorative and can be removed or modified without affecting the structural integrity of the staircase.

Take down the walls you need to, to uncover the ends of the steps, then reframe the walls so the framing is flush with the outside face of the outside stair stringer. Then finish with new drywall, wood, whatever you fancy.

The staircase you have with the switchback in it with the wall in the middle - that decorative wall in the middle can be taken down to the level of the middle landing and made flush with the floor there, creating a little shelf.


Need help understanding thermostat/heater wiring I have 1981 house in Washington state with in-wall electric heaters and mechanical single pole thermostats. I want to replace thermostats with something less crappy. I unscrewed one of the thermostats and wiring I saw confused me: there were 3 cables (3 wires each: black, white and bare copper) wired like this (BL, WT and BC are black, white and bare copper wires respectively, grouped by cable, SW1 is a thermostat):

I was expecting to see two cables there: one from electric box and another to the heating unit. Why 3? The only guess I currently have is that the room had two heating units installed initially and then one was removed. No idea why wires are still connected though. Or am I missing something?

You are missing something.

The schematic you drew is a fairly ordinary wiring arrangement where multiple thermostats and heaters are daisy-chained off of one electrical circuit.

In your drawing, the circuit feeding into the box might be shown at the bottom.  The thermostat controlled circuit leaves on the top right to connect to the local heater, and the feed through to the next thermostat and heater in the chain leaves on the top left.

The next thermostat and heater in the chain may be in a different room entirely and have nothing in common with the local thermostat except it is fed from the same branch circuit.


Problem attaching the door of the storage unit of a IKEA MALM desk I recently bought and assembled a MALM desk. The assembly went smoothly with no issue until the last step where I need to attach the door.
The hinges and the brackets are screwed in in their right spot. I managed to fit the hinges in the bracket and slided them right but then it's impossible to tighten the screw on the bracket in order to firmly attach the door. The screw can only be loosened and tightening to the maximum leaves a wide space between the hinge and the bracket so the door is left hanging and unattached.
I've been struggling with the problem all night so any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

There are two screws that are NOT for fastening, but for adjustment. They are on top of the hinge, and are visible even after assembly. The hinge clicks into its bracket. These screws are for alignment of the door.
And there are other screws for fastening. They are on the hinge bracket, and screw into the wood. These are not visible after assembly.
Can you add a picture please? Let's get that cleared up first.


Do I need to replace this sub floor after bad tub installation? I bought this house ~6 months ago and I noticed then that the caulk around this tub was not installed properly. I just barely got around to opening it up and seeing what was underneath and I found very moist wood that breaks away very easily. It looks like the sub floor is destroyed. Am I right about that? What should my next steps be?

Yes, it appears that you need a need new sub-flooring. Once the old tub is removed clear out all the old rotted material down to solid wood.  If necessary let the area  dry for a day or so.  Then as necessary fill voids and holes with shims and filler strips. Overlay the entire area with new quality heavy sub-flooring. Then set the new tub.


Ramp for a tool shed I need to build a ramp into a shed to roll carts in and out.
It has to be removable.
Door opening is 50", rise is 10" and I have 48" of space in front of the shed.
Max weight on the ramp at one time will be 800 lbs.

Will a piece of 3/4" plywood, 48"x48" (unsupported) work?

Why not put a shallow triangle slightly inset from  each side and one in the center?

These could be hinged to lie flat against the bottom of the ramp for storage. Use a hook and eye on the side opposite the hinge to lock the wedges in place when in use.


Dual Sink with Garbage Disposal Setup My sink set up gets blocked all the time when putting food through the garbage disposal. I took it apart and noticed the "Tee" had a very small hole for garbage disposal waste to pass through causing the problem so I removed this thin piece of plastic and now water backs up into the second sink when I flip on the garbage disposal. Water even shoots up through the garbage disposal side of the sink.

What good is a garbage disposal if you can't put vegetables, egg shells, and other food scraps through it.

Attached is a picture of my current set up and I don't think its right.

Your set up is missing a critical piece. The disposer elbow (discharge tube). Here is a very good article with plumbing schematics and instructions to correct your issues.

Note: I can't tell from your picture, but is there a sanitary street-t where your waste enters that sewer line? A sanitary tee should be used when connecting a horizontal pipe, such as a waste arm to a vertical riser. This will help move that waste along a little better.


How is my ceiling rose/light switch functioning?? UK I recently changed a couple of ceiling roses for a newer ones that weren't grubby and yellow. I noticed something odd... in the fact there was only 2 cables going to them.
In previous houses I have lived at, there has always been 3. 2 which form part of the ring/circuit, and one goes to the switch. Im wondering, how on earth are the switch operating these lights?
Anyone have any ideas? I mean, the switches work, so something must be happening somewhere!

That rose looks correctly wired for and end-of-line situation. The usual 3 wires in a rose are loop in, loop out, and switch. loop out is optional as it is used to supply power to the next fitting. If all your light fittings are like this, then  either each light has it's own cable runnign back to the fuse box, or (more likely) the loop is connected in juction boxes above the ceiling. This could be because the current roses replaced fittings which did not have the necessary number of terminals for a switch connection.


Wiring 3-way switch (power at light and switches meeting in junction box) Always have trouble wrapping my head around 3-way switches. I have a good book that I usually turn to, but didn't see a diagram for this pattern when a junction box is in the middle. How can I wire the junction box and switches in this instance?

A picture is worth a thousand words. This picture only applies to existing wiring, not new construction.

Here is the link for the picture:
https://www.how-to-wire-it.com/images/3-way-power-at-light2.jpg

If there is an additional box for the light and the power enters there also, then the power white wire would be hooked up to the light, the power black wire would be hooked up to the black wire of the 14/2 which would be connected to the black wire that goes to the switch on the right of my diagram. The white wire of the 14/2 would go to the "hot" side of the fixture and be marked with some red tape and the other end would go the black wire from the switch on the left of my diagram and also be marked with red tape. The travelers should be marked with yellow tape .
If this is new construction, then all switch locations must have a neutral. The cables from the switch boxes to the junction box must be /4 and from the junction box to the light fixture /3. The neutrals can just be capped in the switch boxes.


What should I do about wet insulation in my attic and walls? We had a lot of snow this winter. In spring when it melted we got water back up from under the eaves trough in our cottage. We now have water damage in our attic along the north and south walls in the kitchen, living room, bedroom and bathroom. The ceiling is sagging in one spot in the living room and on the bedroom walls in three areas the paint has rippled down to the floor. Also the rugs are stained badly. We were not out at the cottage for a couple of weeks and have been waiting for the insurance adjuster to come out and assess the damage.

My question is does all this wet insulation in attic and walls have to be removed and replaced, and what about the drywall, does it have to be cut out and redone? Also do they need to do something to combat the risk of mold in the walls and roof?

If your insurance adjuster is fair, He/she will cover the costs of removing all damaged materials and replace them.  In fact, water soaked insulation and drywall cannot be dried out and salvaged.  This will be a mold factory soon. The sooner you remove this stuff and expose the framing, the lesser the chance of growing mold on the framing.  If the framing is already showing mold, it will have to be remediated and treated before proceeding. This should be done professionally. It is not an easy DIY project and if not done properly will cause more problems in the future.


How bad is this quartz countertop seam (color mismatch)? Reality check here. The seam fits together quite well, but my wife and I were unpleasantly surprised by the degree of the color mismatch. Is that considered normal?

That is, in my opinion at least, quite substandard.  It looks as though they put two pieces from different batches together.
Seams are almost inevitable but they should carefully match pieces so that they are nearly invisible.  I'll bet that if you were to go to their showroom and look at some seams you'd have a difficult time figuring out that there was a seam there.
I'd absolutely have a discussion with the company that sold and installed this.  It's UNACCEPTABLE!


Is 5/8" plywood over 1/2" board subfloor adequate for tile? Hi there hopefully I’m posting in correct spot I’ll try and get right to the point. House built in 1987 I’ve been here 10 years and redoing the 2nd floor bathroom that was vinyl flooring.

When demoing the vinyl came up with the 1/4 underlayment attached for the most part while some was still adhered to the 1/2 subfloor underneath. I was able to scrap the remaining 1/4” off the 1/2” subfloor.

1/2 subfloor doesn’t appear to be tongue and groove. It’s nailed into joists 16” OC. 1/2 is in ok shape and would be a nightmare to rip up and properly secure back down it’s a small bathroom with a lot of corners and walls build on top of the subfloor.

Here’s my thoughts going to 1 1/2” deck screw the 1/2” subfloor into joists every 6 inches and seams. Do 17/32 or 5/8 on top of that not sure if it should be glued to 1/2 and screwed into joists, or just screwed to the 1/2” itself?Then Ditra and 1/4” tile. Thoughts? Thanks in advance guys

Your plan is reasonable, but I'd make a few suggestions...

Most tile and mortar manufacturers want 1-1/4" minimum subfloor. I'm not sure if the Ditra helps with that, but you probably want to go with 3/4" plywood.
1-1/2" screws are likely to strip in that aged wood. I'd use 2" or 2-1/2". They need to sink flush or below.
You don't need expensive coated deck screws. Plain gold construction screws will do. Don't use black oxide drywall screws. They're too brittle.
It's not so important that you screw every 6 inches as much as it's important that every board is down securely. Screw about 3/4" in from each edge of each board.
Consider a small-bead zigzag of construction adhesive under the plywood, perpendicular to the boards below. This will help lock in any movement (which makes noise). A screw pattern of about 12" on each joist should be plenty for the plywood, then.


Would upgrading my basement with sandstone blocks be worthwhile? Having a look at an old farmhouse that is for sale in the area, and as with most houses in the area of this age the foundation is built on red sandstone blocks, around five feet deep, with a dirt floor. Not very useful to have for much of anything outside of storage space, but it has a lot of floor space as it has the same square footage as the other two floors (roughly 1500+ sq ft)

What I'm wondering is if it possible, and if so, worthwhile to upgrade the foundation to the following:

Be at least 7 feet with concrete/finished floor
Able to keep the sandstone walls, if possible (mainly for aesthetics and hence resale...I realize concrete is stronger and probably better insulated)
Reduce the amount of poles that are in the basement (there seem to be a few of them that dont' have much of a logical layout to them.

Any advice would be most welcomed.

EDIT: Here's a picture of the enterence to the basement in question. I sadly didn't get any pictures of the basement due to the limitation of the camera that I have. You can see the floor is still the dirt floors, with the original stone steps and sandstone blocks. Those blocks are what they used for the foundations, with roughly 6inch diameter wood pillars within the floor area.

You have a couple things going on here:
1) The posts.   an engineer would have to evaluate to be sure, but it's most likely that you will not be able to remove the posts without providing beams of some sort to span the space between the walls.     Their irregular arrangement probably lines up with walls that they are supporting in the first story, which in turn are supporting the floor of the second story.
2) Clearance.   Digging deeper to get additional clearance will be challenging, because you will have to leave the footers under the existing foundation in place, and not undermine them.   This means you will likely end up with a floor that is a fair amount smaller than the existing space.    Also, you will have to support the part of the house that are held up by the posts while they are being relocated/lengthened.

In either case, you will need advice from someone knowledgeable in building structure and foundations.

Overall, it may be easier/cheaper to raise the level of the house and add additional height to the existing foundation (if it is in good enough shape to take the additional load) than to dig deeper.   A contractor that is experienced in this will know how to support the house while it is being raised, and you may be able to include new support beams to eliminate some or all of the posts at the same time.


Small diameter multimedia cable? I would like to install multimedia outlets (RJ45) in my house. The installation tubing is diam. 20mm (inside is 13.9mm). In the worse case, I have a diam. 6.5mm cable inside. So I would be able to add an additional 13.9 - 6.5 - 2.5 (mechanical play) = diam 5 mm multimedia cable.
As it would be quite a tough job, I am looking for a Cat 6a cable the smallest possible.
Where should I look for it?

It can be hard knowing what to search for in the first place if you don’t know the domain and the terminology.  This sounds like in-wall, so you’d want to search for “riser” or “horizontal” solid conductor cable.  There’s not much more to do than search for options and check specs to see what is thin enough.
I’ve run across bulk stranded cable as small as 3.75mm diameter, and since you have conduit you can technically run whatever you want in it, but just be aware that most RJ45 wall jacks are intended for use with solid conductors and punch down tools, so you’ll need to ensure you can properly terminate stranded wires.
Another thing that might help - a high quality cat5e or 6 will perform as well as a cat6a for short runs (~50-100ft maybe) since the spec is designed to account for longer runs. These tend to have smaller dividers or no divider in them at all, which would cut down the diameter. Belden 2413 is 5.3mm.
Hope this gives you some place to start your search!


Is there an easy way to track where switches go/do? My Aunt's house is a Frankenstein's Monster. Her late Husband made a number of unique wiring modifications.
previous post about the her house: Question on toilet mounting; No visible bolts?

1st, There are hidden switches all over the house. many of the switches we have no clue to what they do (over 20).

I suspect there is some sort of puzzle/code to the workings of the switches. Flip certain switches and things happen- Lighting in 3rd bathroom goes on after 3 years of no power/bypassing the light switch in the room, 4 Big 28" x 7' inwall Metal storage cabinets unlocking & open,then the locking mechanisms locked again unable to close, in the Mud/Wash room the metal mirror slipped down in to the wall to revealing new 2 switches, some switches in the master bedroom are now glowing green.

2nd, There is multiple cross-wired corruption, breakers that are off are getting juice from else where?

                  ~               ~               ~

What happened was her 4 Grand Kids went on a hunt for switches and I suspect pressed them all as they found them.

I assume there must be a main breaker panel somewhere. Start by tripping all breakers, shutting off electricity to the whole house.

Activate a single breaker. Walk all over the house, seeing what still seems to work. Note that on a (large) drawing. Make extensive notes.
Deactivate this breaker. Activate another. Repeat until finished.

This should give you a rough view of what goes where. If there are smaller breaker panels hanging off the main panel, go through the same process.

Some types of detector can help detect live wires, even beneath wall panels. This was on Amazon

(disclaimer: I have never used this particular type.)

By the way, I also assume there must be a building code where you live? And a part of that relating to electrical installations? And that insurance will not cover you for damage (i.e. fires) caused by installations that do not conform to code? You get where I'm going with this.

HTH


Impact driver issue: Intermittent springy/twang sound I suspect my impact driver is starting to bust.

Every so often, I hear a soft 'twang' sound shortly after pulling the trigger. I don't remember hearing it in the past, but I'm not 100% sure, maybe I never noticed. It doesn't seem natural anyhow.

The unit still does work, regardless of the twang sound, however it seems to be challenged with some tap-cons recently that it shouldn't have a problem with. I couldn't get the screws in 100%. This was with a client, it was embarrassing. I double-checked the holes were deep enough and the screw diameter matched, everything was ok. I was perplexed.

Just now tested a thick 3" screw into a 4x4 and it seemed to be challenged getting it down all the way, and just not sounding right.

Do impacts slowly fail/degrade, or am I imagining things? Or do they typically just fail and stop working one day?

Makita LXT 18v cordless, lots of use.

A little late to the party, figured I would share an image I found while researching my own impact driver's issues.

I'm guessing that your "twang" isn't associated with the trigger mechanism (or you'd probably have figured that out already). The hammer mechanism has to have a spring to restore the hammer back away from the anvil, and after a lot of use I'm sure the spring can get fatigued. I'll post images of my impact driver once I pop it open and get this section exposed. In the meantime, check out this site below:

https://eztoolhub.com/ultimate-guidelines-in-repairing-a-cordless-impact-driver


What (cheap) material could I use for a squirrel baffle atop a bird feeder? We have a bird feeder in our wooded yard, hanging down from a tree branch, its top covered with a 'squirrel baffle' of about two feet diameter.
We also have gazillions of squirrels that love to eat the stuff in the bird feeder (and deter the birds).

I made sure the bird feeder is hanging in a place where the squirrels can't jump to (it's about 10 feet away from anything else).
However, we have watched the squirrels climb down the rope the bird feeder is hanging on, heads up, and then slide down the baffle, swinging around the edge, and grabbing onto the bird feeder while falling (some quite impressive acrobatics).

I think having a larger baffle would solve that problem, because they would fall down too far away from the bird feeder to grab it. I am thinking about a rounded metal, wood, or plastic sheet, formed like a trashcan lid, but a bit larger (I'd like 4 to 5 feet diameter).

I'm not qualified to make something like that myself, and don't want to spend a lot of money on some custom built thing.
What object could I buy cheaply and 're-dedicate' to be a squirrel baffle?

Trashcan lids are too small, umbrellas are too easily destroyed (shredded) by the squirrels. A walk through the local home improvement stores didn't show me anything  of that form.

Grease. Recommend food grade.

The second material I'd use is a small bb gun, pump, so that you aren't killing them. Just enough to scare them off.

Honestly though you're going to be hard pressed to find something big enough to stop them from getting there. Whatever you do they'll figure out how to get around- otherwise a single piece of sheetmetal that's 2x longer than their body in radius (and they CAN stretch) should make it impossible to swing under.

That'll also turn it into a nightmare in any wind...

You can make it harder, and make it funnier with food grade grease, but otherwise...


What to look for in a new water radiator? The water radiators I have under each window are 50 years old, and I would like some new ones. They measure HxLxD 50x100x20 cm.

The new ones I would like should be as thin as possible.

I live in an apartment, so a thermostat needs to be mounted on it.

Question

Are there things to be aware of when buying radiators?

There are a number of companies that make very low profile radiators such as this one:

There are several factors such as the type of system - steam, hot water; if steam, whether one pipe or two.  You will also have to accomodate certain valves, so placement is an issue - piping through the wall or from the floor, whether you can accomodate valves in the wall, and how to access if you do.

Size is also a significant consideration and you need to determine how much area you need to replace a much more massive old radiator.  While the new ones may be more efficient, you may need more surface area, depending on the overall demand for heat.


DIY solid core door? I need to construct a solid core door for the knee wall attic in our new room.  Rather than purchasing a custom door, have people been successful in constructing a door from particleboard or MDF?  I have a doorknob borer from Harbor Freight for just such a possibility.  I'm thinking about cutting a 4'x8'x3/4" into two 2'x3' pieces and sandwiching two with liquid nails, then boring the knob and latch holes.

You won't get cheaper or easier than two layers of sheet lumber. Particle board is a common component in 30-minute fire doors (though they usually have a hardwood veneer).

I'd do just as you plan. Sand or route a bullnose all the way around and seal it with a couple coats of urethane, smoothing with steel wool between.


Mice that are eating through the boards under kitchen cabinets I have lots of mice I. My home it ate through the board under the kitchen cabinets. How can I cover that and what do I cover it with and does peppermint oil work if I spray it around the house. Please help

Get Professional help.
@TheEvilGreebo is correct. I have my own mice stories which I won't bore you all with. But the bottom line is that a good exterminator can do a combination of:

traps
poisoned bait (they eat and (hopefully) die elsewhere
figure out where/how the mice are getting in and either block them or tell you how to block them

The last item is particularly important. Mice can get in through a surprisingly small hole. It could be you have holes from rotting wood or recent construction and when one mouse gets in and finds food, he tells his friends...
There are plenty of "home remedies" but once you are infested, I highly recommend professional help to get the problem under control. Once it is under control, the home remedies may be sufficient.
Or (seriously) get a cat.


How do I wrap the pre-filter around the HEPA filter in this air purifier? I bought this air purifier and was installing the pre-filter that came with it. The instructions go "Carefully wrap the pre-filter around the HEPA filter so that the ends meet. Fasten the ends together with the fastener provided."

The pre-filter is longer than the HEPA is wide so does this mean
1)Wrap the pre-filter around the HEPA so the pre-filter's ends are touching and the pre-filter sits loosly over the HEPA
or
2)Wrap the pre-filter snugly around the HEPA so that the pre-filter's ends overlap

Here is pictures of how I have it now with slightly overlapping ends


Are there ways to catch and detect leaks from a clothes washer? Some kind of tray? If a clothes washing machine begins leaking, are there ways to catch and detect the leak as there are with hot water heaters?

If so, by what terms can I search to find such parts?

There are trays available in the big box home stores for this. Some come with a knock out for a drain hose if you have a place to drain excess water to. They are sized so most washing machines will fit. The last I bought, in 2017 were about $30 each.


Switch install is tripping the breaker We recently bought a home with a defective ceiling fan (stuck in reverse), so I bought and installed a new one. The switches were kid of old and ugly so I replaced those as well. (1) switch for the fan and light and (1) switch for the can lights.

With the new switches installed and still hanging out of the wall, everything works seamlessly, but as soon as I push the switches into the switch box it trips the breaker. There doesn't appear to be any loose or frayed wires, and I have a good solid ground. Wired in exactly how I took it apart (one wire at a time).

Pushing your switches back into the box is causing something to short together - your screws, grounds, or any exposed wire sticking out of backstabs (of which there should be none).

Are you getting intense arc flashes? If you look closely at your screws, grounds, and any exposed wire sticking out of backstabs -- you will probably find arcing marks that will tell the tale.

If you are not getting arc flashes of any size, this part of the circuit may be protected by AFCI or GFCI.

To protect screws, wrap the switch or receptacle with electrical tape so the screws are covered.


What material can I use in place of vinyl chair strapping? I have an aluminum chair with vinyl straps that I recently replaced.
I don’t like the vinyl straps (plus they’re stretched already), so I’d like to replace with something else.
What do you recommend to replace the straps?

I have purchased 1” wide rolls of nylon strap. I think it is rated at 500 lb., so it would be plenty strong enough and work similar to our chairs.
The only caveat is the nylon stays wet for a day or so after a rain (a big deal in Oregon) if you have cushions it may not be a problem. I am thinking about painting the straps so the paint will seal the webbing but it is very strong.


Can I run drainage pipe a short distance above the frost line I live in SE Michigan where the frost line is between 3 and 4 feet. I have a house with a basement I'd like to finish and would like to run the water as far away from the house as I can. Clay soil. However, while I have a decent lot of 1/2 acre, the available slope is minimal and there are no storm sewers or culverts in the lot where I can easily send water. Max drop over about 40 feet to the road is 2-3 feet at best. I was hoping to run the water about 20 feet away into a dry well, but most dry well discussion online puts them at least 3 or 4 feet tall, which puts total depth of the well at some 8 feet deep if the line entering it is 4 feet. My question is, do I need to run the whole line from start to finish at 4 feet deep, or if I get sufficient grade, can it finish (after a 20-30 foot run) at about 2-3 feet deep (i.e. water has a fast flow), with an opening to below the frost line, at 4-5 feet bottom. I'm trying to find a way to get the water away with minimal available grade.

This is roughly what I have to work with:

While I do not know the regulations in Michigan, drainage pipe does not need to be below the frost line in Ohio.

The most common way to connect drainage lines is to send them to the street. This puts the pipe at curb level. At the street, the pipe is 2 to 3 inches below the ground. At the house, the pipe is maybe a foot underground. The frost line in northern Ohio is similar to Michigan.

As long as the pipe sloap is enough to clear the pipe of standing water, you should be ok.


Crown molding planning in a simple room -- all inside miters I'm putting up crown molding in a simple square room, so everything is an inside miter and I wanted to cope the joints. I was thinking, "Great, this is going to be easy, I'll just have butt joints on one end and copes on the other, all the way around." But then it hit me that for the first piece I put up, there won't be a butt joint for that cope to hit up against. Do I put up a small temporary piece of molding for that first piece to go up against so I know the length is correct? Is butt-to-cope all the way around the room the best way to do it?

I wanted to cope the inside miters because I know it's more forgiving for non-45 degree corners.

This seems like an easy thing to figure out, but any help is appreciated getting me started.

When you enter a room, the first wall you see is  the wall you start on.

Upon starting, I cut a block of scrap wood that mimics the rise and run of the crown.

The dotted line shows the square back that has been cut off help set the block in the corner, since the drywall corners are not square.

Go around the room with a stud finder if you have one and locate all the studs if the crown is wide, like 5" or so. If the crown is narrow 4" or less, the top plate will be the area you nail into, that should be 2 1/2" of solid wood below the ceiling. That can be checked in time.

If you do have wide crown, use the stud finder to locate all the studs and mark them with blue tape, using the block that depicts the rise and run to set the tape below the bottom edge of the crown, so when the cut crown is set in place, it will fit both the ceiling and wall.

When measuring, do so at the bottom edge where the blue tape is on the wall. Cut the first piece not square but slightly shorter at the top, so the bottom engages snugly. The loose fit at the top will be covered by the next piece. Set the crown to the wall so the bottom edge is on the top edge of the blue tape marking the studs, if you did it that way. I failed to mention, if you are using a narrow crown, the blue tape can be set to the wall about 2' apart, no need to find the studs. A little "self help" I add, I set 2 nails on the wall, near the corners,about 1/4" above the blue tape, and use those to support the ends of long crown when I am working alone. I have the crown in the middle, and the 2 nails supporting the crown, insures the crown is in the corner where it needs to be. If it drops down, and you nail the center, the crown may be shifted to one side and will scratch the wall getting it in place. Nail off the the crown, EXCEPT the last 2 feet. Leaving the last 2 feet free on either end, pull the temporary nail supports, making sure the crown naturally sets somewhere close to the blue tape marker.  This will aid in fine tuning the cope joints when the next piece come into play.

If you have never coped a joint before, you will need to get past a learning curve. All coped cuts after you cut the initial 45 degree miter, will need to be severely "back cut". That is, do not even try to cut a cope square to the piece it meets, it will only cause you sorrow. Use a few short pieces to get the hang of it before you start cutting the real deal. Purchase more crown than you need specifically for this, 4-6' should do it. You have you cut offs to practice with too. The severe back cut lets the sharp coped edge to cut into the adjoining piece, if not that, the edge is so thin that is will deform just a little to make the joint really tight. You can measure all of the crown ahead of any cutting, if you choose. If you do so, I find for some reason all the coped lengths I cut are about 1/8" too long, which is fine, better too long than too short. There are other ways to measure that are obvious as well, so I will leave my 2 cents worth at that.

When setting the first coped piece, and it is long enough, take the crown in hand about 4 foot from the coped end and set it in place. The end will droop down ideally. You want to ram the crown into the closely placed first piece you have already set so the back cut edge drives into the first piece. This trick requires both piece are on the wall as close to the finished height that they can be. Hence the blue tape. When done nail off all the piece except it's last 2 feet. The third piece is done the same way.

The reason for the last 2 feet still free is so the crown can be moved to get the joint snug all along the cope. Typically the gap is at the top, this is fixed by using a short, square cut 2X4 to drive BOTH pieces up to the ceiling to tighten the joint. THEN nail the last 2 feet.

The last piece has only this difference, coped on both ends. This one I prefer to be an 1/8" too long so I have room for fine tuning. If the piece will fill well on both ends, and it is bowed out say 4" from hitting the wall in the center, push it in place, this will do he same action as driving the cope into the adjoining piece and get the joint really tight. If the last piece really is resistant to going in at the center, check which end looks the worst, first making sure is in the right place first, cut to compensate and shorten, re cope and reset.

So much for the short answer....


I have noises coming from house I recently have been hearing thumping noises. They are 4 or 5 in a row. I believe that they are coming from my pipes. Could it be my water pump or sump pump going

not a lot of love on this question so far. It isn't likely to be your pump going out. The pipes will expand and contract as they heat and cool (you run the hot water, the pipe heats up and gets longer, then it cools back down and shrinks). The thumping noise could just be the pipe shifting, especially if it's in tight contact with some framing inside a wall somewhere, so a little pressure builds up, then it slips, then a little more pressure, then it slips again, etc.

Or one of the water lines might be moving and bumping against a wall as water is flowing through it, especially if it's something like PEX and isn't secured everywhere that it's supposed to be, but it could also happen with metal pipe and wouldn't necessarily mean you have a problem, aside from the noises.

Another phenomenon is hammering, where the sudden pressure change when a water outlet is shut off causes the pipe to shift suddenly and creates a hammering sound.


Attaching a wheel to a metal rod (axle)? I have a wheel (1/2 inch diameter) and a metal rod (1/2 inch diameter) [axle]. Currently, the wheel on the axle results in the wheel free-spinning. How could I attach the wheel to the axle?

(The wheel is mainly plastic)

You may notice that the wheel is described as being suitable for carts, hand trucks, etc. and is not designed as a drive wheel. If your loads are not excessive, you may get away with powering the wheel.

One method is to cut a slot in the flange of the wheel at the axle. Your drive axle would then have to be powered by the motor and the portion of the axle that engages the wheel would have a hole drilled and a pin used to engage the wheel.

Another method would be to create a mounting for a pulley or gear. A pulley will be easier for alignment purposes. Drill a series of holes in the wheel (think numbers on a clock) and add spacers and bolts to match the pulley. Drive the pulley with another one mounted to the motor. This method would not require the axle to be rotating.

Along this same line of thought, one can use a bicycle sprocket mounted in a similar manner to the pulley and replace the belt with a bicycle chain.

Gears are not as easily installed as alignment is critical, while chains and belts are more forgiving when using the TLAR method (That Looks About Right) for attaching the mechanisms.

Belts and chains also provide for gearing adjustment. Perhaps you need more power and less speed. Use a small gear/pulley on the motor and a larger one on the wheel. For the reverse, more speed, make the wheel pulley smaller and/or the motor pulley larger. A small change in either will make a substantial difference.


How should I hang speakers with a keyhole mounting slot? I have a pair of Sony speakers that I’m not quite too sure on how to hang on my wall. The backs look like this:

Would I just put a screw in my wall and hang it up like that? Would there be enough room for the speaker wire in the back?

What’s the best/correct method of hanging speakers like this?

However you like, as long as there's a suitably-sized screw head present.

That slot you see is designed to accept a screw with a head (or similar stud) that fits the wide part and a shaft that fits the small part. As long as you meet those requirements you're good.

Whether you facilitate wire hiding is up to you. Low-voltage boxes and plates can work well, or simply a round grommet set into the wall. Be sure there's not a stud where you cut the hole.

I'd consider putting some felt or silicone pads on the back of the speaker to reduce vibration noise and finish damage.


Conduit Size for Sub-Panel run? I have old overhead wires that go between my home and a detached garage. The plan is to remove the overhead wires and install a new sub-panel in the garage with an underground (PVC 80) run between the house and garage.

Right now I am trenching the underground portion of the run and need to know what size PVC 80 conduit to install in the trench.

Here are all of the details. The run will be 1 phase 240V and go from a 100amp main panel and travel 130 feet to a 50amp sub-panel. The run will start at the main panel at front of house, dip into the crawl space, run to the back of the house, dip underground and travel to the garage, then run to the sub-panel in the garage. It is 60 feet from main panel through crawl space. It is another 60 feet underground through the yard, and 10 feet inside the garage to the sub-panel.

I'm know the length of the run will impact wire gauge and that in turn will dictate the conduit size due to fill constraints. I am in California. Also, if you answer can you please give a reference to the part of the NEC that you are referencing? I plan to have an electrician do most the work so for now I just need to know what size conduit to drop in the ground.

Base Conductor Size
Start out by using Table 310.15(B)(16), and applying any required corrections,  to determine what size conductors you'll need.  For your situation, we'll assume we can use the 75°C column, that you want to use copper conductors, and there's no other corrections required. So in your case, if you want to install a 50 ampere panel, you'll need at least 8 AWG copper conductors. If you want a 60 ampere panel, you'll need 6 AWG copper conductors.
Voltage Drop
Once you have the base conductor size selected, you'll want to calculate the voltage drop across that size conductors for the length of the feeders.  The first step here will be to use Table 8 from chapter 9 of the NEC, to determine the resistance of the conductors you've selected.
In your case, 8 AWG stranded copper wire has a resistance of 0.778 ohms per 1000 ft. 6 AWG stranded copper wire has a resistance of 0.491 ohms per 1000 ft.
Next you'll use the following formula, to calculate the voltage drop across the feeders.
V = L * 2 * R * A
Where:

V = Voltage Drop
L = Distance along the wire from one breaker to the next.
R = Resistance per foot of wire.
A = Current running through the conductor.

For a 50 ampere circuit, 130 ft. long, using 8 AWG stranded copper conductors, the calculation looks like this...
V = 130' * 2 * 0.000778 * 50 A
V = 260 * 0.000778 * 50 A
V = 0.20228 * 50 A
V = 10.114 V
10.114 V is 4.2% of 240 V.  The NEC recommends having a voltage drop less than 3%.  To achieve this, you're going to have to use larger conductors.
6 AWG stranded copper conductors have a resistance of 0.000491 ohms per foot, which means the voltage drop would only be 6.383 volts or 2.7%.
For a 60 ampere circuit 130' long, 6 AWG stranded copper conductors would have a voltage drop of 7.6596 volts or 3.2%. While 4 AWG stranded copper would be 4.8048 volts, or 2%.
Conductor Type
Once you know what size conductors you need, you'll have to determine what type of insulation the conductors should have.  Since you're burying the conduit, you'll need a wire rated for wet locations.  The popular choice in this situation, would be to use THWN wires.
Wire Size
Now that you know what size conductors, and what type of wires you'll use. Then next step is to determine the physical size of the wires, and how much space they'll take up in conduit.  For this, you can use Table 5 from chapter 9 of the NEC.  There you'll find that 6 AWG THWN wires have an area of 0.0507 square inches, while 4 AWG THWN wires have and area of 0.0824 square inches.
Conduit Fill
Using the size of one wire, you can figure out the area required for all four wires.
0.0507 * 4 = 0.2028 in.sq.
0.0824 * 4 = 0.3296 in.sq.
Use Table 1 from chapter 9 of the NEC, to determine the allowable conduit fill percent.  Since you'll have more than 2 conductors, you can fill the conduit to 40%.
Conduit Type
If you know what type of conduit you're using, you can use Table 4 from chapter 9 of the NEC to look up the area fill values for various sizes of conduit.
Conduit Size
Since you've decided to use Schedule 80 PVC, you'll simply find that table in Table 4. Then look down the 40% fill column, until you find an area large enough for all your wires.
In your case four 6 AWG THWN conductors, will require 1" Schedule 80 PVC. While four 4 AWG THWN conductors, will require 1 1/4" Schedule 80 PVC.
Conduit Size Alt.
If you don't feel like calculating wire/conduit area, and all the wires are the same size, you could use Table C.9 from Annex C of the NEC to look up the conduit size required. There you'll find that you can fit five 6 AWG THWN wires throug 1" Schedule 80 PVC, and that you can fit six 4 AWG THWN wires though 1 1/4" Schedule 80 PVC.
tl;dr

For 130' long 50 ampere feeder, use four 6 AWG stranded copper THWN conductors though 1" Schedule 80 PVC.
For 130' long 60 ampere feeder, use four 4 AWG stranded copper THWN conductors through 1 1/4" Schedule 80 PVC.

NOTES:

This answer contains some of the tables used in this answer.
If you don't feel like doing any maths, you can surely find a calculator online to do all the work for you.


Why is my shower head pipe very loose when the company installed a new tub and surround? I don't know what the pipe is technically called, but it's the one that you attach your shower head to.  Well, after the guys finished the job and left yesterday, I noticed that this pipe is very loose.  I can move it to the left or right an easy 2 inches either way.  When I told him about the loose shower pipe, he blamed it on the previous installation when it never did that before with my old shower.

Also, when I checked the tub faucet head for movement, I swear I heard something fall and hit the subfloor behind the wall.  I told the guy about it and he said it was probably some blocking that fell and that it's probably nothing to worry about.

He said he'll come out and look at it.  In the meantime, can anyone shed more light on this based on what I've told you so far?  Is there anything I can do now to secure the shower head pipe in place?  What could that falling sound possibly have been?

This is a picture of one example of a rough shower plumbing install:

As you can see, at the top there is a cross brace, and there is a 90 degree angle that's been mounted into that brace secured, preferably with screws but possibly with nails.
My guess?  Your shower head was braced with nails, some idiot hit your shower head pipe pretty hard and pulled the nails loose, and the sound you heard was one of the nails falling out.
It's not serious - as long as you don't put any weight on the shower head - and the fix will involve opening up the walls.  Technically you can fix it from behind, so you won't have to destroy tile in the process, but that's a harder way to do it.  Basically you have to pull the wall behind the shower, cut the pipe to the shower head, pull the brace, re-secure the shower head, replace the brace, and then fix the feed to the shower head w/ a connector.


I need help identifying hot and neutral feed wires for sub panel installation I am installing a sub panel in my garage this weekend.  The previous owner had a subpanel in the same location, but when they moved they took the panel with them.

The wires from the mains panel in the house to the garage are still there, but since they are all black (except for the ground, obviously), I am not sure which is neutral and which 2 are hot.

Is there a way to test these wires without hooking them up to a grounded panel first? They are connected to the mains via a 220v 100A breaker.

I have done quite a few breaker installations over the years, and have installed many romex-fed outlets, but this is a new situation for me.  Any help is appreciated!

Voltage
If the wires are hooked up in the main panel, then all you'll need is a multimeter/voltmeter.

Carefully position the wires so that there's no chance of them touching each other, or anything else.
Turn on the breaker in the main panel.
Carefully measure the voltage between each set of wires.
Turn the breaker back off.

When measuring voltage between the two ungrounded (hot) conductors, you'll measure about 240 volts. When measuring between either ungrounded (hot) conductor and the grounded (neutral), you'll measure about 120 volts.
Continuity
Alternatively, if you're not comfortable working with live wires (and really, who is).

Make sure the breaker in the main panel is OFF.
Using a multimeter set to measure resistance or continuity, check for resistance/continuity between the grounding conductor and the other wires.

You'll measure infinite resistance (or open) between the grounding and ungrounded (hot) conductors, but you'll measure a small resistance (or closed) when measuring between the grounding and grounded (neutral) conductor.
Visual inspection
Examine the wires carefully. If they are part of a cable assembly, one of the wires may have stripes on the insulation or some other markings. If these are individual wires, there's likely no markings unless the installer marked them with paint or tape.

Once you find the grounded (neutral), mark it with white paint or white electrical tape.


How to measure Voltage without disturbing the circuit? I have an old alarm system which I'm trying to modernize. We don't use it for anything at the moment. My desire it to hook it to a Spark Particle that I have and use it to monitor some of the door sensors already installed.

My idea was to measure the voltage across the two wires that come and go from the panel to the door sensor.

Below shows the circuit:

• The unknowns: what are terminals A and B actually connected to, and what is actually going on within the door sensor (it's clearly some sort of switch)

• A is the screw terminal on the panel, and it is roughly = ground

• B is +5 V when all wiring is intact and the door is closed, and B is +10 V when 1) the door is open OR 2) either sensor wire is disconnected from either terminal.

So here is my dilemma: to use the spark/arduino/chip I can only measure voltages between 0-3.3V. My attempt was to connect a voltage divider by connecting 3 resistors in series from A to B. But using my multimeter after doing that gave me all sorts of weird readings. It screwed up the board til I pulled the power and reset it. So I think that's not an option.

How can I connect to the terminals so that I can reliably measure the voltage, while also dropping the voltage to the 0-3 range? (Is there a better way to connect up a divider?)

EDIT: I think this circuit is probably more likely correct. But still not sure how to measure the voltages without changing them.

Older security systems use normally closed switches on doors and windows. They use a magnet and a reed switch to keep the circuit closed.

Then the circuit has a small amount current continuously flowing to monitor the circuit. The resistor is to limit the amount of current flow.

If the door or window is opened, then the alarm goes off. If a burglar cuts a wire, the alarm goes off. If the circuit gets jumpered and current goes higher then it either alarms or goes into trouble mode.

When you measure the voltage in operation and get 5v you are measuring the voltage drop on the resistor. When the circuit is open you are only measuring static voltage and it may not be very accurate.

So, in order to use the circuit without interfering with it, you need a high impedance voltage sensor in parallel with the resistor so it does not significantly increase current flow in the circuit. Then you will need a separate 3.3 volt supply, or take power from the Arduino board. The Arduino may not have enough power for your application so that is when you add an external power supply.

Building a voltage divider in the circuit is problematic as you have already found out.

Good luck!


Should I replace my fridge for power savings? Any guesses on how much power I would save per year by replacing this fridge with a new one? I'm wondering if it would be cost effective to upgrade (if it would pay for itself after a few years).

To give an example, in Europe with costs of 0.3 Euro per kWh, a new fridge (size of a dishwasher or washing machine, price starting from ca. 150 Euro) will pay off in under a year, if the fridge is older then 15 years.

The insulation will be much better, but since there is some space around the old fridge, glueing polystyrol foam insulation panels to the left, right and upper side and to the doors would reduce the energy consumption - and the noise level when the compressor is running.

Otherwise there should be a forum or test in your market to find a new energy saving model which is reliable and not expensive.

And what could also help to reduce the energy bill: installing a small balcony photovoltaic system. Depending on the subsidiaries, procurement and feed -in and -out costs, it will save money after some years, especially if the local code allows simple plug-in systems. During day time, it could harvest some  energy for the fridge, the router, computers, TVs etc.
Again an example from Europe: a 2 panel system (peak power ca. 600W) can pay off in under 5 years without subsidiaries and without any feed-in payments, if the installation is done by DIY. Some owners decide to feed-in the energy for free that is exceeding the own consumption, since the burocratic efforts/complicated tax declarations and additional meter rents are not paying off.

And in case of power outages/emergencies photovoltaic systems are a reliable daytime electric power source which should supply enough power to run a cell phone loader or laptop or receiver or TV, even in cloudy weather.


How is ground path formed between EMT and painted metal boxes? Is the paint conductive? If metal pipe is attached to a painted metal box with a metal locknut how is the ground path achieved between the box and the pipe?  Is the paint conductive?  Or do we rely on the locknut to pierce the paint?  Surely the latter would be hit and miss.

Surely the latter would be hit and miss.

Not at all. If properly tightened, it's guaranteed.
Since data can be fun: My multimeter reads open circuit/infinite resistance (more than 2 Mega-Ohms, I forget what the top of its range is, could be more than 20MΩ) for any distance between probes on the painted breaker box surface. It reads less than 1 Ohm between a galvanized cover screw on the painted breaker box and a junction box cover connected to a (galvanized) junction box connected to a fitting connected to EMT connected to a fitting connected to the main panel. The fitting in the main panel painted box was simply installed and tightened, no paint-scraping or the like.


Convert GE Load Center to main breaker I'm looking to add central A/C to my 1970s era home. The electric panel is a GE Load Center, 125 Amp max. It's basically "full" with no space for additional breakers.

The bids for the electric panel "upgrade" range from $600 to $3600. Crazy span. "Upgrade" is in quotes, because I think what it boils down to is 2 choices, hence the span in price. I don't believe the service needs to be upgraded:

Replace the whole panel= $3600
Install a "main breaker conversion kit" at the top of the box and "make space"=$600.
Currently the power comes into the box and connects to the two lugs. There are 3 double-pole switches that must be thrown to truly power off to the whole house (oven, "main", and the sub panel). My understanding is this new main breaker kit would then kill power to the whole house, oven and sub panel included, but how does this free up space?

I haven't found much discussion or videos for what installing this main breaker kit actually does, can anyone dumb it down for me?

Update: We’ve scheduled the work and will be doing a whole new panel. Again, this was part of a larger project (heating/AC), so the information I was after was “what would adding a main breaker “do””. I think the answer is “not much” or at least “not much good”. I still don’t have a clear picture of how the $600 bid guy was going to accomplish what he wanted to do and be able to pull a permit.
All worked out in the end, as several commenters have said, the new panel makes a lot of sense from a resale point and we had a bid that included a new panel for just a bit more $$.

Also, I learned a ton! So I’ll definitely be posting in these forums again. Thanks all!

Holy smoke, this is a "Rule of Six" panel!

A Rule of Six panel has a "Main Breaker" area with up to six main breakers. All must be shut off to shut off the power.  All six have their buses energized at all times.  Then, one of those breakers feeds an "internal subpanel" area with any number of breakers.

In this case, your panel is built as a "Rule of Three".   The first two breakers are #1 in the upper left, #2 an essentially identical breaker in the 2 full spaces in the upper right, and #3 the mid-left breaker marked "MAIN".

Note that the #3 breaker actually sits in the subpanel area and is fed via those two fat wires.  It is backfeeding the subpanel area.   Those two wires are hot at all times and cannot be shut off without pulling the meter.

You are saying "But wait. The #2 breaker is not as you described.  It is narrow "double-stuff"  breakers not a full-sized one."  Yes, and I don't want to know what kind of black magic got you there.  It looks like someone broke off some of the physical gating to separate the Rule of Six area from the subpanel area.  It is bad.

Look at the dryer circuit.  It has one leg in the Rule of Six area, and one leg in the subpanel area.  If you shut off the "MAIN" breaker, half the dryer would be hot and half dead.  Very bad!

So it's worse than "need to squeeze in another breaker", it's actualy you need to move the dryer breaker away  so you can restore the breaker in that location to a traditional full-size breaker as is required by the diagram.

Honestly at this point, you might as well go "in for a penny, in for a pound".  Install a subpanel right next to this panel, relocate the dryer feed to it, relocate the garage subpanel feed to it, and add any new circuits there.

Feel free to use a GE Qline panel that supports double-stuffs, so you can keep using the same breakers.  However you will probably not be able to use double-stuff breakers going forward because AFCI or GFCI is required on almost every circuit. So get a realy, really, really big subpanel!  Spaces are cheap.

Bonus points if you plan it so you can cut over the subpanel to be a future main panel.

Adding a main breaker here is simply not an option (it already has 3) and this panel is obsolete (being Rule of Six, nothing wrong with GE Qline).

By the way, whoever the genius is who stuck numbers on the breakers, did not read the panel labeling.  It indicates the numbering.  Note how there is only 1 number for the upper  right breaker, that is because the listing and labeling does not permit multiple breakers there.

Also whoever put the double-stuff in the upper right, don't invite him back either. he clearly mutilated the panel in order to make that dryer breaker go there.


Is there any way to tell if these walls are load bearing from the blueprints? We want to remove the highlighted walls. Is there any way to tell from the blueprints if these walls are load-bearing?

You won't be able to tell from these blueprints because these are the electrical plans and not the structural.


Can I demolish in a home with asbestos while tenants are living there? I have a situation here with asbestos.

I have a residential home that I'm renting out. Because of water damage inside the drywall I called my homeowner's insurance company and made a claim to fix the wet drywall to avoid potential mold there.

The insurance company referred me to some company that would dry the water damage and fix it.

The water damage company told us that they will do inspection holes to be able to dry the interior. That company did an asbestos test because the building was built before 1980 and might have any asbestos in the house interior, and they found 2% of chrysotile asbestos

After that the company cut 3 holes (of 1 square meter) in the wall and cleaned up everything and left the inspection holes uncovered.

I am in the State of Nevada.

My questions are:

What are the particular standards for removing asbestos from a rental home while tenants are inside? Are there any state codes that they have to use?
Who has liability for the tenants?
Can the tenants sue the landlord or the insurance company or the company that did the drywall cuts, if there was any deviation from the process of the drywall demolition?

Yes, there are industry accepted standards and various laws that must be adhered to. If the asbestos is this prevalent, do not attempt to remediate it yourself. Hire an asbestos abatement contractor and let them handle the compliance.
Consult your lawyer.
Consult your lawyer.


How can I repair a joint on the legs of my table? I need to repair the legs on my dinging room table. The joint is coming loose. I've included pictures, instead of trying to explain the situation.

The first picture is a picture of the leg. The next three are pictures of the joint that I need to repair.

The wood should be flush, right up against the two pieces, but there is a 1/16th inch gap. The gap can be close pretty easily by applying pressure.

I was considering gluing it with carpentry glue. Or even putting some small screws that would attach the leg to the middle piece.

Here are the pictures: http://imgur.com/a/OoVcf#0

I think your plan is doable with a little tweaking. Here's a list of some things to watch out for.

Before assembly you'll need to thoroughly clean the old glue off the surfaces of the joint paying particular attention to the face grain areas (end grain offers little strength to a joint). You don't need to get down to bare wood but all of the crusty bits have to go as they will both impede the joint from coming together and inhibit the new glue's ability to form a bond. Be careful not to round off any corners or your joints will look sloppy.
Your biggest challenge is going to be applying good clamp pressure to such an irregular shape. One trick is to temporarily glue on clamp blocks but as this is a finished piece I wouldn't recommend it because it might damage your finish. Your best bet may be to apply a few small, strategically located dots of an aerosol activated cyanoacrylate glue in addition to your yellow glue. Squeeze the joint together by hand and when you've it the way you want it, hit it with the aerosol and the super glue will hold the joint together while the yellow glue goes off. Maybe have an extra set of hands present to run the spray can, and work quickly because with or without the accelerant the super will go off in only a few minutes.
If you're feeling that the joint needs some mechanical strength, instead of screws use pegs. The screws will most likely fracture the extremely short grain on the edges of the joint, and because the screws can't go all the way through you won't get much strength out of them anyway. Pegs (while offering a pleasantly traditional look) will provide a lot of strength, and offer an alternate fix to the clamping problem in the form of what's called draw boring. It's kind of a lot to go into so I'll just provide this link. Good Luck!


My house's perimeter drain system is full of water, why might that be and how do I fix it? It's been raining light to medium for the past 12 hours and this morning while I was walking around outside the house, I noticed that this drain tube, which I believe runs around the perimeter of the house and into my sump pump, is full of water.

I walked around the house to the only other spot where there's one of these green caps, and that tube does not seem to be full of water. When I went to the basement and checked the sump, there is a steady trickle of water from the incoming corrugated drain tube.

Presumably, this means I have a clog somewhere? Or could it be something else?

Is this something I might be able to DIY, or since water around the foundation is a big deal, should I call a professional- who would that even be, a plumber? Landscaper?

Thanks!

I had a similar recurring issue after long heavy rains. The drain pipe would fill and take a long time to drain. Turned out the dirt under the pipe where the drain hole was would turn to mud and essentially act as a seal. I ended up digging the drain end up and putting some gravel underneath. Drain pipe never stays full too long anymore.


Used paint with the wrong base, will painting with the correct base cover it? We did my daughter's room with the color pink carnation semi-gloss. It was a light base. We had to buy a small can of that same color to use around her windows after holes were patched. We got the same color (pink carnations semi gloss) but it was a base 1. Now around the windows is a darker shade of pink carnation. Can I paint over a base 1 with a light base (same color) to fix the problem?

The answer is yes, you can paint over the recently applied paint with a fresh coat of the proper color. Because your paint has a sheen (semi-gloss) you will need to de-gloss the existing finish with fine sandpaper or other abrasive media, clean well to remove dust, than apply proper paint with a high quality brush. Cheap brush = lame finish.