How to shield or cover floodlight for christmas I just bought one of these flood lights from amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00OJOMMYK/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The flood light is staked to the ground to light up a joy sign I have (this can be seen also here: https://www.amazon.com/Teak-Isle-Christmas-Nativity-Yard/dp/B00CFNFD5M/ref=sr_1_1?s=lawn-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1482256657&sr=1-1-spons&keywords=joy+christmas+sign&psc=1).  It does a good job of lighting the sign up but...

I also don't want the extra light hitting the house as I have a few of those laser lights that light up the house.  Is there a top cover or shield to eliminate the extra light from this flood light?

In addition, what can I do to stop the extra light hitting the house and only focus it mainly on the sign.  Can I build or use something to stop this?  Please note I am in Michigan with extremely cold and snowy weather so I cannot use anything to cover the top.

You need barn doors.   Those are the funny black "cards" found on all four sides of theater lighting.

You dont need an actual product; feel free to improvise them any way you can, say with plywood or old election signs.  If they are straight vertical, and thin, they won't accumulate much snow.


Clamp for rope to make in a hoop? Here's a bit of an odd one for you. I have a length of rope I need to put one end into a hoop to support the weight of a boxing bag. The hoop cannot be "tied" though. I somehow need something like this:

but stronger I think. Any suggestions?

EDIT: Something like this: but smaller :)

You can make an eye splice

Instructions on animatedknots.com and many other places.


How to tighten fitting on pipe in very small space While replacing the washer in a bathroom tap/faucet, I've accidentally loosened the fitting (e.g. the tap now turns when I turn the tap "handle").

Here is a photo of the underside of the sink, with the specific part I need to get tightened circled.

There's very little space - I can grip it with my fingers but can't apply enough force to get it properly tightened.
It's plastic and I've tried pliers but couldn't open them sufficiently wide enough to grip, and I've tried an adjustable wrench but when I've angled it to actually grip the fitting there's no room to turn the wrench handle.

Is there some tool that will let me tighten this without actually taking the sink off the wall?


Why doesn't a doorbell work after a power outage? My friend has a simply wired doorbell. Front door only. The doorbell stopped working after a power outage. Power came back on - no doorbell. I checked all the wiring - doorbell at the front door to chime box to the transformer. Visually, nothing wrong. I checked the transformer. My voltage meter registers it at 12v. The transformer says 16VAC on it. Zero voltage on the chime box and doorbell.

Here's what I've done to troubleshoot:

Remove the doorbell button and touch both wires together. No ring.
Tried a new doorbell button - no ring
Replaced the chime box - no ring
Replaced the transformer - no ring.
The new transformer registered at 12 volts too.
Both the old and new transformer - the wires into the house - that's 120v and looks good.

At my house, my doorbell works. When I test my transformer, it comes back to 12v too. My volt tester tells me 12v, 24v, etc. It doesn't have a 16v on it.

So what could be going on here? It could be a break in one of the wires, but I don't have the tools to test for that, nor the room to crawl in the attic and find the wires and visually trace them. I wouldn't even know where to begin on that.

Any other troubleshooting steps I can take?

What kind of meter are you using? To check the wiring turn the power off
First check the button.  measure the button if not lit it should be open or very high resistance, when pressed very low resistance (ohms) But you should see a change in either case.

I would then take the chime directly across the transformer. If it doesn't ring my guess would be the transformer as a 16vac transformer unloaded would normally be closer to 20v rms.

Next check the wires, you have a line connected to the transformer and a line connected to the chime, remove one of those wires and measure the resistance (ohms scale) from the wire removed to the other it should be a high value close to infinite (unless it is lighted button then remove it and retest) next short the doorbell wires and repeat the resistance measurement now it should be low probably less than 20 ohms if these 2 measurements are correct the button wiring is fine not shorted or open.

The last item is the chime itself but I think you tested it.


What is an affordable 2D drafting software for amateurs? Background: We have about 1500 feet of unfinished basement that I am contemplating finishing off into a "grandma suite". Before getting serious about the project, however, I would like to play around with some layouts.

My first thought was to download the 30-day trial of AutoCAD LT. But surely there must be some software that's better suited to a casual user, and doesn't cost $1200. Right?

What are some affordable alternatives to AutoCAD for people who need to use drafting software very infrequently?

It's not 2D, but have you considered Trimble's Sketchup?  It has a bit of a learning curve, but can be quite powerful.  And of course it is free.


Using leveling compound on plywood subfloor (second story) I am doing an installation of 1/2" engineered hardwood on the second story of my home.
Checking the plywood subfloor for true and level, I found a pretty big dip (1/2")

Is this scenario an appropriate use of self-leveling compound? If so do I need to tape the seam so it doesn't leak through or is viscous enough and doesn't matter.

Could this be made level with stacked pieces of 15# felt or is this not appropriate? I read that online, but am not sure if I want to trust it.

That looks like an almost non-issue (especially if the flooring will run the same direction as that level, if not you'll need to do something about it). If it's a low traffic area it might not concern me in the slightest.

I HATE, quote, "self leveling" compound. It should called: aww crap, now what? (you had better know how to trowel concrete) And if you're going to use nails instead of glue, then leveling compound is out of the question. It will crack when you shoot nails into it and the flooring won't sit right on all the crumbs.

I'd either floor right over that, or lay down a new 3/8 plywood sub-floor over the whole thing (with none of the old seams lining up, and nowhere shall four corners meet; T junctions only).

I would not use felt and I wouldn't worry about having to tape that seam if you're going to use leveling compound. But you could try using strips of luan (1/8" plywood), cut to fit that gap as large as possible, so long as they're still underneath your level (a high spot would be worse IMO).

I've never glued a hardwood floor down, but if you're going to, then this probably would be an appropriate use of self-leveling compound. However I recommend neither process.


extend height of wooden railing My house has a loft with a wooden railing.  The railing is only 30" high - apparently allowed because builder called it "unfinished storage space", or not "habitable" space, which means it could sidestep code.

I would like to modify the rail to be 36" high, and wonder how best to do it.

My dream would be to find hardware pieces of some kind that I could screw into the top edge of the 2x6 and then use those to support a dowel; so there would be a gap of 4" or so above the 2x6 and then the dowel.   It'd look cool.  Maybe a hanger bolt, except I don't think they come that large.  Or a lag eye bolt, but again, I don't think they come that big.

Simply replacing the 2x6 vertical stiles would be simple, but a PITA as there are maybe 60 or so of them.

Or something completely wood-based.  Not as cool as the dowel idea, but fairly straightforward.   But I can't quite figure how to make it look reasonably nice.

Although it is a nuisance to remove all those banisters, it might be feasible to add a similar number of them.

Install new banisters between the old ones, but extending upward 25% to 50% longer. Connect their tops with a railing similar to the existing one.

In this picture, I haven't yet installed the new top railing, but you get the idea.

The banister spacing is now safer for toddlers, pets, and large heavy toys, and you can select the length of the new banisters to have your top railing at practically any height.


patching hole to be reused I'm trying to mount a tv into my chimney walls. My TV is 65" and weighs in about 65"lbs or so. I drilled in 6 holes. 3 at the top 3 at the bottom with about 12" apart. I was going to use the strap toggle anchors since. I used a .5" drill bit thinking I wouldnt hit a stud. As I was drilling, I realized that I actually did hit a stud and probably drilled half an inch into the stud.

Now I have 1/2 inch hole which i would like to repair so I can screw directly into the stud. Do you think I can just take 1/2 inch dowel, sand it down a bit, dip it in wood glue, insert it in the hole, and patch the hole with spackle and then reuse the hole with maybe a 4" screw that way it ill pass the dowel and into some of the stud?

If you only drilled a 1/2" into the stud, and you know the stud is deep enough, get a lag or screw that matches the others a extra 1/2" longer. No doweling needed. You can dowel it if you like, but a dowel, a 1/2" in diameter and a 1/2" in, really does not hold much, the screw will still need to be 1/2" longer. 2"-2 1/2" screws should be the norm, so a 3" screw will work, unless your screws that came with the mount are 3 1/2", then the 4" screw you suggest will be fine.

Enough is perfect, too long can be bad. An 1 1/2" into the framing is great, in your case it will then need 2" not including the wall finish. That is never considered part of the length that the screw goes into to hold items in place. If your wall material is 1/2" thick, and the metal is thin, you can use a 2 1/2" screw if your wall material is 1" thick, you need a 3" screw, and so on.

Edit 3/16/15

I added a sketch to show what I am referring to. I hope it helps explain.


Latex paint to magnet non-toxic adhesive I'm looking for a non-toxic adhesive for a baby's room that would glue a relatively lightweight magnetic strip to painted wood.
I'm fixing some blackout window blinds that use a magnet to attach a side rail that blocks some light. The magnet originally came with some 2-sided tape adhesive on it  but it has since lost its adhesion. (I think due to the cold weather)
I would normally just use a construction adhesive but I'm worried about fumes, etc.

Automotive trim mounting tape: this is very strong double sided tape, I hope you're not renting.


Ceiling Light Won't Turn Off After Replacement So I wanted to replace a broken chandelier in my new house and after doing so with a simple flush mount light, it won't turn off despite what position the switch is in. I am sure I re-connected them the same way they were attached. But do note that there was this one extra white wire the was capped off and not being used. See the images as well.

And I don't think this would make any difference, but I'm also replacing the dimmer at the same time (from rotary knob to slider with toggle). I've read other threads such as this, but can't seem to figure it out. Thanks]1

Switch loops 101

What you have here is a classic example of an old-style switch loop.  The white wire capped off by itself is the switched-hot coming back from the dimmer in the wall, which is why the breaker tripped when you nutted it in with the other whites -- you had created a short circuit from switched-hot directly to neutral.  So, to get the fixture working again, with the power off:

Un-nut the fixture blacks from the box blacks -- leave the box blacks nutted from each other.
Nut the solo white wire to the fixture blacks.

And then you should be able to button everything back up, turn the power on, and at least be able to control the fixture in an on/off fashion.  You'll need to replace the dimmer as well, since it likely died (failed short circuit) during the earlier breaker-tripping mishap.


matching max electrical load of count down timer to heated towel bar I am in Seattle and I have a count down timer I want to hook up to my heated towel bar so the towel bar will go off after an hour or so.

the timer says max load is 15A/1875W resistive, 8A/1000W Tungsten.

The heated towel bar says voltage: 120 VAC Rated Frequency 60Hz-115W and that it must be connected to a socket with at least 10A

Are these compatible?  in the Amazon description it said this timer could be used with heated appliances such as hair dryers and electric heaters.  In the little booklet that came with it, it does not mention any appliances with heat.  THANKS!

These are compatible.  Your towel bar will draw less than 1 Amp and that is much less than the max load of your timer.


Breaker box location in same room as water heater, washer and dryer We are remodeling and need to know if the breaker box, hot water heater, washer and dryer can be in the same small room

As long as there's enough room, and everything has adequate space around it, there shouldn't be a problem.

Without knowing more about the space (e.g. dimensions, and layout of the equipment), it's difficult to provide any more detail.


How do I level my plaster walls and to what level? I am remodeling my kitchen and I removed a Formica backsplash from my plaster walls.  In doing so the adhesive used to attach the Formica remained on about 50% of the wall.  On the remainder of the wall the adhesive and the some of the plaster came off with the Formica. I want to replace the Formica with ceramic tile.

What do I use to level the wall where the plaster is missing?
Should I level it to the height of the glue that remained or should I remove the glue?

It would be a good idea to install a tile backer board over the plaster. Over time, plaster dries out and becomes unstable. This could eventually cause your tiles to loosen or to pop off.

I would also recommend putting a thin layer of thinset mortar on the backside of the backer board. This will help attach it to the wall and the mortar will fill in any inconsistencies in the surface of the wall. Once the backer board is installed, you will have a great surface to attach your tile to. The screws in the backer board will also firmly attach it to the structure of your house, and it should basically last forever.


How can I duct through a new cabinet from a floor vent opening at the wall? Got a window bench put in, but need a way to direct the air from the old baseboard vent register hole to out the front of the bench. NOt so sure a box store is going to have the proper vent duct parts I need in the correct shape. This guy online makes something exactly for it but it'll cost $72 shipped which is ridiculous: https://toekickductor.com/product/toe-ductor-baseboard-vent-kits/

Any help is appreciated. I'm not so sure I'll be able to cut a vent boot / trim, but maybe.

vent hole is about 14" x 2", register hole in front of bench is about 10" by 4"

Why do you need a duct? Most bathroom vanities, for example, are wide open from a slot in the floor to the louver on the kick panel. Just close off the compartment by any convenient means and call it a day. Staple some cardboard in if that works.

And parts from a big box store should work just fine. A common 2x10 or whatever size duct could be laid right in place with an opening cut in the bottom for the floor vent and the flaps flipped outward to close the rest of the opening. I think you're thinking too hard. It's just air. :)


Converting Tandem circuit with shared neutral to GFCI My exterior outlet/garage outlets are part of a 15a tandem switch currently that's not GFCI. Looks like this:

One of the hots runs the string of outlets I want to protect, then there's a hot from the other part of the tandem switch, and a single neutral split between them. I don't think I can use a single GFCI 15A circuit and just switch the single circuit over.

Closest thing I can find is this:

But that's two pole, not one pole (and I can tell the difference in the picture, but honestly don't understand quite the difference). My panel takes QO breakers...

Any help much appreciated!

UPDATED IMAGES INSIDE THE PANEL

Just so people understand the context this is a new house I moved into. I didn’t ignore rules, I’m just trying to fix an issue that was there before, and do it safely. Your input is very helpful.

The top left of the panel is input to the sub-panel. The panel came with the two breakers on the left, and the breaker all the way on the right. Coming into the box were essentially three sets of wires through one metal conduit, with each set having a piece of electrical tape around them. There’s a black, red, and white bundled together, and another black red and white bundled together (14g). The two black wires go to one breaker, with the white neutral above it, and the two red wires go to the next breaker, one neutral above it. The 3rd set is a pair of black and white 12g wires that go to the 20A rightmost circuit. Then there are two circuits in the middle that have the visible square D symbol that I added. The first one on the left is the GFCI 15A circuit, not hooked up to anything but the neutral and turned off, the failed addition, and a 20A circuit hooked up to a 12g pair of black/white wires that goes out to topmost right position in the sub panel to an outdoor GFCI outlet I added (the only things I added to this panel).

Curious to know if this changes anything. Thanks for your thorough thoughts!

Since my original answer was very generic to shared-neutral/multi-wire branch circut/MWBCs and tandems, and you've added a lot of new info, I exported it to this straw question here.  Here are my comments particular to this case.

The two breakers in each MWBC need to be handle-tied both for safety, and to assure they are on opposite poles, and to warn the next maintainer that these circuits are special.  2-pole breakers will also fill the bill.

That said, the classic "single-file" tandem breakers, as seen in your panel, are clearly built to be compatible with handle-ties if two such breakers are installed abreast. This would be an appropriate way to tie the MWBCs. It's possible it had been that way, and one of the breakers failed, and they found "classics" were no longer available and they had to take the "switches abreast" type.  If you find two handle-ties in the bottom of your panel, that's what happened.

On a fairly full panel like this, normally you get 2-pole with  quadplex breakers.  Your QO panel does not have quadplex breakers available.

The other option is simply splice both hots together onto a single breaker (or half a tandem).  That single breaker can be a GFCI.

Now it's time for GFCI

There's no such things as a duplex ACFI or GFCI.  They take a lot of space. Likewise no such thing as a quadplex AFCI or GFCI; but they do make them in 2-pole.

If you only need to provide GFCI to one of your multi-wire branch circuits, at first glance it seems like you have room. But you don't, because that would "orphan" one of your shared-neutral MWBCs.

Your best bet, then, would be to consolidate the two non-MWBC non-GFCI circuits (the top 2 breakers) onto a single duplex (which, notably, you have two of).  That will free up one more space, so you'll be able to give 4 spaces to the 2 shared-neutral circuits, allowing 2-pole GFCI/AFCI.  That is your best bet.

There's one more option; you are allowed to fork circuits right at the panel (i.e. have a circuit depart 2 directions out of the panel).  You could simply declare both MWBCs to be the same circuit. Both circuit's reds would go to a red pigtail; both circuits whites likewise, and blacks likewise. Then the 3 pigtails would go to the GFCI.   This would limit the current on each MWBC, obviously, but you might get away with it.

The best option yet

I'm sorry, but having seen you drop $40 on a GFCI you can't use, I cringe at proposing you spend $160 more.  This panel is stupid-small anyway, so why don't we kill two birds with one stone?

Go get one 60A 2-pole GFCI breaker and a 16-space subpanel.  Mount the new sub right next to this one. Fit the 60A GFCI here and use it to feed the main lugs of the new sub-sub-panel.  Any circuits you install in the new sub-sub will be GFCI protected by inheritance.  Install these circuits in the new panel using ordinary 2-pole breakers.

Now if you want the non-GFCI sub to be 16-space and the GFCI sub to be 6-space, swap them.  Either physically by tearing this panel out of the wall and terminating all its conduit connections to the new panel; or electrically by extending the feed wires to the adjacent 16 and putting the GFCI there to power this one.


Increasing the height of concrete There is an expansion joint roughly 1 foot from the front edge of the garage that runs parallel to the garage and that 2 inch rise into the garage.  One end of the 1 foot section is lower than the driveway. is there a way to increase the height without using a jackhammer. I need 1/2 to 3/4 inches.

You  can do mud jacking, or poly jacking underneath the low side - it will raise it a little might cost you about $1K could be less but I doubt it. You can call for a free estimate from a local contractor. Maybe they only charge you $500.


What causes this green residue on pipe going into hot water tank? I had a newly installed system 200 furnace with hot water heater around a year ago. I recently noticed that there is a green residue peeling off the pipe going into the hot water heater. I called the plumber who installed it but have not heard back. Is this something i should be concerned with and if so is there a fix without calling out another plumber?

It looks like the copper joint was not sweated properly and is leaking. You'll want to get the plumber to pull the coroded pipe (the green is what copper corosion looks like) and sweat a new pipe in there

If you want a DIY solution

Shut the water off
get a pipe cutter and cut the pipe off just before the elbow
Buy some Sharkbite push connectors and replace the coroded section with PEX. Will probably run you about $20 (not including the cutter)

Make certain the PEX and connectors are the same diameter, and that your water heater is not putting out water above 180 degrees


Suggestions for HDMI/aerial/audio socket I'm  planning to hang my TV on the wall. To avoid having cables hanging fro the TV to the sockets and other apparatus I was thinking of adding a socket just behind the TV and have all wires go behind the wall.

Job should be pretty straightforward for power connections but I don't know what to do for HDMI&co.

I would like the arrangement to be flexible, so if tomorrow I need to pass a SCART cable or another HDMI I don't need to make other holes in the wall.

Is there any product suited for this task? What's the best solution?

There are wall plates that are designed for your situation.

Power

For power, you can add the socket as you described.

Low voltage

For HDMI/signal/etc low voltage stuff, there are a number of options.  Running conduit is the best for future flexibility.

I personally like just having a cable sticking out of the wall, rather than putting connectors behind the TV and requiring a bunch of short patch cables.  There's "flexible opening wall plates" that have rubber grommets in them that work very well for this purpose. These work very well with a low-voltage junction box (which basically is a junction box with no back)

You can terminate the cables near your equipment the same way, or install actual wall plates, depending on your needs. I prefer wall plates with jacks (built-in or keystone) for that situation, because it's neater and allows you to easily disconnect stuff while cleaning/moving/whatever without a bunch of cables hanging out of the wall.

Combined

There are also a number of products that combine both power and low-voltage that work really well behind a TV.


GFCI that opens when power source cut Usually when the source of power in GFCIs were cut, the switching contacts remain shorted.

What kind of GFCIs can open the switching contacts when there is loss of power source?

This is useful for open service neutral faults detection/disconection, where the GFCI would disable the output when it happens.

This is found on plug-in GFCIs

The behavior you are describing is found on GFCIs that are intended to be plugged into a receptacle, like the one depicted below, instead of hardwired into building wiring.  It is necessary to prevent the combination of an open neutral in the building wiring and a ground fault in the appliance from causing a shock hazard the GFCI cannot cut off (because it has no power to its electronics in that case).


How to tell whether metal junction box is properly grounded? I have a detached garage that is powered by a circuit breaker in the main house’s breaker box, which is properly grounded. The outlets in the garage have metal junction boxes, fed by metal conduit containing two wires (hot and neutral). There is almost no voltage difference between the neutral wire and the metal box; how can I tell if the box is truly grounded, and not just tied to a common wire somewhere inside the wall?

Properly assembled metal conduit is an approved grounding conductor.
If the conduit feeding the garage from the house is metallic and connected to the box at the garage, to which the conduits are attached, it's grounded. If there's a proper 4-wire feed (or 3 wires and metallic conduit) the neutral at the garage should be isolated (visibly insulated from the breaker box) and the box itself should be grounded, either to a grounding wire or to conduit (and also to local grounding rods, or concrete encased electrodes.)


Can I mount an LED light bar to a truss web? I have 4 foot long LED light bars that i would like to  mount in my crawl space. I’ve removed the sagging underfloor insulation and am doing wall insulation instead, so the truss bays are empty. Trusses are 14” deep.
Can I mount these lights to the web portion of the truss? Essentially, somewhere between the top and bottom chords. Lights would run parallel on the truss, and not span multiple trusses.

Yes. They will not impart enough force to harm the truss webs. Cables, duct work, plumbing, and other things are routinely attached to truss webs.


Wiring a box that has two switches to multiple lights I have four outdoor lights that are controlled by a switch. I am replacing that switch with a Leviton Decora Smart switch. I can't seem to figure out how to wire it properly, hence I'm asking for help!

In that same switch box is another switch which controls a single light. Here's an image:

Full size

I think I've figured out which is line and which is load. The black wire coming out of #3 is line power. The black wire returning to the bundle of wires is load to the lights. I suspect I may be wrong here because the black wire coming from the switch on the left also goes to the bundle of black wires. The red wire going to the switch on the left is coming from #3 as well.

Basically, the switch which was on the right had two black wires, one of the black wires coming from #3 and one coming from a jumper connecting to the bundle of black wires.

I powered it on and nothing happened. But, nothing shorted either.

Can someone please help me in wiring the dimmer on the right? I haven't had any issues before. This is the first time a switch wiring situation has stumped me. Also I'm a bit sick so I'm kind of hazy (excellent time to work with electricity btw).

Thanks!

1,2, and 4 only seem to feed into the wire nuts, one of these is your power source, the other two are feeding power elsewhere.

It appears that your black wire nut is line power, your left switch controls a load on the red wire on #3 and the right switch controls a load on the black wire in #3.  This is likely split off elsewhere to the separate lights, sharing the neutral on #3.

So it appears that your switch line/load is possible reversed.

Also your smart switch likely needs a neutral to function, which doesn't appear to be connected, from the white wire nuts.


Installing An Outlet In Garage - Unexpected wires? So, this may be an easy question, but I've only ever replaced existing outlets before and I want to make sure I know what I'm doing before I do anything. Here's the situation:

This is where I want the outlet, but there's a lot more wires here than the other outlets I've replaced. I'm a novice when it comes to outlets and wiring, so I'm not sure how to proceed with this. How should I wire this up? Do I need a certain kind of outlet? Any help would be much appreciated!

From what I am looking at it appears the box is being used as a transition from the underground UF conductors to Metal Clad Cable (BX) and yes it is really BX since it appears the ground is back wrapped around the metal cable at the connector, quite common back in the day.

Also if you look at the third wirenut from the left, you can see where a wire was cut but not made safe. You need to remove the wire nut and remove that tail and trim up the conductor and replace the wirenut. If you can you need to see if that wire is a true circuit or just an abandon wire.

Looking to the far right the it looks like the red conductor is being used as a grounding (green) conductor. You need to verify that this is true or false. If it's true, you need to get some green phase tape and mark it as such and everywhere else it appears in the circuit. If false, you need to figure out what it is.

Now that you have cleaned up the box. If you want to still put a receptacle there, you can purchase a handy box extension ring (an x-ring). This will extend the box out past the bottom stud and you can attach the receptacle to the Black and white conductors to the far left. I would check and I would make sure it's 120V before I did that. Also if you look at the back of the box you can see a bare grounding wire coming from the UF (probably attached to the back of the box), that would be where you need to ground your receptacle. I would use an industrial cover to protect the receptacle.

Now a quick safety note. Looking at the use of BX. This method hasn't been used since the late 1970's and it wasn't a very good system even then. It was part of the NEC but many municipalities outlawed it. So take your time, identify and label all of your conductors and make sure everything is operational. In fact I would recommend you tear out the entire BX system and install the new AC or MC type of cable which has a full ground.

So hope this helps, stay safe and good luck.

I need to ad that if this is a true garage the circuit/receptacle needs to be a GFCI.


Can I install a backflow preventer for a frostless hydrant on well? I notice when I turn my frostless hydrant off with the hose connected, it siphons most if not all water from the hose.  I am worried of potential plastic chemicals in the hose after it sits out in the sun leaching into my well water after the hydrant siphons the water all out - especially when I get around to installing drip irrigation systems.

Will a simple $5 plastic backflow preventer be all I need, or is there a certain product meant just for this?  I will potentially be drinking the same water that flows back in the well after the frostless hydrant is shut off - yes?

I will potentially be drinking the same water that flows back in the well after the frostless hydrant is shut off - yes?

No.  Freezeless faucets drain their water back into the ground at their base below the frost line when turned off, NOT IN TO THE SUPPLY.  The freezeless facuet drains this water so the pipes above the frost line have no water to freeze in them; hence a freezeless faucet.

  Will a simple $5 plastic backflow preventer be all I need?

You get what you pay for.  Will a 5$ part function as well as a 125$?  Of course not!  Will it work well out of the box? probably yes and probably fairly well.  But it will not be as effective at stopping backflow, it will probably not work for as many years to come as a true backflow preventer, it probably cannot be tested, and it probably cannot be repaired.

  ...or is there a certain product meant just for this?

There are true backflow preveters for this that are designed to effectively stop backflor that are able to be checked and tested for reliability and repaired.  These typically installed run 200-300 in parts alone for the backflow, fittings, boxes, etc.  Labor can easily double or triple this in many cases.


Bath tub spout rough in I am surprised it is so hard to find a diagram or description of the proper way to rough in a bathtub spout.  In case it makes any difference, the specific spout will be a Toto TS210EV with diverter.

At the bottom of the valve there is a 1/2 inch NPT male nipple (is that the right name?) so I expect to put in a descent pipe, 90° elbow and a nipple through the backerboard and tile.

But how far past the tile surface should the pipe go?

How small should the hole through the tile and backboard be?

How does one make sure the spout ends up vertical when fully screwed on?

According to the installation manual for the spout, the nipple for the spout should be installed a min of 3/8" to a max of 3/4" past the finished wall. There is a pipe adapter that you screw onto the nipple. The spout slides over this adaptor and is set in place with a set screw located on the bottom. This allows for the correct orientation of the spout.

The hole for the spout through the tile and back board should be about 1/4" to 1/2" larger than the nipple diameter allowing for an 1/8" to 1/4" gap between the nipple and the tile.

There should be installation instructions for the diverter valve that will include the vertical location of the valve relative to the spout, as well as the set back distance in the wall. There is usually a plastic over on the diverter valve that is to be set flush with the finished wall. This cover also provides the opening required for the valve. Check the diverter valve instructions.


Is my pneumatic nail gun jamming because I've never oiled it? My nail gun has been jamming, i just recently read that I'm supposed to be oiling it which  i have never done. Where do I oil it?

Also i wanna know if you guys think this is my problem by telling you what happens: nothing wrong with air pressure and not my firing pin because it will leave a indent in the wood but just no nail sometimes and sometimes two nails get jammed in or one nail is half way out and half way still in gun with another nail behind it.

Any ideas on what my problem is?, could all this be because lack of oil??? Thanks for any help. I am a beginner with all this.

Instructions for both of my pneumatic nailers state that every so often put a few drops of nail gun lube oil in the fitting that the compressed air hose attaches to. I put two or three drops in every time I use it. A small bottle of oil came with the gun. I got a larger bottle at Lowe's.

I triggered a nail on my 18 ga brad nailer when there was already a nail stranded in the tip. I had to take the tip apart and extract the mess. One nail was welded to the channel and I had to twist it off with needle nosed pliers.  This was due to improper air pressure setting on the tank; I was going back and forth between the 18 ga brad nailer and a 23 ga pin nailer, and forgot to change the pressure setting on the tank.

Your nailer might need a full rebuild, but I would first clear the nail jam in the tip, following instructions for this, and then put a good amount of oil in the air hole and then connect the air supply, let it sit for an hour and see if this will force oil into places it needs to be. If it is still unresponsive, let it sit with the pneumatic hose fitting up and see if the oil will drain down to where it the sticking is.

If this doesn't work, you could take the pressure cap off and put oil in there. Removing the pressure cap might be a challenge if you have never done it before. You might have to send the gun for professional repair.


Floor joist weight cap I have an old barn with a up stairs and down stairs. Im looking to replace the floor joists that are broke. The joists are actual trees that are trimed to fit. They are probably 10" diameter with no post support between the span. The span is 25 feet.. The joist between eachother is about 3 feet. What would be the best replacement and what would carry 1 to 2 ton. Thanks.

While you do not have enough loading information to give a more exact answer, you could typically use taller and/or larger flange I-joist or 4x2 floor trusses.  The key is height to whatever you put in.

I-joist can easily give you the span you need, its just a matter of loading.

For comparable cost at longer spans and higher loadings, floor trusses can pretty much do what ever you want if you give them enough height.  Just locate a truss company and meet with them and they should be able to guide you on a proper truss design and get you a quote.

For a barn, I would probably go with I-joist but if you need to run any mechanical or plumbing, I would recommend floor trusses.


How do I convert a LED PIR Light to a switched only light I have a 10w LED PIR light with a faulty sensor. The light works fine on its own but only stays on for a few minutes when switched off and then back on again.
How do I convert this light to a switched on and off light only and do away with the faulty sensor?
There are 4 wires (2 brown and 2 black) coming from the PIR that are attached to the circuit board. Can send in a photo of the circuit board if that would help.
Thanks for any help.

I looked online for a schematic diagram (a picture might help but probably not) and I didn't find any with 2 brown and 2 black wires.

You should see if you could possibly replace the PIR with a direct replacement.

If you proceed to hack the light you risk making it unusable. Of course in its current condition that would be the case.

Without a schematic, my slightly educated guess would be, that if you cut the two brown wires and wire nut them together and then do the same with the black wires you will bypass the PIR. This is just a guess from the information you have posted. If it trips the breaker or the magical black smoke comes out of it, then you will know that was the wrong thing to do. Proceed at your own risk!

Good luck!


What's the next step in troubleshooting my electric water heater? We have a SpaceSaver (Model number: SS012SEB15), single-element 120v/1500w hot water heater which worked great until one day it went completely cold.

First thing was I tested the voltage to the unit. It tested fine (120v).
Next - did continuity test on the element and that tested good.
Did voltage test going into, and, coming out of, the thermostat, and that tested good.
Replaced element and thermostat anyway, still didn't work. (yes, I made sure to allow the tank to fill up, and the air to drain before turning on the power again)
Double checked the thermostat's reset button, still no go.

What do I check next?  I am totally frustrated and lost at this point, but I don't want to shell out for a new tank since ours is not leaking or anything.

Here was the solution:

For some reason, the circuit was showing a reading of 120v on the multimeter. This led me to believe it was good. Since it is a 120v water heater, I went ahead and hooked it up to a nearby circuit which I KNOW was good. Sure enough, we had hot water within 45 minutes.

I am not sure how the multimeter read 120v if the circuit was bad.

Apparently water heater elements need extremely consistent and constant supply of power or else they won't heat up.

Problem Solved. Thanks for all of the pointers and advice.


Three-way from two panels My home used to have a three-way circuit setup to control the upstairs hallway light from downstairs. However the home was built in 1930 and had old knob and tube wiring. The last owners renovated the home and "completely removed the old wiring and rewired the entire house." I've since found some of the old wiring scattered throughout the home, such as in the attic, but it would always have new wiring ran along beside it. We were told that they'd disconnected everything and left some of the old wiring and such because it would be a pain to remove the dead system, but that it was all completely useless.

The problem now though is that at the bottom of the stairs we have three switches (one for outside, one for the living room there, and one for the hallway upstairs.) The three-way that's meant for the hallway upstairs, wouldn't do anything. We were told that the owner couldn't get it to connect to the light 'for some reason' so he 'disconnected it and left it as a dummy switch'. I've since removed the covers from both boxes, hoping that I could fix his mistake, and I see that he's taken a lot of shortcuts. The switch downstairs is entirely wired up, and hot! It's the old knob and tube wiring attached to it, the old switch, and the old box. The only thing that was changed was the cover. The upstairs light is still using the old box, but has a new single pole switch and new wires: black, white (used as hot but not identified), and a ground. However, in the back of the box is two old knob and tube wires ran into the box and capped separately with wirenuts, of course they were also still hot and presumably the travelers from downstairs.

To make it easier when he rewired the upstairs, probably the only rewiring he did, he ran up a new sub panel upstairs (as the main is in the basement). So now I'm seeing that he ran the upstairs light and switch from the subpanel, and then had tried to connect to the downstairs switch, although it's coming from the main. I'm not sure where the old neutral from the main is at but I haven't removed the light yet to check and so it might possibly be in there, hopefully disconnected though. Other than that, I don't know if I have any way of getting new wire from the attic all the way down to the basement, easily at least.

Below is a crudely drawn version of what, I believe, we have going on. The yellow squares are wirenuts.
I guess what I'm wondering now is if we'd be able to remove the hot wire upstairs from the sub-panel to the switch, change the single pole into a three way also, and let the old wiring use the new neutral in the sub to return to the main?

First -- the original wiring configuration was most likely a 300.3(B)/310.10(H) violation due to the hot and neutral taking different routes in addition to currently violating 404.2(C) due to the old-style switch loop -- what you have currently, though, is also a Code violation, but of section 210.70(A)(2)(c):

  (c) Where one or more lighting outlet(s) are installed
  for interior stairways, there shall be a wall switch at each
  floor level, and landing level that includes an entryway, to
  control the lighting outlet(s) where the stairway between
  floor levels has six risers or more.

Fixing this without re-pulling travelers is possible, though, thanks to a gadget called a relay.  You, or your electrician if you feel more comfortable having a pro do this, will need:

14/3 NM cable, sufficient to run from the light to the existing upstairs switch
Wirenuts capable of connecting 14AWG to 18AWG
A RIBU1C SPDT relay-in-a-box
A plastic 1/2" conduit locknut.
Cable clamps as needed
Short lengths of 14AWG white and black wires to serve as pigtails

Turn off power to both circuits -- the downstairs circuit at the main panel, and the upstairs circuit at the subpanel.
Open the boxes for the light and both switches.
Remove any cable clamps that were holding the 14/2 from the light to the upstairs switch in place.
Disconnect the 14/2 from the light and the upstairs switch, as well as the box ground pigtails.
Connect the new 14/3 to the old 14/2 so that when you pull the old wire out, you pull the new wire in.
Pull the old 14/2 from the light to the upstairs switch out (box fill issues prevent us from leaving it in place).
Run the 14/3 from the light to the upstairs switch, and install it in the boxes using the new cable clamps.
Connect the 14/3 to the light as follows: red -- open terminal on light, black -- wirenutted to the hot, bare -- connected to the ground bundle.
Disconnect the incoming white wire from the light, and connect it to the new white and the white pigtail with a nut.  Connect the white pigtail to the light.
Knock out one of the 1/2" (small) conduit knockouts in the upstairs switch box.
Thread the wires of the RIBU1C through the conduit knockout from the outside, and screw it to the conduit knockout, using a locknut to secure it on the inside.  (You will have to remove a bit of drywall to install it -- there is nothing in the NEC that prohibits an arbitrary device from being installed in an inaccessible location.)
Remove the switch from the upstairs switch box.
Remove the switch from the downstairs switch box and replace it with the switch from the upstairs switch box.  Wire the new single pole switch as follows: old traveler 1 -- switch common terminal, old traveler 2 -- switch switched terminal, old hot -- cap off with wire nut.
Install the three-way switch from the downstairs switch box into the upstairs switch box, wiring it as follows: common terminal -- black pigtail, traveler terminal 1 -- blue wire from relay, traveler terminal 2 -- orange wire from relay, green ground terminal -- ground bundle (with box ground and ground from 14/3 incoming -- the RIBU1C needs no ground, as it's in a plastic box)
Wire old traveler 1 to the black pigtail and the incoming black wire from the 14/3 cable,
Finish wiring the relay as follows: black/white wire -- old traveler 2, blue/white wire -- cap off with wire nut, yellow/white wire -- white wire from 14/3 cable, yellow wire -- red wire from 14/3 cable
Put the boxes back together.
Turn the upstairs circuit back on -- the downstairs circuit has been removed from the picture entirely, so it can be left off.
Enjoy your new 3-way switch!

Note that while this setup may not appear to fix the 404.2(C) issue with the current configuration, it falls under 404.2(C)(5) as the neutral is available in the upstairs box:

  (C) Switches Controlling Lighting Loads. The grounded
  circuit conductor for the controlled lighting circuit shall be
  provided at the location where switches control lighting
  loads that are supplied by a grounded general-purpose
  branch circuit for other than the following:

...

  (5) Where multiple switch locations control the same lighting load such that the entire floor area of the room or space is visible from the single or combined switch locations


Where should I tap in to the existing duct work? Bought a 1981 repo a year ago. The house measures around 900 SQFT. I enclosed the one car garage (10'x20') @ 200 SQFT to serve as an office. The front of the garage is insulated (10') along with the wall attached to the house (20'). I am planning on running 2 ducts off of the central air system into the room and insulating the ceiling of the garage. I do not have the cash right now to insulate the other 2 dry-walled walls with blown in insulation. One of the non-insulated walls (20') faces West and gets pretty hot in the late afternoon. The other 10' wall faces North and is shaded 24/7 by trees. I am located in Dallas so right now temps are running 95 to 105 degrees F.

I have a Goodman (Furnace: GMS80603AN/Outside Unit: VSX130361) central air 3.0 ton system (Cool is electric & Heat is natural gas) which, according to specs, does 60,000 BTU/h with a max CFM @ 0.5" ESP of 1200. The system is located in an interior closet and utilizes an up-flow method into the attic where the ducts attach. From my measurements, it appears that the ducts coming off of the supply duct measure between 8-10". One side of the supply duct is free for new ducts.

I have a few possible options that I have been kicking back and forth in my mind:

1) Take a new duct off of the supply duct to the office. A new duct run would be about 30-35' long.

I have 2 bags of 25' 12" duct that a friend gave me. Should I use this duct considering its size? Will this cause an airflow problem to the smaller ducts? I plan to divide the duct in the office into two air ducts into the room. If that size supply is safe, what size would I use for each of the two office vents?

2) I have two ducts from the supply duct that run to the kitchen and living room. They split off into two 8" ducts for each room. I could tap into one of these to run both office ducts or tap into each duct run for a single duct run into the office. The run would be about 5' long.

I hope I didn't leave any important info out. What is your opinion?

Additional Measurements:
The Supply Duct measures 15" x 20"
The diameter of the Kitchen and Living Room vents (2 each) measure 7". I believe but have not measured the duct before the split for each room to be either 8" or 10". I am guessing 8".

Basically you are trying to balance your new ducts with respect to your old ducts by sizing the new ducts. If you make a mistake or if your relative cooling loads (office vs rest of the house) ever changes, your only recourse would be to replace the ducts.

My preference is to size the ducts as large as reasonable possible (without increasing cost too much) and use a damper to tune the airflow ratios. Since you have 12" duct and a place to attach them, just get a damper like this:

http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/DAYTON-Round-Balancing-Damper-2TFY1?Pid=search

An uninsulated unshaded west wall in Texas can probably generate a very high cooling load in the afternoon.


Can’t turn off power to thermostat I’m installing a nest thermostat and trying to turn off power to the thermostat before doing so.  I’m using a voltage tester and can see the wires coming in have power.  I have two systems, one for upstairs and one for the basement.  I’ve turned off the furnace breaker for both, and even pulled the large pull out head for the system, and the thermostat still has power.  I don’t have any other breakers indicating anything for the HVAC system.  I then started flipping off breakers for the surrounding area, and still has power.  How/where in the world is this thing getting power from?  Am I missing something else somewhere?

BRHANS is absolutely right. Use a multi-meter to check for actual "voltage". 24 volts A/C is the minimum voltage you should have. You said you have two systems. By chance do you have a zone control board for any other zones?? sometimes they have their own transformer and a separate control wiring. If you do NOT have a zone control board, get a multi-meter that can do LOW A/C voltage and verify the voltage. Check voltage at "R" to "C". with power ON you should have 24v A/C. If you still have voltage with the system off, you will have to check power at the HVAC equipment. I'm not sure the age of your furnace/ air handler, but some of the older equipment has a separate Transformer that runs the low voltage side only. This may have a separate power source as well. ( not very common) but I have seen this situation in the past.
 Hope this helps. and good luck to you.


Bathroom faucet handles no screw or cap to remove. Help I need to stop this faucet from leaking. I can't get the handle off. There's no set screw and no cap. I've tried prying it and pulling straight up. Anyone that can help please tell me.

The top of the faucet handle is probably a cap that covers the screw that holds the handle in place. See if you can can get under the lip of the cap (just before the top decorative curve) and pop it off. A putty knife or similar would work.


Outlet with 3 sets of wires I have an outlet I've been fooling with and now I'm at a loss. New-to-me house, cable guy came and installed internet, using that outlet for router power. Later in the evening I noticed the router turned off so I tested the voltage at the outlet and got some voltage, but way less than 120. Turned off the breaker and discovered 3 sets of wires going to the outlet. 2 whites and 1 black backstabbed into the outlet, and the other white and 2 blacks tied together with a wire nut. (See linked ghetto MS Paint sketch. I might have gotten the wires mixed up some though. Yellow is the copper wire, BTW.)

Thinking "maybe the outlet is shot" I went and replaced it with a new one. It worked for a bit and now there's nada. And now when I turn the breaker back on, I get no voltage between any of the sets of wires. There are 2 other outlets in this room-and 2 other rooms that must be on the same branch, because the lights don't work in those rooms.

I know often switched outlets have 3 sets of wires, but this outlet isn't switched. The other two outlets (and lights) in this room do work when the breaker is turned on.

Yes, it really is switched. That's why it went out on you.

What's going on here is this.  The cable on bottom, and the cable on top left, are always-hot -- one comes from the supply and the other carries power onward to other points-of-use.  It makes no difference which is which.

These two cables, on the hot side, are using the wire-nut to splice.  On the neutral side, they are using a feature on the receptacle.  Receptacles have 2 screws on each side, which can be split, but usually aren't.  When they are not split, both screws are simply connected.  So the white wires are connecting using the receptacle as a splice, instead of a wire nut.  No big deal.

Now, look closely at the cable which remains.  The white wire goes to the bundle of hots. I don't think it's an accident that you drew it that way. I am sure it made you go "WTH?" and you double checked to be sure.  The black wire is the only hot wire that goes to the receptacle.  That means we do not have a "split receptacle". Both sockets do their thing together.

This cable is a classic switch loop. At the other end, black and white go to the switch.  With the switch off, they are disconnected.  With the switch on, it's as if black and white are the same wire, so with the switch on, the hot wirenut bundle connects to the receptacle.

THat white wire is not neutral, it is always-hot, and they're stuck using that wrong color code because cables are only made one way.  Switch loops used to require only always-hot and switched-hot, so they made white one of them.  White is supposed to be the always-hot so it is more obvious that is not neutral.  They did that correctly here.  (Newer Code requires they also mark the white wire with black or colored electrical tape or paint, I sometimes mark the wire with a sharpie.)

The reason it worked, then lost power, is that you or someone turned the switch off.  This would probably be a switch that you honestly have no idea what it does.  It may be one of several switches in a row, that you've developed the habit of just throwing together.

Why would anyone switch a receptacle??? Because light switches are required in rooms, but installing overhead lights is expensive. So Code allows builders to switch a receptacle instead, and the homeowner is expected to plug in a floor lamp and never use the switch on the floor lamp. Commonly the homeowner is dissatisfied with this, and pays an electrician to install a proper overhead light. Costs them $400, but hey, they save a nickel a month on the mortgage.  /golfclap

The voltage you are seeing is called phantom voltage. The reason is that upper-right cable goes to the switch. The white wire is always-hot and the black wire is disconnected from anything. When two wires lay close like that, a hot wire will induce a phantom voltage on the disconnected wire. Sensitive voltmeters (like any cheapie DVM) can see it, but it can't drive any load. It will disappear if you plug a tiny load like a nightlight (or cable box) into the socket while you measure.

What to do about it

First, for God's sake, mark the white wire with colored tape so the next guy knows it's a switch loop.

Now, get a short length (9") of black wire, if in doubt use #12 size.  This is called a pigtail.

Add the pigtail to the 3 wires on the wire-nut.  If it's a yellow wire-nut you'll be pushing its capacity limits, so maybe change it for a red wire-nut.

Now attach the pigtail to the other brass screw on  that receptacle.  If the receptacle uses push-in-the-back backstabs, consider the wire to be attached to the nearest screw, and Google "how do I move backstabs to screws" because backstabs are generally unreliable, and you might as well solve that while you're in here.

Now, search that receptacle for a breakaway "tab" between the two brass screws.   Break off that tab.

Do not break the tab on the silver side. If you do, buy a new receptacle (they're $3 for the good ones), don't swap sides!!!!

Now you have one socket switched by the mystery switch, and the other socket always-on.


Can I sheetrock over styrofoam on a garage ceiling? I am buying a home with a detached garage that the original owner insulated.  The garage is probably 25 years old. At the time of construction, 1" expanded foam was nailed directly to the rafters to insulate the ceiling.  Over time, the foam has shrunk (and deteriorated to some degree) leaving 1/2 - 1" gaps around all the seams and is not sufficient any longer.  The attic is vented properly.

I would like to re-insulate the ceiling with standard blown-in fiberglass or cellulose.  I would also like to sheetrock the ceiling to provide a better finish.

Can I install the sheetrock over the existing styrofoam and then blow in the insulation in the attic?

Probably not.  Without pictures I imagine the drywall screws would not have enough grip into the foam to hold them to the ceiling during an earthquake or even a door closing.  Sight unseen of course, I would pull the foam down before I installed drywall.


Is my toilet operating properly My toilet tank has the tube going to the overflow but the overflow doesn't go to the bowl so I assume it goes down the drain. Is this ok. the bowl still fills up at each flush.

The overflow tube empties into the bowl. When the bowl water level rises to  certain point, water starts going down the drain. You can verify this by pushing your float down in a full tank. You'll notice that the level in the tank rises but the level in the bowl rises too. You can see water entering the bowl usually from the rim. Water can only get to the drain by going into the bowl first.
(Picture from Home Tips)


Noiseproofing Bedroom with Green Glue: Should I do exterior walls and/or ceiling? I would like to do some experimentation with soundproofing a bedroom using Green Glue, which is a noiseproofing compound intended to be sandwiched between sheets of drywall. The bedroom currently has painted drywall walls. I will be applying the Green Glue to the back of new 5/8" drywall, and screwing the new drywall to the existing drywall walls, creating a drywall and Green Glue sandwich.

My current plan is to at least do two interior walls that are up against noisier/higher traffic areas of the house. I'm wondering if doing those two walls will give me sufficient soundproofing to cut out a large amount of noise, or if I need to extend the soundproofing to the two following sections:

Ceiling - There is an attic above the ceiling, so I'm not worried about noise coming from directly above the room. What I am wondering about is sound leaking from other rooms through the attic/ceiling. Is it possible there will be a significant enough amount of sound leakage to where it would be louder than any sound still traveling through the walls or bedroom door (which will be a solid core door)?
Exterior Walls - From the research I've done, it looks like there may not be any benefit to soundproofing the exterior walls against sound from outside, unless I'm also investing in replacing the two large windows with soundproof windows. Is this a correct assumption? I'm also wondering if there is a possibility of significant sound leakage through the exterior wall from one of the adjacent rooms.

If it makes a difference, the main types of interior sounds I'm wanting to cut down on are TV, kids play, voices, etc. For exterior sounds, there's the neighbor's barking dog, and traffic.

It depends of how much noise you would like to reduce. if you looking from complete silence, applying sound-proofing sealant to two walls will do nothing but empty your wallet. If you want to reduce it to a level where you can read, write, or just not be bothered by it; then sound proofing two walls and the ceiling will help. The theory of sound proofing is to eliminate or reduce sound vibrations traveling through the walls. This is achieved by creating a air space between the layers of sheetrock where vibrations go to die. When you screw it to the wall, the metal of the screws will act as vibration transmitters and diminishing the effectiveness of the soundproofing glue. You will be better off by glueing it to the old wall.

If you have access to the room where the noise is generated, you can reduce the noise by sound-treating that room with sound absorbing furnishing and diffusing sound traveling by  rearranging furniture, etc. A quick search for sound proofing art will bring an array of artsy and decorative items that serve that purpose.


2 wire thermostat wire want to be able to select fan only I have an older furnace with only 2 wires at the  thermostat "white and red". No issues at all with my system works as should.  Thermostat is new Honeywell basic model not smart. I want to be able to turn it on fan mode only. I do not have an ac unit attached. I only want this option to help circulate air in my house. Cooler in the summer and in the winter we run a gas fireplace that roast us out of the living room but everywhere else is cooler.i have an electrical background but Zero funace knowledge. I know ill have to run a new wire 3 or 5 doesn't really matter have easy access. My question is how i would hook this up ive seen plenty of post "c" wire G wire and what I'm looking at doesn't look that straight forward or im over thinking this.

Your furnace has fan terminals, thankfully
The good news is that your furnace has a fan (G) terminal and corresponding Rc and C terminals, found on the relay module depicted in your second photo.  The bad news is that the combustion controller is totally separate from the fan relay in your setup, so you'll need to wire this a bit differently from a standard furnace.  First off, your thermostat will need to be set up for two-transformer operation by moving a slider, removing a jumper link, or flipping a switch; the instructions should document how this is done.  Once that is done, you can wire yellow to Rc, green to G, and blue to C at each end, with the white wire going to W/W1 on the thermostat and one T terminal on the combustion controller, and the red wire going to Rh on the thermostat and the other T terminal on the combustion controller.
Note that while a 5-wire cable will get the job done here, it may be a better choice to put a fatter thermostat cable, such as an 8-wire or even a 10-wire, in now so that the wires are available for a future HVAC upgrade, such as fitting a heat pump.  Also note that if you're having trouble getting the heat to work, you may need to swap the red and white wires at the combustion control end (one of them is Rh and the other W, but your combustion controller doesn't differentiate between the two, while your thermostat just might).


How can I install standard outlets on a 30A #10 multi-wire branch circuit? I was looking for hopefully a quick answer. I have a multi wire circuit coming out of main breaker box. It is a 30 amp  double breaker with 10 gauge wire that divides into the double breaker . I concluded it is indeed a multi wire branch circuit. My question is how do I transition the 10 gauge wire to smaller wire and add outlets. The 10 gauge wire runs about 40 feet or so to a garage that is attached. Do you use wire nut in a junction box or...?
Here is a decent pic of the junction

Subpanel Time!
You can't run any 15A or 20A devices (e.g, 15A or 20A receptacles or light fixtures designed for 15A or 20A circuits) on the 30A breakers. But you can install a subpanel. This will let you put as many things as you want on the circuit. From a practical standpoint, you could definitely put a subpanel with 4 x 15A circuits (15A x 2 = 30A on each leg) but you could actually install more - e.g., 6 x 15A or 4 x 20A or some other combination. That is because the 30A limit is based on the total simultaneous usage. Since most of the time most of the smaller circuits will have very little use (e.g., a lighting circuit might pull only 1A for LEDs to light up the whole garage), this can work very well. About the only thing you wouldn't want to put on this subpanel is a heavy 240V load like a water heater or air conditioner.
The subpanel can be any size 30A or larger. As I understand it from other Q&A, in an attached garage you generally don't need a main breaker in the subpanel, but it is OK (and often convenient) to have one, and it can be any size - larger than 30A is perfectly fine as it functions here as a switch and protection for the subpanel but not for the wires back to the main panel. Ground and neutral not bonded in the subpanel. And don't forget GFCI - most garage circuits will need to have GFCI protection.


Can you safely drill into the track/jamb of a vinyl window? I was installing some window locks that required drilling into the track of a vinyl window.

The windows are pretty standard builder grade Anderson single hung vinyl windows.

Two questions,

Will drilling into the track void the warranty?
Warranty issues aside, will drilling into the track cause any actual issues (for instance, condensation)?

The inside of a typical vinyl window frame will have spaced out chambers separated by vinyl webbing as a thermal and drainage system. The sill track channel of the windows should always allow water to drain, if water enters into the track a small hole will direct water through the frame and out the exterior weeps.

If a screw is drilled through the entire frame of a drain chamber water could possibly leak into the framing below and possibly cause dry rot or moldy insulation. I would not recommend drilling anything through the entire frame of a window sill, I've seen it too many times cause damage in just a couple years. Hardware through the first layer of vinyl, probably nothing to worry about. Its common the first layer of vinyl is used to attach hardware even on the sill.


Afci/Gfci on the same circuit Can I install a AFCI/GFCI outlet on the same circuit that has a GFCI outlet.

Right now I have the first outlet from the breaker as a GFCI and I want to switch it to a AFCI/GFCI, but that same circuit has an outside weatherized outlet downstream that's also has a GFCI, would I be able to leave the outside GFCI in circuit or would that interfere with the AFCI/GFCI detecting any abnormal fluctuations?

Sure you can but how much running back and forth do you want to do trying to reset this? I have been called to a home the owner put multiple GFCI’s in and he could not get power to the devices because of tripping. I would not add AFCI protection to an outdoor circuit as these normally are running electric devices with motors , saws, mowers, drills etc. AFCI’s don’t play well with motor loads and if you decide to add that breaker remove the GFCI outlet or you may not have much luck at tools working on that circuit.


Running electric to barn: what size subpanel? I wanted to run my plans by qualified electricians before running electric to my new barn. I have a 270' run from my house to the new barn. I am running 1 1/4" sched 40 2' down the entire distance.  I plan on running 3 strands of #8 thwn plus ground off a 40 amp double pole breaker in my home 200 amp service panel out to a subpanel in the barn which I haven't bought yet.  I have already sunk a ground rod 8' down within a few feet of where the subpanel will go. I will remove the bond between ground and neutral in the subpanel and ground it to the ground rod. I have very little load requirements in the barn: some lights, a few outlets and ability to run a table saw which draws about 15 amps so 40 amps should be more than adequate and it gets pricey to run anything larger.

I was thinking of using a 100 amp subpanel and putting in a 40 amp double pole main breaker. That should give me plenty of room to grow. Does all of this make sense?  Do you have any other recommendations?

Leave the subpanel breaker as-is

For the barn subpanel, leave its breaker at 100A (or whatever the factory provides).  You don't need a breaker there, you need a shut-off switch. Using a "main-breaker panel" is just cheaper and neater than having a totally separate shut-off switch...  nobody cares if the shutoff switch says "100A" on the handle :)

Breakers protect wires and equipment, and the 40A breaker in the house panel more than suffices to protect the 100A rated panel.  If your logic is "oh, I want the breaker to trip locally first", timing breakers like that just doesn't work. It's always the far one that blows.

(On the other hand if you used large enough wire to justify a 150A supply breaker, then the 100A breaker would protect the 100A rated panel.  You might reasonably do that if the 150A feeder was going onward to supply other subpanels at other barns).

Consider running bigger pipe

It's easy to get in a hurry to pinch pennies, but there are two places not to do that.  First is on pipe.  Price it all ways, but the cost increment to larger conduit is often not that much, and buys you a lot of flexibility. (also consider the "aluminum factor").

Consider aluminum wire

Ironically, one place people fail to pinch pennies is going with copper wire as a default, or worse, as a moral panic. There's a lot of FUD running around about aluminum, and that had some truth when it comes to small branch circuit wiring (the wires to your outlets and lights).  Look closer, the bad actor was actually copper lugs/terminals that did not play nice with aluminum wire.  Aluminum lugs play well with copper though -- which is why your subpanel's main lugs will be aluminum.  Aluminum remains the wire of choice for feeder (though only the power company is still allowed to use the scandalized AA-1350 alloy, you'd use the new AA-8000 alloy).

At 40A circuit size (#8 copper or #6 aluminum), there still isn't much of a cost motivation to go aluminum.  Starting the next size up, #6Cu or #4Al, aluminum makes increasing sense.  So if you are thinking of a size bump for voltage drop, price aluminum - especially for such a long distance.

On feeders, copper is not an upgrade. Go with Al if it makes cost sense.

You may not need to bump for voltage drop

For a certain circuit size (40A), there is a minimum wire size you must use (8 AWG) or the wire will overheat.  This is good for any length of wire, though at excessive lengths, the resistance of the wire stacks up, and you start running into serious voltage drop. The voltage drop is proportional to current actually being drawn in that moment - lights alone won't provoke much drop, but start the table saw and you'll get a bunch.

Voltage drop can be computed, and there are voltage drop calculators on the web to make that easy.  The classic blunder, made even by many experts here, is to calculate voltage drop based on the number written on the handle of the circuit breaker (40A).  That is wrong.  Voltage drop  should be computed based on your actual, expected loads, while thinking about how sensitive they actually are to voltage drop.

For instance if you have a delicate data center and a huge air conditioner motor on the same feeder, you'd need to get out the sharp pencil and really run the numbers.  For LED lighting (again with auto-ranging power supplies) and a "12A" table saw, maybe not so much.

That said, if you were using 80% of circuit capacity (32A) most of us would proscribe a wire size bump at about 110 feet, so in your case, 2-1/2 bumps (5 wire sizes) to #3 Cu (really #1 Al, unless you own a copper mine). Needless to say, your conduit pipe needs to be large enough to accommodate that wire, back to my advice to upsize conduit.

On one hand, you won't be loading this circuit to 32A.  On the other hand it is still quite a distance.  It's leeeegal to use #8 Cu wire and just lump the voltage drop, but I think I would price #4 Al (=#6Cu) just the same.   Cheaper to invest now than have to tear out and re-pull such a long run.

Also, 120V circuits suffer twice as badly from voltage drop. So if you will mainly have one load, and it's 120V, think about additional bumps still.  Make sure you are saying "120V" in the voltage drop calculator.    For instance a 120V table saw will have four times the voltage drop of a 240V saw of same power.  If there's also a dust collector, and it's on the same leg, that will make things worse still.  If it's on the opposite leg, that will help things somewhat, by moving some of the return current to the other leg.

If all else fails: transformers and 480V

One thing I love to do in these cases is get a couple of appropriately sized transformers (10KVA in your case) and connect them tail to tail, 480V or 600V primary to primary.  You backfeed the house transformer with plain 240V (no neutral).   It sends 480V or 600V down the 2 wires to the barn, for 1/4 to 1/6 the transmission losses for the same power (1/16 to 1/36 for 120V loads).  The second transformer drops it and splits it to 120/240V.

The transformers make it a separately derived service, which means the local panel here becomes a main panel which must have neutral and ground bonded.  The ground rod becomes your one ground. You don't need to pull a ground or neutral from the house, 2 wires does the trick.  The wires can be smaller - in your case 12 AWG would suffice.

This is wizard-tier stuff, and you'd want to very carefully design it so there's basically no chance of anyone getting near the 480/600 primary voltage.  That stuff bites very hard.

Misc.

You actually need two ground rods, unless you do a complex test to confirm the efficacy of the one ground rod.

As you know, you need a ground wire also. The ground wire can be smaller than the conductors, but take note -- Its size must be based on the conductor size not the circuit ampacity.  Don't go "A 40A circuit can use a #10 ground wire", that is wrong - if you upsize wire for voltage drop, you must upsize the ground wire also; a table from conductor size to ground size tells you what you need.

If you're even thinking of using an alternate power source in the barn, such as generator or solar, install a Siemens main-lug subpanel with the "shutoff switch" breaker in the #1 position.  That will let you use their $30 factory-spec generator interlock later.  FYI, a generator at the barn cannot backfeed the house unless you put a second set of feeders in the pipe.

You can have up to 3 circuits in the pipe before you have to start derating wires. If you have upsized wires for voltage drop, you can go to 4 circuits.  Since it runs to an outbuilding, each circuit would need to have a reason that it couldn't just be supplied out of the subpanel, e.g. Switched circuit for lights or pump, gen backfeed, etc.

Never forget the dust collector. When there's a table saw, there's a dust collector. Don't forget to include it in the figures.  As mentioned, putting it on the opposite 120V pole will actually ease voltage drop, by splitting the load across all 3 wires instead of just 2.


Can the sheath of nonmetallic cable be removed prior to entering electrical metallic tubing (EMT)? Can 2 romex cables be stripped before entering an EMT to allow more conductors in a 1/2" EMT? How would you transition from Romex to individual conductors going in or out of the EMT? Or is that allowed?

The wires inside Romex are THHN type, which is okay for EMT, but you cannot use a bare copper wire inside EMT.  I would transition from Romex cable to EMT with a metal box.  Bond the bare copper wires to the box with a grounding pigtail, and add a insulated green THHN wire to continue the ground through the EMT.


Why are my floor tiles cracked and how can I lay them again so they won't crack When I moved into my house, the kitchen has large floor tiles on the floor. Quite a few of these tiles are cracked. I've been told that the reason they are cracked is because under the floor tiles is a plywood underlay layer, and where the plywood pieces meet each other isn't exactly even, and so the tiles are cracking at that join.

If I was to pull up the tiles an lay a new floor, what would I have to do to overcome the uneven plywood flooring? Is there something I should lay on top? Or should the plywood be re-layed?

Thanks

If the tiles are cracking, it's probably (edit: might not be) not just the plywood.  The floor is flexing in some manner.  Tiles need a very rock solid underlayment.

So pulling up the tiles and then pulling up the subfloor and then relaying a new subfloor may not actually fix your problem.

The joists may be flexing (and this is probably the issue) which would cause the floor to crack.

How old is the building?  If the build is quite old, the joists may be further apart or sized smaller than current code.

There are a few solutions, once you determine the problem:

sistering the joists
adding cross joists under the existing joists
adding lolly columns under the floor

I fixed a floor on the third floor of a 100 year old house by pulling up the plywood and gluing and screwing half inch subfloor.  The floor was rock solid, but we still didn't put back ceramic tile - we went for black and white vinyl. Looked great.


Can I build a gravel driveway over sand? There is a large quantity of sand where I would like to build a gravel drive. The sand is not super deep, only an inch or two at its deepest points, but I cannot find any quick way to remove it. Much of it is compacted as well. I was considering just dumping 4 inches of #8 gravel on top of this sand base, which like I said, seems quite stable even in the rain. My big questions are:

Will dumping this gravel over the sand weight it down and stop the sand from blowing around when it gets windy? I'm trying to keep sand from getting all over my cars.

Are there any inherent problems with doing this? (Note: I don't need this driveway to last forever, a couple years of life would be just fine)

Any other suggestions?

Thanks for any assistance!

For me living in the desert a sand yard is pretty common.   Putting gravel on top of the sand here to add a bit of firmness is also common.
So as previously commented how much sand and what is under it will affect success and how long it lasts before sand comes through (if it does).   The gravel will work into the sand, but this is not bad at all (concrete is sand, gravel and a cement, 2 out of the 3).
Two factors on how long it lasts before the sand does appear on top again will depend on water content, how much gravel is laid, how thick the sand is and compaction.
To start your effort, water the sand well and give it a day or so to soak and harden.  If a compaction machine is available compact it when damp.
Lay your gravel on top, wet and compact it.


Gas fireplace pilot light goes out when fire turns off I have a Heat and Glo propane fireplace with a constant pilot light. I had to clean the orifice etc. and have a nice blue flame on the thermopile and thermocouple. When the fire turns itself off with the timer switch it makes the pilot light 'pop' off at the same time, resulting in having to relight the pilot every time the fireplace is turned off.
Any ideas?

I have found dirty burners end up with a little back pressure in the tubes and will flash back blowing the pilot out. If this is what you mean and if you can immediately relight the pilot within a couple of seconds of it going out. Cleaning the burner usually fixes things and in extreme cases I have made a shield out of a pop can cut with scissors to block the puff.
Most of the time cleaning has fixed things have worked for me.


How should I connect my new ceiling light to this wiring? I'm attempting to install a new bathroom fixture and have run into some trouble.

I have two wall switches that control three lights. One switch turns on/off two vanity lights and the other a hanging light I am attempting to install.

On the vanity lights: one has two white and two black wires coming from the wall and connecting to a single white / black from the light itself. The other vanity light has a single white/black from the wall connecting to a single white/black on the light. Both of these lights are somehow connected to a single wall switch

In the ceiling there are 4 black, 4 white, and 4 grounds. Three black wires are all connected by a wire nut leaving 1 black, and 4 white wires. One of these white wires is hot and is marked with black tape

I thought this would be a simple install, but boy was I wrong. Now I’m not sure where my new fixtures wires would tie in with its single white and single black wire. This would be controlled by the second wall switch.
In hindsight, I would have taken a picture prior to any of this. Lessons learned.

It looks like you have a switch leg possibly improperly wired and possibly 2 lights or a light and power going someplace else like an outlet (possibly a spare)  You will need to figure out which one is the switch then it will be easy, your main is labeled.
When you find the switch cable it is probably the one with black tape on the white wire swap that black and white so the white is always hot and the black is now the switched hot.  Then the light fixture can be hooked up to the black switches hot and the white from the main. If everything works the other cable may be a spare, if you find another outlet or light that doesn’t work the one that is not connected needs to be connected to the Main cable white and black. It would be good to put a wirenut or crimp sleeve on the grounds and attach them to the box as it is a metal box the ground should be connected to the box , this may also be done with the new fixture green wire.


How do I ground a light fixture with two ground wires and only one ground at junction box? I am replacing a light fixture and there is a black wire, a white wire, a green wire, and a bare copper wire. At the junction box I have a black wire, a ground wire, and a bare copper (ground) wire. There is also a green ground screw on the base plate of the new fixture, which I attached to the junction box with screws (included with fixture). I do not know how to attach the ground wires. Do I connect the copper wires together and connect the green wire to the green ground screw on the junction box? Do I connect all three wires together? If I connect all three together, do I need to pass on through the ground screw, or do I need another wire connecting the ground screw to the bundle of three, thus making a bundle of four? Any help would be great. I attached a photo of the wires coming from the fixture and the junction box so you can see what I am looking at.

In a single circuit, all ground wires and metal fixture structural parts are connected.

In your case, the green wire is the ground for the lower part of the fixture. The bare wire is the ground for the metal canopy. The green screw is the ground for the fixture bracket. The bare wire buried under the bracket is the ground from the circuit cable.

They all need to be connected.  The easiest way is to attach a short bare (or green) wire to the green screw and then attach the four ground wires together.

I prefer the newer push in connectors for solid wires (they can be used for stranded but are a bit harder to use). Or you can use a wire nut. Just be sure to strip enough bare cable to get a good twist on all four wires before putting on an appropriately sized nut. Most practitioners use a lineman's plier to get a good twist on multiple wires.

Never put more than one wire under a screw or nut.


GFCI lights have gone crazy Disclaimer: I know nothing about electrical things.

House is 4.5 years old.

GFCI in wet bar had red light. Refrigerator was off. Hit RESET button and refrigerator turned on and light indicator turned off. Hit TEST button and refrigerator turned off and red light appeared again. Hit RESET once more and same thing happened light turned off, refrigerator turned on. FYI, all GFCI receptacles in house normally have active solid green light on.

Checked GFCIs in kitchen. All lights were off, however, GFCIs still working. Hit TEST and red lights turned on and GFCIs not working. HIT RESET and GFCIs are working but no light indicator on any.

Checked GFCI in laundry room and in master bedroom bathroom. Both locations GFCIs have solid green light. Hit TEST on them and green light appeared and no power. Hit RESET and both have solid green light again. Other bathrooms do not have a GFCI receptacle but instead have GFCI circuit breaker I think is what they're called so couldn't check lights.

Turned all breakers off and turned them on one by one but this didn't do anything.

Other weird thing: normally plug laptop into outlet in living area in lower level ranch that's near the wet bar but in the living space vs. bar area. I use a surge protector in this outlet. Same day noticed red light on GFCI in wet bar, both red and green indicator light on surge protector went out when plugged into that outlet. Outlet is still working but lights indicate that something is wrong and that surge protection is no longer working. Plugged surge protector into outlet on same wall a little further down and both indicator lights are on.

A couple things here.

GFCI devices differ one from the other

I'd imagine that most of your GFCI receptacles are one brand/model, and then you have a few of another brand/model.  Expect differences between them, and to understand any particular one, you need read its documentation: which in practicality means yank it out, obtain its model number, and look it up on the Internet.  The "yank it out" part is not something a novice should undertake.  So if the lights on different units do different things, I really don't care.  What I'm looking for is:

If you push TEST, the power is knocked out.
If you push RESET, the power comes back.
If I use a plug-in GFCI tester in a location that is grounded and supposed to have GFCI, a GFCI trips somewhere, knocks out power, and power comes back when I reset.

It is forgivable if power doesn't come back because another GFCI also needs to be reset.

Some things should not be on GFCI

This is a matter of "best practice", not safety.  So if you have someone out for another reason, have them fix these.

Top of the list is refrigerators. That actually is a safety thing.  Suppose Person A makes lunch so they plug in a sandwich griddle. The GFCI trips. A can't figure it out and walks away.  Family goes out for dinner.  Next day, B is making breakfast, finds tripped GFCI, unplugs griddle and GFCI resets OK.  Ducky doo, right? The refrigerator has been off for 18 hours.

Second is most hardwired loads, i.e. those that don't get near water.  Lights which are not in a shower are at the top of the hitlist. You don't want the room turning pitch black the moment the grill, curling iron or circular saw trips the GFCI, because now you have hot things or fast moving blades inches from your body and you can't see.  The only way to make that worse is to add zombies.

Other things that don't need GFCI are other non-water appliances that are properly grounded: Range hoods, built-in microwaves, dryers ranges and ovens that have 4-wire connections and are actually grounded, etc.

In fact, having GFCI protection on a washer right next to a 3-wire-connected dryer is a picture postcard example of bad priorities: the grounded washer was never a threat, and the 3-wire dryer is waiting to kill someone. It's like a "No Smoking" sign right next to an unmarked open pit.

Other GFCIs should not be on GFCI.  If testing one GFCI knocks out power to another, the second GFCI is redundant and is not needed.  It doesn't do any direct harm, but it does the indirect harm of someone being tempted to rip out annoying GFCIs.   However, don't confuse GFCIs with AFCIs, they provide completely different protections.  GFCI stops electrocutions, AFCI stops house fires.

As for mysteries on Chinese power strips, I don't try to solve those.  Consumer grade power strips have weak surge protection that is only designed to last 3 months to a year depending on how many surges you get.  The 2020 Electrical Code will require a "whole house surge suppressor" on new and remodel houses and panels, and these typically come from the same Tier 1 suppliers who make the panels themselves, such as Siemens, GE, Eaton etc., so the good stuff.


How can I replace a long double vanity with two single vanities? I have one long double vanity in my master bathroom. It is approx 122" with a 53" vanity on the left (butts up to soaker tub) and a 49" vanity on the right (butts up to wall when entering bathroom). In the middle is a 20" open section where you would sit on a stool to do makeup. It looks pretty outdated, so I'm thinking about switching it out for 2 furniture style single vanities as part of our remodel. My question is, how big can they be?  How much room should I leave on the left next to the tub, the right next to the wall and in between?

And depending on the answer to that question, I am trying to figure out if I need to move the plumbing as well. How many inches can I move the center of the vanity to the right or left of where it is currently before I have to also move the plumbing?

You mentioned that you are retiling and I think your tile extends under so that doesn't matter.
your hot and cold for each sink are already probably close enough or were they need to be.  Maybe you have to move them over a foot or two... This is an easy DIY
drain pipes for sink.  May have to move these over a little but maybe not.  Unless there is something really odd going on in the wall where you can't move a drain over a foot or two, again no big deal and maybe no issue at all.  This really depends on what kind of cabinet you get and if it has drawers that would get in the way.
Know that your plumbing can be anywhere really.  Need to just make sure your cabinet if functional and plumbing meets code - for instance you can have your hot/cold shutoff in the corner of the cabinet if it fits there.
Also if you do have to change these things your wall doesn't have to look perfect after with a cabinet going over.  Throw up some drywall and a bad mud job.
Maybe you get taller cabinets for the modern look?  So what you have to think about is the mirror has to go up and then possibly the vanity light.  Still moving this is taking out a couple of very small squares of drywall.
How much space from tub?  Doesn't matter as long as it doesn't create a safety factor.  I personally would make it none or a lot (at least a  foot).  Very weird having 3-4 inches to clean there.

And my take as a cheap flipper... Tile has to go.  Cabinets aren't bad and mirror looks nice.  Paint the cabinets - maybe they need new doors.  So I might order new doors.  The counter goes.  I cut out the middle section.  I throw on granite on each cabinet, install undermount sink, and backsplash.  Right under 1K.  Can usually pick up granite and undermount sinks on craigslist as leftover or overstocks.  Your 49" is an easy find.  53" a little harder but they are there too.


Dealing with squeaking screws in chipboard flooring? I've had a problem with squeaking floor since moving in, and after pulling up the carpet and taking a look I've discovered it's down to the screws which have been put into the chip board flooring between a join.  The join run's down the entire length of my hallway to the end of my apartment, and unlike any other chipboard flooring in the apartment it has no tongue and groove. It appears that there was a substance between them but this just chips away now, the apartment block was built about 12 years ago.  I've attached two photos, one of the join which runs down the apartment, and a close up of the screws still in the flooring, and one of the screws which I've removed.

My question is, will it be fine to remove the screws which are causing the problem, or is there any other way I should look to fixing this problem?

A big part of the problem is that the old screws don't have a fully threaded shank. Over time, the screws will allow movement of the substrate. Especially if no adhesive was used between the substrate and the floor joists. A full-thread screw spreads the pressure over the entire length of the screw, with the greatest pressure being applied where it meets the surface of the substrate. I would go back with a better screw, such as a Spax multi-material screw. You might even consider placing them all over your floor between the old screws. My guess is, you will find a lot of other loose screws as well.


What are these tools used for? I have recently found in a box these two tools:

I do not have any knowledge on whether these tools are for wood or metal.
The second tool can be winded and unwinded in order to form some kind of tooth bite like shape to a material.

Many thanks on the feedback.

The top tools appear to be dies - used for cutting screw threads on rods.  The lower tool appears to be a tap wrench (a tap is a tool a little like a drill bit, but used for cutting threads inside a hole).  The "winding and unwinding" action is to allow it to clamp to the tap; the wrench is then used to turn the tap in the hole.  The dies would also have had a wrench or handle with which to grip and turn them around the workpiece.

They are for use on metal.

See Wikipedia- Tap and die for more detail.


How do I apply latex paint over oil based paint? I sure hope someone can help me. I decided to paint my kitchen which I was not aware of but had been painted by the previous owner with an oil based paint. I painted over that with 3 coats of latex trying to get an even finish. With no luck, I went to our local paint store and the guy said to use a primer. So I got a latex primer and put 2 coats on it and still no luck! I spot tested it and the paint still is not going on smoothly. Should I have used an oil based primer? Went to another paint store and was told the only way to fix it is sand down to the original and put an oil based primer over it. Needless to say, this will take forever! Now I am to the point of just putting paintable wallpaper over it but am afraid it won't stick. Can someone please help me?

Also, I am pretty sure that the previous owner may have painted over wallpaper

There are two critical steps in prepping kitchen walls.

Clean and degloss

Cleaning is critical:  TSP or TSP substitute.

Deglossing: either light sanding (120 grit) or a chemical deglosser

Once a surface is deglossed, it should be primed, especially if going from one paint type to another.

A deglossed oil undercoat can be primed with a latex primer.  Either oil or latex can then be used as a topcoat.

A deglossed oil undercoat can be primed with a oil primer.  Either oil or latex can then be used as a topcoat.

It is better to stick within families of paint types, if you can, but going back and forth between types is possible with primers.

At this stage in coating, I'd let everything dry for a week, then sand lightly.  If the previous layers are adhering, then proceed with latex primer, latex topcoat.

If,, however, they are sloughing or chipping or you can easily pull a layer off if you leave painters tape on overnight (and then pull it off), then you must sand down to the last well adhered layer and then repaint.  Good luck.


How to wire an outlet I need to replace a regular 3 prong outlet to one of these for a tool. I have tried multiple arrangements but none turn the tool on. The tool needs 15 amps, I have a 20 amp outlet and 15 amp fuse. Yes I know the fuse will need replacing but in the fuse is not being overloaded/break

Your compressor is not working, because you're connecting it to a 120 volt circuit. According to the nameplate on the equipment, you should be connecting it to a 240 volt 20 ampere circuit.


Electrical siding pass through removal I have a outdoor switch that controls my spa pump. As you can see in the photo, one of the armored pump electric cables is not threaded to the box. It was like this when I bought the house. The box is too close to the wall to turn the armored cable nut, so I need to pull the box out from the wall a bit.
The next picture shows the back (I have already removed the ground clamp and strain relief). As far as I can tell, I need to put a pipe wrench on that metal conduit and turn it counterclockwise so I can get at the ring clamp holding the box to the wall. I gave it the full muscle try and could not get that conduit to turn. Am I doing the right thing? Do I just need more force on the wrench? Is there a recommended fluid like PB Blaster I can use in there around the wires? Or does this come apart in some other way? It cannot be turning the box on the outside, because the armored cable prevents that.

Turn off the power to this circuit (hopefully you already thought of
that.)
Take off the cover of the box on the outside.
Take another picture, but it would be quite normal to find screws holding the box to the building as well as the conduit. Loosen or remove those screws, that may give you enough motion to do what you need to do.
If you resort to lubricants/penetrants, remove the wires first. Then use the petroleum products, then clean everything up before reinstalling the wires.