Can I join two switched circuits into one circuit? I have a circuit for the kitchen lights w/two 3-way switches.

I also have a circuit for the adjoining room w/three 4-way switches.

Is there any way to safely join the two circuits and just use perhaps three 4-way switches that control all the lights without a big overhaul of the wiring?

Both circuits I believe are on their own 20amp breakers.

All lights are being replaced with low wattage LEDs if that makes any difference.

There are too many unknowns here for us to help you out. We don't know which switches you intend to use afterwards (locations), what access you have to joining the circuits together, or what the possibilities of joining them would be without knowing of your personal setup.

Your setup, roughly as described to us is...

<--- S --- S --- Kitchen Lights

<--- S --- S --- S --- Adjoining Room Lights

The arrows (<---) would be your final wire running back to the source. The (S)s are your switches. And the (---) are wires between each. Now, this doesn't have to be physically wired in this setup nor does it have to be the only load on the circuit (no outlets or anything else?), but it would be how things are internally wired to control the lights. So no matter where the power actually comes in or where the switches are located in relation to the lights, this will be how the connections are made.

Then, if there is nothing else being fed from the kitchen circuit and you're intending to use only the 'adjoining room switches', you could simply disconnect and remove the breaker, wiring, and switches feeding the kitchen lights. Find the first light in the kitchen in sequence that receives power from the switch and add a wire between it and the power feeding the 'adjoining room' lights. The easiest way would be if you can get above the lighting, such as up in your attic, but where ever is accessible will work. Reconnect the hots, neutrals, and grounds and you should not be able to control all of the lights from those three switches. Your new layout would look like...

<--- S --- S --- S --- Adjoining Room Lights --- Kitchen Lights

However, again, this goes off of the assumption that you're fine with controlling them all from just the adjoining room location. If you're hoping to split the switches up between the kitchen and that room; then it'll all come down to how everything is currently wired, which switches you want to use and which to remove, and what wires are ran between each and from where. To get a complete answer, we would need a lot of information. However, a licensed electrician would be able to figure this all out on his own and get the job done for you.

Lastly, as I've had to mention recently in another post, four way switches are only used between two three way switches. You might have a four way switch setup in the adjoining room, but that does not mean that all three switches are four ways - two are three ways and only one would be a four way.


Occupancy sensor immediately off after on I attempted to install a Lutron 2 AMP occupancy sensor this weekend, replacing a simple single-pole switch.

Installation seemed to be straightforward enough. However, when the time came to test it, it exhibited a funny symptom. About 9 out of 10 times it detected motion and tried to turn on the lights, the lights would be on for a split of a second, and then went off. Very occasionally, the lights would turn on and stay on, functioning normally.

I suspected the switch might require a minimum wattage - I was using 4 LED bulbs, but after changing to 4 incandescent bulbs, the issue still remained.

This sensor requires a ground wire, which is used to power the standby circuit.  I made sure grounding worked. It did. In fact, the sensor wouldn't even function without the ground wire connected.

I then tested the switch on a different location, also replacing a single-pole switch. The configuration of wires was identical to the previous location. This time, the lights wouldn't even turn on at all.

I thought I must have broken the sensor, but I tested it again at the first location to be sure. It's not broken (at least not completely), and still exhibited the "immediately off after turning the lights on" issue at the first location.

I am stumped. Was it likely that I got a bad unit? Or is the problem the quality of grounding ("weak ground")? Any advice/suggestion is appreciated!

The first step is to read through the user's guide, and make sure it's not in a "test" mode. If after reading the manual it still wasn't working, I'd exchange it for a different unit.

If the new unit didn't work, I'd either try a different brand/model, or forget about using an occupancy sensor.


Main Floors uneven after attic conversion We hired a contractor to convert our attic into living space.  Long story, short...he was a nightmare and left with out doing any of the finish.  Now, the floor joists on the first floor are raising causing the hardwood floors to be like a roller coaster.  The first floor is over an unfinished basement.  The house is 41 years old, and until this was a beautiful example of quality craftsmanship.  Thank you for any help!
Ps...as of 2 days later, the crown molding on the first floor is pulling away from the ceiling, showing a 1/2” gap.

Humidity swells boards.

When this happened to us it was because of humidity.  It was mostly around the air conditioner ducts, where the cold air caused condensation.  The boards heaved right up because they swelled with water.  There was mold too.

Our problems were 1: opening windows at night in the summer. 2:  drying clothes on a line indoors. 3: running the fan all the time.

Tying your issues to the attic conversion - if you were losing humidity thru the attic and your attic renovator installed something new that prevented the loss of humidity you had before, then your house might be more humid.  The humidity is swelling and buckling the wood.  Or humidity might be unrelated to attic project.

Once we fixed the humidity most of the wood went back down.  I set heavy stuff on some to press it into place but we needed a guy to come remove and shorten some boards that were now too long to go back in place.


Help me understand this basic Pool & Spa Combination plumbing diagram? The below diagram is from http://www.poolcenter.com/plumbingSchematics and is described as follows:

  Basic Pool & Spa Combination Plumbing Diagram

  4 Jandy 3 way valves
  1 Jandy 2 way valve
  1 Jandy Check valve
  2 Jandy Valve Actuators

  Common pool plumbing layout for the pool/ spa combo design with shared
  pool & spa heater and controller.

My question is:

What is the purpose of the horizontal connection from the Spa Return to the Pool Return via the 3 way valve?

There is already a route via the Spa Make-up and Check Valve to the return.

If you wanted to configure the system to pump to "spa only"... you'd want everything going through  the Check Valve, right?

You wouldn't want leakage to the Pool Return, and you wouldn't want water going past the check valve?

My understanding, which is very limited, is that this setup would be for a Spa that's physically higher or at least fills higher than the pool. The actuator valve would only keep both bodies at a level height & equally heated.

But, with the actuator valve's Spa return closed, only then can the Spa overfill & even up to an overspill. Also, this setup would then allow for the Spa to be overheated or heated above the pool's temperature.


Any issue going from 3/8 to 1/2 copper Old house has lots of 3/8 water line feeding faucets.  I want to replace the shutoffs under the sink but really hard to find 3/8 sweat valves.  I don't want to use compression on the copper line.   Can I use a reducer fitting to increase to 1/2 line then use a 1/2 sweat valve? Dont want to run all new 1/2 line up there.

Not too hard to find the product that you need without having to resort to adapter fittings. See picture source link.

Picture Source


How can I find joists in my heavily-textured garage ceiling? I would like to install ceiling shelves in my garage. However I have a textured ceiling - it's not acoustical texture - more or less it looks like a wavy ceiling. It is also very thick so its nearly impossible to find a seam.

I had done research on this and a couple of ideas were- get a piece of cardboard and run your stud finder along the cardboard - the other idea is drill small holes in ceiling til you hit a stud- and lastly is to measure 16" from one side of the wall to the other. Has anyone ever tried any of these and what worked best for you?

Studfinders should work fine regardless of texture. Most have a deep scan mode for such situations, but I'd be surprised if that's even necessary.

If that's really not working, look for clues. Your overhead door is probably suspended from ceiling joists. You may have an outlet or light boxes attached to them as well. You may find nails in exterior fascia indicating rafter tail location.

Most modern truss systems are 24" on center. Older hand-framed roofs are likely 16" on center. Once you find one you should have them all.


Can I place a receptacle entirely inside a box and close it up? There is a metal junction box sticking up 6" out of the ground mounted to the top of a piece of conduit. There is a rubber gasket and metal cover screwed to the box. Inside the box is simply six wires, 2 black, 2 white, 2 ground, each pair wire nutted together. I want to connect a 120V 15A receptacle to the wires, put the entire receptacle inside the box, and close the lid, making sure no screws can be shorted. Is this acceptable?

That is called a bell box and yes you can add a receptacle to it if not on a GFCI circuit you could use a WR rated GFCI with a extra duty or in use cover and this would be code compliant. And yes it needs to also be tamper resistant. I use these boxes as junction boxes all the time with a blank cover but when adding the receptacle a special cover is required to keep the rain off or out of the receptacle.


Bad spackle job on wallpaper My kitchen (late 90's contruction) has wallpaper that was glued to wallboard.  I know this because all homes in my neighborhood have had same and I learned this when I had a bathroom remodeled.   The bathroom, I had all the wallpaper removed, areas were spackled/sanded/ painted and is perfect.  Since the bathroom  was done several years ago and is perfect but was  expensive for the small area, I knew  as large as the kitchen is I  needed to check see my other options.   Two months ago I hired painters to paint my home  interior and to paint over the wallpaper.  I was told they would tear any lose areas, spackle the torn areas , and  spackle the seams.    They applied kilz and  2 coats of paint.   Once the work was completed, there are large areas where the spackle was not smoothed and the areas are  very visible. Several seams have areas  that were  not been spackled.  I called the owner of the company, he came to the house  and  said they don't do drywall (which is odd since their invoices also mention wall board and the fact they took the job saying they could do it).   I am at a loss with messed up kitchen walls and will be out even more expense to get it fixed.   The only thing the owner offered to do is to repaint once I have the dry wall repaired.  At this point I am not sure what is my best course for repair- I am concerned with the wallpaper on wallboard, the spackle, the kilz, and 2 coats of paint what will happen if someone says they can sand the areas and repaint.   Any input regarding this will be greatly appreciated.

"they would tear any lose areas, spackle the torn areas , and spackle the seams". Sadly, this never works. The fact that there are loose areas means that more can appear at any time. The painters should have done whatever was necessary to remove the wallpaper. Instead, they compounded the problem. The easiest solution and probably the least expensive would be to add new drywall over the entire wall. Good luck.


Garage Door Won't Close, Reverts near bottom, Why? Background:
Our doors are made out of wood. They are extremely heavy and around 30+ years old.

Recently we notice our 3rd garage door stopping near the bottom of the track when closing and reverting back up.

The only way to keep the garage from reverting back up everytime, is to manually guide the garage door from by hand and apply a bit of pressure so that it doesn't trigger the door to stop and reverse.

We don't have any sensors on our doors. One thing I did also notice is that our spring is completely rusted out.

Couple of videos of what's happening when it's opening and closing.

https://streamable.com/mv8yd

https://streamable.com/2xsf3

Garage motors have a torque sensor to minimise the crushing risk. this means that if the motor is under too much load, it will automatically stop.  My guess is that your track is bent, or dirty and is creating too much friction for the motor.

you can test the opening and closing force by releasing the motor (pulling the wire to bypass the motor) and manually opening and closing the garage door. (do you see that its difficult to open at any point?)

the solution is to clean the tracks with a cloth and apply some grease... now garage vendors dont like you greasing your own track, so check your warantee first... but you will be amazed what a good greasing will do to the tracks...

regarding the type of grease to use, i would check with the motor manufacturer, the reason they dont like it is becuase grease can attract dust if you are in a dusty area, typically I simply apply a petrolium based grease on a clean track and 99% of the time the problem goes away.


Can't replace hardwood floors, what are my options? My house was built in 1929 and still has the original hardwood floors. And now some 85 years later they are in terrible shape. They squeak like crazy, many boards are broken and splintered, there are gaps, they are uneven, and there are several places where someone put many nails into it (I assume to try and stop the squeaks).

Refinishing the existing floor is a daunting prospect due to extensive damage, a significant percentage of the boards would need to be replaced.

Making things complicated though is there is no subfloor and all interior walls sit on the hardwood. So the floor was nailed directly to the floor joists, and then all interior walls were put up, I can't even imagine how you would get that floor up and out for under the walls that are nailed through it.

So what can I do? Wall-to-wall carpeting would be the easiest solution, though I'm not crazy about an entire house of carpeting. Is the only other option laminate assuming I can get the floors to be level? Or can I just treat the existing floor as a subfloor and do what I like once I get it level?

Yes you can use the existing floor as a subfloor, but I humbly submit, that the brittle cement based self leveling underlayment would not do well sandwiched between two wood surfaces, and a slew of fasteners driven through it. I seems to me the vibration, the fastener shooting through the cement would start cracking up the poured underlayment. I believe it is done a lot as a standard operating procedure, so it is accepted. I would not want a bunch of cement chips holding up my floor. But once it is done, it is always out of sight, out of mind, I guess has been the norm too. I am not trying to slam anybody out there, I see that the accepted "norms" are changing. If I am wrong please say so.

If your floor is under the interior walls and most of the damage is in the middle of the rooms where all the foot traffic has been, and you know your existing floor is 3/4", I would cut out the sections of damaged floor and leave the existing intact flooring, as much as possible, to pass under the walls. Wall supported by joists (perpendicular) are not as critical, you can remove the flooring as close to the wall as you like. It's the flooring where the walls are supported in the direction with the joists. Keep the existing flooring intact for at least two joist spans and cut out the rest, replacing it with 3/4" CDX for 16" centers or 3/4" T&G for 24" centers. You could use T&G for all of too if you like. If your existing flooring is 7/8" or 1" thick, add an appropriate shim on the joists before you lay the new subfloor. Where the plywood meets the second joist back from the parallel wall, at minimum, add a 2X4 nailer,  slightly elevated to make the new and old surfaces flush. Glue the nailer in place, using screws or nails to hold it until the glue sets.

Using an adaptation of this process, you can even flatten the floors a bit while the damaged floor is up, you could sister the existing joists with 2X4's to eliminate the sag that the existing joists have created over their years of service. You will not need to add the shims then, just raise the sistered joists high enough to make up the difference in the thicknesses as well as creating a new flat surface. A scrap of 3/4" plywood will set the ends right, and a string line through the middle, raised slightly above the nailers at the ends will get the center of the room flat. There is a little more to it, but I am trying to keep from writing a novel. This should get you going in the right direction.


Installing baseboards I'm putting in baseboards in my kid's bedroom and have only been able to find the profile I want in MDF. I would prefer wood as I understand it is more durable. I've gotten conflicting information re MDF prep and want to make sure it is done right the first time.

We live on the West Coast. What is the proper prep? Do we need to seal the ends of the boards and prime back of boards? Is using MDF apt to be a problem?

MDF isn't a terrible choice since it's cheap, easy to work with, and dimensionally stable, but it will be ruined if a decent amount of moisture ever penetrates into it, and the glue used to bind the wood particles together is full of formaldehyde, which is a known carcinogen. Wear a respirator while you're cutting it. If this stuff is for a kid's room, definitely prime all sides after cutting to seal as much of the formaldehyde inside, and maybe even leave the cut, un-primed boards in a ventilated area of the garage for a few weeks or months to let it do most of its off-gassing there rather than inside the house.


How can I paint over a ceiling after there's been a leak? We had a leak in our upstairs bathroom, about 2 weeks after we had a new ceiling put up and painted in the room below. It wasn't a major leak, but it caused quite a wide line to show up on the ceiling.

I've painted over the line 3 times now, but it just keeps reappearing, is there anything I can do to stop the water mark from showing up?

Stains will usually come right through a new coat of paint.

Did you prime it first?  In my experience I've found that a good oil (or even better, shellac) based primer works best for keeping stains from bleeding through the paint.


Separating 2 Light Switches (1 is a 3 way) Hardwired Together I have 2 light switches (in one box) in my laundry room. The one switch is a 3 way which operates the light in my garage (just behind the laundry room). There is only 1 switch to the laundry room.  I want to replace the switch to my laundry room with a sensor light switch as this is the entry from the garage and we always have to feel along the laundry room wall in the dark to find the switch.

When I pulled out the switches, it seems as though there is a hardwired wire connecting both switches. I assume this is used to get the power source to the single switch from the 3 way switch.  However I don't know what to do to separate these. Please help!

The 3 way switch on the left is hooked up right and the back stab on the back of it provides power to the switch on the right and then continues on somewhere else.. It looks like the switch on the right is a 3 way and is wired for single action. You want to get rid of the backstab on the left switch by pigtailing it to the wire under the black screw and to a small piece of #12 awg then to the switch. Your new switch "line" will be the wire pigtailed from the 3 way switch which fed your old switch and the "load" will be the other wire from the old switch. If you need a neutral for your new switch, connect it to the white wires under the blue wire nut. If there is a ground wire on your new switch connect it to one of the screws on the back of the box.


Split Bus Electric Panel Question New here! I am DIYER who rehabs homes and rents them.

I’ve worked with a few panels but never came across one like this, which seems like a split bus panel.

It seems I didn’t adhere to the 6 breaker rule, I believe that’s what it is called and added some of my lighting and outlets on the first 6 spaces.

I guess my question would be should I remove those 4 breakers and place them below the red circled double pole breaker? I imagine that breaker will activate or deactivate any power below it, but not above it.

Also, if I were to use the the first 6 slots, what are they exactly used for and is there anyway to kill the power to those slots without having the meter pulled?

Thanks!!

The origin of Split-Bus panels

So, think 1920.  Lighting is the "killer app" that is making everyone electrify their homes.  Plug-in appliances are still coming along, but by and large 30A is plenty for most people just doing lighting and the few plug-in appliances of the day, with 60A for those with a big electric appliance.

Now, think 1950.  Postwar, they're building houses like crazy, and they have new-fangled "all electric" appliances - electric ranges, electric dryers, electric water heaters - some houses even have electric heat!  And why not? Nuclear fission plants are in the pipeline, and just around the corner is nuclear fusion -- clean, safe and too cheap to meter. The old 30A service (for mainly lights) or 60A service (for lights and maybe one big electric appliance) just doesn't cut it anymore.

The problem is, service equipment hasn't been keeping pace. Miniature circuit breakers exist, but the design mentality is still stuck in 1920 - with 60A being the largest main breaker that's really made in any production.  And these new homes need at least 100A, and 100A main breakers are nosebleed-expensive industrial tier products.

"Well", say builders.  "How about if we split the main breaker function to several several affordable main breakers?  You have to throw them all to de-energize the house.  Figuring on electric range, dryer, water heater, A/C, and a fifth to feed an internal 'subpanel' for traditional 'lighting' and recep loads". And the panel builders said "It needs to be an even number."  And NFPA said "alright, six it is.  You must be able to turn the power off with 6 hand movements".  Which also happens to be a rule in industrial power.

And so they built in the panel with a "built-in subpanel" for "lighting" (read: normal 120/240V loads).

So the top 12 spaces, the "Rule of Six" area, are for major (electrical) appliances that pull 240V.  Thus the 6 need 12 spaces.  You can put single-pole or even double-stuff breakers in there, but you won't be able to use all 12 spaces if you do.

Is the panel legal as pictured?

I count 1-2-3-4-5 throws.  Yes, you can do that and put 1 more breaker in the Rule of Six area.  However then you are done.  You may find that stifling, so I recommend putting small loads in the subpanel area.

It also remains that Rule of Six/split-bus panels are scary dangerous, because if  you have 50A range + 30A AC + 30A water + 30A dryer + 60A for the lighting section + a 100A breaker to the Tesla charger, you may notice that's 300A of "main breakers" on a 125A service.  As houses power more stuff, you have a higher chance of blowing right past the safety limits on the panel - and nothing catches this on a split-bus panel!

Meanwhile 100A and larger breakers have come down massively in price.   So I like to see Rule of Six panels converted into "Rule of One" panels one of several ways:

Given that exterior disconnects are Code requirements in 2020, fit an exterior main breaker and put the Rule of Six panel downstream of it.  Now it's just another panel, and you can continue it in service forever. (and your CH panel is excellent and you have every reason to do so).
Fit a single breaker into the Rule of Six area, and have that power a new subpanel.  Now you have a single breaker shutoff.


What kind of screw should I use to mount an electrical box inside a cabinet? What type and size of screw should I use to mount a 4”x4” metal electrical box to the back of the under the sink cabinet?

For box mounting I use 2 #8 pan/ washer head screws. All the ones I have seen are Phillips or square drive #2, but there may be straight. Inspectors like the square head #2 because usually only electricians use these so it can help you pass inspection. At least 3/4” but 1” is the max I normally buy because the next size is usually 1.5” and that’s too long, especially if no drywall (don’t want to drive a screw through a cable).


How can I determine the date of manufacture of drywall? How to determine the date of manufacturer of drywall prior to 2005?

Usually the year the house was built is a good way to start, but if the drywall was added as a renovation, the date stamp is on the back side of the sheets. If you can get access, say in an attic space and move insulation if needed will get you there. If the back is not accessible at all, then removal of a big enough piece will show you that. Mind you, the date stamp is not all over the place, it will only be along one edge or perhaps even in the middle.
There are other ways to get an idea how old it may be if you can determine if other work was done at the same time, for example, doors made in a big facility will have a date stamp on the top or bottom of the leaf, IF it hasn't been cut off or painted over.

I am going to hazard a guess you want to know because of asbestos?
FWIW, I hear that sheetrock produced in Canada still has asbestos in it since it was just banned in recent years. Just like in the States when it was banned in the late 70's they allowed it to be sold until the early 80's so the stock piles would get sold. How's that for the power of marketing and capitalism.

About the Canadian source, none of this is substantiated, it is something I heard of in passing since I am now in the Northwest and happen to be in the construction trade.


TV wall mount ripped out, repair help please I've had my 50" TV on a heavy articulated mount on the wall for 3 months. the other day i angled it to watch from the dining table like always and the top two 1/4" toggle bolts ripped out of the wall. Then the lower 2. No damage to the TV, just my wrists.

The cheapest drywall I have ever seen. The TV was not mounted into studs( I know I know...but it hung for a year in my last place not in studs either...).

Now, because I have holes in which to look into, I can see the studs. They are metal, about an inch and a half wide and I have drilled 2 new holes in them. BUT, the studs are 23 inches apart, not 16 as usual and so the mount isn't wide enough to ensure all 4 holes can be drilled through metal studs.

The problem now is that the 2 holes on the left side are drilled above the spots where the drywall was ripped out with a chunk missing(now patched)from each hole. What kind of support can I expect from these 2 holes? The new holes are about 5 inches up from the ripped out holes.The guy at Lowes says that 90% of the weight will be supported by the 2 studs in the metal studs. TRUE? So can I assume that the 2 holes on the left side won't tear out like their predecessors did?

My only other option would be to drill through the other side into the bedroom and place a piece of plywood there hoping that that would suffice. But I really don't want to do this. Should I risk mounting assuming that two toggles in a metal stud will hold?

Personally, I'd lean toward installing something rigid (wood/plywood/metal) that bridges between the studs and installing the TV on that, so the weight is going to the studs on both sides. Depending on your skill level and what you're placing around it, that could be a simple pair of one-bys painted to match the wall, or a nicely finished piece of plywood with picture-frame trim around the outside edge, or a fancy cabinet with tambour doors or...


A/C blower stays on all the time but heat and cold work when thermostat sends signal; how to fix? There are 2 hot lines (white wire that goes to heating contact & Blue wire that goes to furnace limit switch & both of those are hooked on same side as wire coming from main power wires) that make it run.

I can pull the other 4 wires off, and those 2 still have it running when thermostat has everything off. The A/C unit is a Westinghouse packaged air conditioner (meaning all of the A/C components are in the outside unit).

How can I fix this?

What happens when you disconnect the G thermostat wire at the unit?  If your problem goes away the problem is either the thermostat or the wires. If it goes away reconnect the wire and disconnect the G wire at the thermostat. If the problem comes back it is in the wire if it stays fixed it is in the thermostat. If neither works it is in the package unit. Some units run the fan to alert you to a problem but usually that is all that will work. Older units may have a separate blower relay but most newer ones will have the relay in the circuit board. You didn’t say if this has always happened or if it just started. If it has always been that way the motor may have been directly wired to line voltage. Maybe the relay broke and they didn’t want to replace the circuit board? Or maybe someone just wanted continuous fan.


Why do these outlets appear to be "hot"? Using an analog voltmeter, with the fuse removed at the subpanel and no voltage indicated across the 2 wires of the outlet (1928-era ungrounded outlets in the US), several outlets showed exactly 120 volts from EITHER wire to a ground. Is something wrong? They function normally.

If you only disconnected the neutral, it would explain why both wires show 120V. Any load anywhere in the circuit, even the miniscule vampire load of a GFCI, would "pull up" the neutral to 120V. That is normal and will happen in any circuit where neutral is interrupted.

Is that safe?  Yes - in a system built to modern code.  Neutral and ground are isolated from each other everywhere except the main panel. (And that's why.) Neutral from circuit 1 isn't cross-connected to circuit 2 (which could overload circuit 2's neutral if it were).

Of course old work can have a variety of defects. In modern work, there's one place in particular where neutral floating to 120V would be a problem, and that's in NEMA 10 outlets for stoves or dryers, because they treat neutral as ground and put neutral on the metal frame of the appliance.


Could water temperature fluctuations be caused by new plumbing? I'm having a new bathroom installed. I hired a plumber to do all the water works. He ran all the lines; he is now waiting on sink and toilet to arrive to finish installation. Since he ran new line, we have noticed that the temperature of the water in our current shower fluctuates randomly. We've noticed the same with the water in the kitchen sink.

Is this a symptom of the new plumbing? Can we expect it to clear up after the new plumbing is completed?

The Most common cause of this when there are renovations is cross connection of the hot and cold lines, this can be caused by

The shower/bath (or other similar fixtures with a breaching piece) are capped with wall caps (or spindles that don't have a washer in them) and the water can circulate between the hot and cold pipes.
The "stubs" under the sink are connected via a pipe externally till the plumber comes back.
The Plumber has cross connected the pipes in the wall (Damn!)


Prevent Portable AC from tripping breaker I live on the top floor of an apartment in Southern California and it doesn't have central AC. I have a portable unit (11.4 amp, 115 V, 1310 W, 60 Hz) and it keeps tripping my breaker. I don't have access to the breaker box (I think they are in the basement), so I have to call emergency maintenance to fix it (it's always tripped after hours).

My apartment manager is so terrible that I would be better off without her. I can't ever reach her in person or via phone. I leave messages and she never returns them. I submit work orders and they are never completed. The only success I've had is contacting tenant relations with the management company.

They are dragging their feet on fixing this issue and I am staying on their case because I believe that this is a safety issue. Not su much because I NEED AC, but because it shouldn't be tripping. The only thing on this circuit is the AC unit and... I really doubt that they have me on 10 amp breakers, especially given that I have a fridge.

Anyway, the reason for this back story is I want to know if there is a way to shut off the power at the outlet. Is there a device that would go between the plug of the AC unit and the outlet that could cut off the unit if it draws more than a specified amount of electricity? I really don't want to push things too far with management and make an enemy of the property manager, but I also want AC.

Also worth noting, I've plugged my 10 amp vacuum into the outlet and it hasn't shorted. I don't know if I have anything more demanding than 10 amp, other than the fridge.

A gadget that shuts power off at the outlet before it hits 15A load, is not really the solution for your problem.  For instance a healthy air conditioner will ordinarily spike above 15A, but return to spec limits soon enough.

The real problem is elsewhere.  Either

Your air conditioner has a problem, and is drawing more than it's supposed to.  This often happens to air conditioners that are near their end-of-life, i.e. that have a slow leak.  In any case, 11.4 amps is a lot for a window air conditioner, I suspect a new, efficient one may pay its cost in electricity savings.
There are other loads on that circuit that you aren't telling us about, or that you don't know about.

For the first one, you can test with a common power meter such as a $20 "Kill-a-watt".  Don't sweat a momentary startup spike, watch for continuous loads higher than advertised.  If you see that, window air conditioners are generally not repairable (or worth repairing) and it's better to upgrade to a modern, efficient one anyway.  For the same amount of cooling, look at BTU, not watts or amps.


How do I install a relay receiver? I have a string of lights above a tv that are controlled by a switch. But, the switch also controls a few other things. I cannot leave the switch in the on position as I do not want the lights on all the time but I would like outlets to continuously run. I bought a relay receiver and it seems pretty straight forward. I just want to establish the how to.

The "how to" is you send that rubbish back to the dark place.  It is not safe nor legal, and doesn't even fit our wiring.  You bought it in a way that circumvented the systems that assure quality, safe products in the consumer retail stream.  Don't do that with electrical gear.

Then you buy any of a wide variety of products which do that same function, work with standard radio interfaces, but much more importantly, standard plugs and sockets so you can hook them up without creating an unsafe condition.  And most importantly of all, these products follow our safety standards and have a proper UL or ETL listing (third party testing proving it).

Those include smart bulbs, smart bulb sockets which piggyback onto an Edison base, smart outlet modules that plug into a standard socket and give you a controlled socket, etc.  There's no shortage of these products.  Your local big-box stores has pages and pages of them on their website.


Energy Star LED bulb benefits? On the Energy Star website, I see the claim:

  ENERGY STAR Qualified LED Lighting:

  Reduces energy costs — uses at least 75% less energy than incandescent lighting, saving on operating expenses.

After a cursory search for lightbulbs on Home Depot's website, I see this Energy Star lightbulb, which is a "100W" bulb using 15.5W and produces 1700 lumens (106 lm/w), and I see this non-Energy Star lightbulb, which is a "100W" bulb that uses 14W and produces 1521 lumens (108 lm/w). So at the very least, it doesn't seem like Energy Star lighting would reduce energy costs compared to non-Energy Star lighting.

Are there any actual energy efficiency or environmental friendliness benefits to using Energy Star lightbulbs, or is it just a marketing campaign? (Ignore convenience, warranty, durability, etc.)

The first problem here is the "100W" claim, which you here treat as the reference standard from which to compare.  Actually, it's the most dubious claim of the bunch, and has never been reliable.  I suspect it's a common mistake for people to fixate on the "100W" number since it's a unit they're familiar with, and that's why manufacturers toss it on the box.  It's time to get familiar with lumens.  Seriously.

I went ahead and edited into your question their claimed lumens in italics.  You can now see how different they are, in fact.  Even the prices fall more in line once you are looking at lumens per dollar.

Now that you see lm/w numbers, you can see where Energy Star doesn't mean a whole lot when everything blows the doors off the mandated efficiency numbers, even no-name house-brands that took a ride on a slow boat.

The bigger issue is life-cycle quality. A lot of consumers have market blindness. If it's marketed aggressively at their favorite discount big-box, people perceive them as quality simply because they are plentiful.  Nothing could be farther than the truth.

A big factor is losing brightness over time. The raw LED emitter business is dominated by 5 or 6 large companies who aggressively cross-license the technologies to make LEDs last a long time. More on that in this SE answer.  It's about who makes the internal LED emitter chips, and less whose name is on the consumer product.  (though obviously a Cree lamp will have Cree emitters, a Philips lamp Philips emitters etc.)  You can look for blogs and Youtubes where electronics geeks do teardowns of the various brands.

The other factor is the quality of the electronic driver circuit - and cost is everything here.  When the driver fails, the LED goes dark entirely.  Well-marketed products are built to a price point - and that means cutting corners in the driver, where failures will not emerge for 1-5 years, after the warranty has run.  And people get hoodwinked by what's probably a house brand "Euri" (did not check the Japanese meaning, clearly).


What to do about different rooms in the house being a completely different temperature? I moved into a 30 year old home last December.  There is a problem with the HVAC.

I have included a very crude drawing of the floor plan

The problem is that I can't maintain a comfortable temperature in the different rooms of the house.  I don't really care about the basement because I seldom use it.  The thermostat is located in the great room.  It is not in direct sunlight.

Suppose for the sake of discussion that I want the temperature to be 70 degrees.

Suppose that it's cold outside and I set my thermostat to 70 degrees.  The great room, kitchen will be about 70 degrees.  The bathroom will be warmer.  The den will feel about 65.  The upstairs will be about 75 or so, and I can break a sweat.

It gets late at night and the bedrooms upstairs are too hot, so I turn the thermostat down to 65 to compensate.  The air-conditioner kicks on and the temperature in the bedrooms is now about 70 (which is what I wanted), but it gets very cold downstairs.

When it is warm outside, I still have the problem that it is much warmer upstairs than downstairs.

Why does it seem impossible to maintain a comfortable temperature throughout the house?  What do I need to do in order to maintain the same comfortable temperature in all the rooms?

It's a balancing problem, fairly typical for a one-zone heating system spanning an entire house.

Mind you, I'm a bit concerned with a setup that kicks on the A/C in heating season - being from a primarily heating climate, we typically have a "winter/summer" or "heating/off/cooling" mode switch either on the system/boiler/furnace or on the thermostat to prevent that sort of foolishness. If it's REALLY so hot in winter or cold in in summer that we want to change the mode, WE choose to change the mode, rather than leaving it up to a machine to decide.

Presumably you have forced air heat, since the same system is cooling. One approach to improve balance is to run the fan more to distribute air around the house and balance temperatures even when heat is not being delivered. A more basic step is adjusting the airflow to different parts of the system for heat delivery that more closely keeps things even - but if the same system is cooling this may be difficult to get balanced in a manner that works well for both, since heat rises and cold air sinks, left to itself.

The system may be oversized (so it quickly heats or cools the location of the thermostat, and then shuts off the fan, rather than running a large percentage of the time when it's cold out), but all systems are prone to being somewhat oversized much of the year in order to be large enough to heat on the coldest days and cool on the warmest days.

A good HVAC professional may well be worth talking to in order to tune your system as best it can be tuned. Moving to continuous circulation (perhaps at a lower fan speed) seems like it might be needed in this house to reduce stratification, at a guess. The only major downside if your system is not too noisy will be the electric bill for running the fan.

As a quick stopgap, examine your thermostat to see if it has a "fan" switch, typically with two positions - Auto (blows only to heat/cool) and "on" or "Continuous" - if the switch exists and is wired correctly, that should put the fan in continuous circulation mode - but you may want to alter the system to make that quieter and/or more efficient with a lower speed or even an entirely different fan/blower. And it may still need to be balanced to work better.


Does arcing occur if nothing is plugged into the outlet? Lets say you've installed a new wall outlet, and the hot or neutral, or both wires, inside the outlet are loosely connected.
Will arcing occur all the time, or only when an appliance is plugged in?

Arcing - electrical current flowing across an air gap - only occurs when there's an electrical potential - a voltage - between the material on either side of the gap.
You can get arcing in loose electrical connections, such as between the wire loop and the screw terminal on a receptacle.  This is considered a series arc - the gap is in series with the circuit.
A series arc will only occur in your example when there's a potential between the screw and the wire.  There is only a potential present if there's a load on the circuit - when something's turned on and running.
A parallel arc could occur when there's nothing plugged in.  If there was weak contact or near-contact between hot and neutral in the box that would create a parallel arc.  That can happen with a skinned hot wire touching the metal box, for example.  (If the contact is reasonably solid, there would be no air gap, and it will create a dead short, which should trip the breaker or blow the fuse quickly.)


Possible Leak In Concrete I recently noticed that our outside wall has a wet looking spot around the faucet.

I tried looking in the wall at the pipe (from the unfinished basement), but

I couldn’t see very far because the hole is small (maybe could see an inch into the wall) and
I couldn’t see any condensation from what I could see.

Is there anyway to easily diagnose if there is a leak? There is a little bit of clearance around the pipe hole, but not much.

I have seen copper pipe have small pin holes on several occasions. If your pipe is copper and in contact with the cement this may be the cause. The only way to repair is to replace that section of pipe. When I do this kind of repair I make sure to use thick wall copper because it will last longer than thinwall.


Bevelling skirting boards to match architraves Have an issue and looking at skirting boards which are 18mm thick (wife wants the tall 138mm ones which come thicker unless get them custom made which is more than double the price) but architrave is 11mm. Not overly keen on replacing all the architraves. Has anyone ever bevelled the edges of the skirting board? Any examples of what it looks like?
Thanks.

I did this with my Philadelphia home. Below is the best picture I could find.  It's near impossible to tell from the picture (and this is not the most flattering angle), but the baseboard is thicker than the side case molding.  I simply beveled it to even with the casing at about a 45 degree angle with a block plane.  I did not use shoe molding; instead opting to scribe the baseboard to the floor.  The bevel actually helped the install look more detailed and "craftsman-like", in my opinion.

By the way, just in case it needs to be said: You will need to use real solid wood to do this.


Outlets are hot but nothing turns on Last night power in living room went out. Flipped all breakers and bought a gk7 voltage detector. Outlets and breakers show hot but nothing plugged up comes on...?

The non-contact tester isn't telling you the whole story

A circuit requires 2 functioning wires. One of them is "hot" which you are familiar with. However power has to return to complete the loop.  This is very often done with "neutral", and neutral is so near ground that it won't register with a non-contact tester.  Normally.

However, if hot is working and the socket is not, there's a good chance neutral is broken.  You can use the non-contact tester to find it.

You need a load you can plug in that is definitely turned on.  Something very simple like a heater or an incandescent light.  You plug that into the problem socket.  Now, anywhere past the neutral break, the neutral will test out as "hot".  When you find the first outlet where this is true, check it.  Also check the last "good" outlet before this point.


Motion detector switch affected by heater? We have a 35X50 shop that was recently built and it is lit with LED lights in the ceiling controlled by a motion sensor switch on the wall by one of the man doors. The switch is not close to the heater, which is hung off the 20 ft ceiling.
The shop is fully insulated and is heated by a Calcana infrared natural gas heater (love that heater). During extremely cold weather, we will notice that the lights are on in the shop when there is absolutely nothing in the shop that would be creating motion of any kind. My assumption has always been that the sensor is somehow being impacted by the heater when it cycles on during cold weather. Can motion switches be impacted by temperature changes created by the heater? Maybe just an adjustment to the sensitivity needed?

Absolutely!  Most motion sensors are IR (infrared) detectors and they can "see" heated air as it moves.  If it moves fast enough it may trick the sensor into thinking that it's a human vs. just heated air.  In your case the heater may be hitting the sensor directly with its IR output.

Try redirecting your sensor so that it doesn't pick up heated air output from the heater and can't "see" into the output of the heater.

It may take some experimentation with aiming to find a good spot between ignoring the heater and detecting you.


Multi wire circuit or 2 separate 120V 20A dedicated circuits? I'm planning to purchase a portable indoor infrared sauna and locate it outdoors under my deck.  The sauna will require a dedicated 120V 20A outlet.  I'm wondering if it makes sense to install a multi-branched circuit rather than 2 separate circuits.  (I would like an additional outlet so won't have to unplug the sauna anytime I needed power for other applications). This would require a twin 20A breaker at the main panel and 12-3 wire run in the crawl space to the receptacle near the sauna. My thought was if I were to decide to convert to a 240V 40A outlet in the future (ie upgrade to a 240V outdoor sauna), then couldn't I still use the existing wiring and simply change the twin breaker to a double pole?

Since this outlet will be located on the exterior of the house, I'm assuming that the receptacle should be GFCI, is this correct?

Multi-wire branch circuits (MWBCs) must be on a 2-pole breaker, never ever a twin!  Measure between the two hots, that must always read 240V.  If it reads 0V, you are overloading the neutral.

What you want to do is easy enough, though.   Run yourself an 8/3 or 6/3 cable.  In the service panel, land it on a 20A 2-pole breaker.

At the other end, bring it into a large box such as a 4-11/16 square deep box at the location where you would want that outlet.   Then bring into that box your two 20A subcircuits, on 12 AWG wire.  All the whites get wirenutted together, then black #6/8 to one of the #12 blacks, and red to the other black.  Continue the #12 cables on to your outlet locations.

If you ever fit the sauna, you'll need to abandon the MWBC.  You can't put 15/20A receptacles on a 40A circuit unless you fit a subpanel here.  However if you think you might fit a subpanel, run #6 wire.  That will let you breaker for 60A, and a 60A-fed subpanel will easily support the sauna and the 20A circuits at once.


cold damp corner with a dry sump The corner of my living room (on split level) has drafts coming in via the bottom of the wall and a sump pump well (specifically, a plastic pipe that drains into it). The carpet is damp to the touch, and the carpet tacks are rusty, but there's no liquid water in the sump, even after heavy rain.

FWIW, the rain downpipe extends away a few feet from the house onto a slope (nevertheless, I'm thinking about digging a french drain outside in the spring).

What should I do to seal the corner (on a budget)? On the outside, is the air getting in through the brick? the siding? the porch? the ground? On the inside, is the sump actually doing anything useful? If not, would it be good or bad to cap it with airtight insulation?

To make long story short from what I see my best guess is that you have condensation issue. Most likely since your pump is in the corner there is somewhere thermal insulation missing and since you said that there is draft that means cold air is coming inside. Where from?.... I cannot be 100% sure. My money would be on the wall because most likely places where pipes are going through the wall aren’t insulated, but since you said that you are feeling draft is coming from the floor maybe something is happening over there. Anyway placing thermal insulation under the pump (best if possible) and on the places where there are pipes should fix your problem.


Is it a problem that my toilet flange is 3/8" below the surrounding tile? My tile setter had to elevate the tiles around the toilet hole in order to make up for some unevennesses.  As a result, the toilet flange is approx. 3/8" below the surrounding tile.  Can that be compensated for using extra wax ring or will it even be a problem at all?

A double wax ring will probably work but IMO the better option is a toilet flange extender.  It is just another flange ring that sits on top of the original flange to get it up to the correct height.  Then you install the wax ring and toilet as usual.

I don't have any experience with this particular kit but something like this Toilet Flange Extender Kit.


Pier foundation and water table issue I am in the process of building a small (14x14) log cabin in the woods on a pier foundation:

After marking the perimeter, I began excavating the soil and dug to below the frost line (36"). The plan is to have 18" above the soil and 3 feet below. The soil is a mix of sand and clay. When I returned the next day, the hole had filled with water:

To save money, I intended to make the piers out of 90% broken concrete chunks (urbanite), mixed with new concrete to hold the broken chunks in place. Now, I'm considering pouring bags of concrete in the hole until I get the right consistency, then plopping chunks in there until I fill the form.

Is this a bad idea? Is it a problem that my pier blocks will be perpetually exposed to water? Do I need to move the location of the cabin to some place higher?

Note that I intend this to be "off grid": no plumbing, no HVAC (other than a wood stove), and maybe electricity run off a generator.

Thanks in advance!

You have several issues: 1) Hold your building up, 2) keep your building stable (lateral stability) 3) freeze/thaw,

1) I would be careful to calculate the number of piers required to support such a heavy load as a log cabin. The piers have a small bearing area (perhaps as small as 12”x12”) and your load is tremendous.

The benefit of a continuous footing is that it can span over a soft spot if necessary. With a pier foundation, each pier had better be on stable soil.

2) Urbanite (reuse of old concrete) is not appropriate for structural foundations. Tossing a bunch of concrete chunks into a form is not going to give you any reliable strength. Concrete mixes have carefully proportioned amounts of materials. “Random” is not safe.

Concrete foundations resist various loads and you need to know what those loads are and provide the correct strength concrete.

Lateral loads are a major concern for your “elevated” house. You didn’t mention rebar. ANY lateral load would be resisted with carefully placed reinforcing steel. Dumping used concrete into the forms does not allow rebar to be located properly.

3) Of major concern is having chunks of old concrete exposed on the edges of the piers allowing water to penetrate the piers. Then, when it freezes the pier will be broken apart.


Adhesive for PVC-glass in a high temp situation I am making a steam condenser for my chemistry project, as our lab is not equipped with one. The materials I am working with are a 0.5 litre glass jar (was a honey jar) and some plastic pipe I bought from a hardware store (not sure about the material, but it is see through, and labile to heat). My plan is to have 4 holes in the jar's lid : Input/Output for the gas, and another I/O for the cooling water. The steam pipe will be arranged in a spiral on the inside, a small distance apart from the walls.

However, I am concerned about the adhesion, as it may come off under the high heat, and may be not be suited for plastic-plastic or glass-plastic-joints. Thus, I am looking for advice on which glue to use for this task. If the temp. goes above 110C, then the ethanol is on fire and giving me bigger problems.

Pipe Specs : Vinyl tubing, Inner diameter 7-8mm, Thickness 1mm
Jar Specs : Soda glass, Thickness 3-4mm, Outer is 8x8cm square with rounded corners, Height 15cm

Adhesives I currently have access to are Glue Gun Sticks, M-seal(Epoxy), Feviquick(not sure if it classifies as hot glue), and Crafting glue(Fevicol).
EDIT : I am open to product recommendations, but can only order them from Amazon and such.

Note :

I realize this may be too much information, but I can't reply back quickly so the more you know.
I also realize that this may not be right Stack Exchange site for projects like these, but I wanna talk adhesives and the site says DIY.

I think making a strong, lasting bond between glass and PVC is actually very difficult.  With the temperature changes, you need something that will be flexible / elastic enough to tolerate the uneven expansion of PVC and glass.  It will have to make a vapor tight seal that holds up under pressure, and stands up to the mechanical stress involved.  There may be specialty adhesives available for industrial use that would work, but it will not be easy to find.

I think you'll have more luck if you look for a fitting that makes a seal through the lid, with silicone gaskets / o rings you should be able to make a satisfactory lid, but it will be fragile, glass isn't ideal.  If you could find something with a lid that isn't glass, everything will get much easier.


Why is water leaking behind my new rain gutter? We had gutters installed by a contractor and we noticed water leaking from the back. The water appears to be rolling from the roof, over the roof apron, over the fascia, and then down the back of the gutter (see picture below). Most diagrams (see example below) I've seen online show that the gutter should have been installed under the roof apron, and the fascia should have been extended down to support the gutter. Is my understanding correct?

Lastly, they routed the downspout around some conduit on my house with 3 pieces of straight pieces (see picture below). Is there a better way to do this? This seems sloppy to me.

The problem is partly that your drip edge isn't dripping. It may have been pulled too tight when it was installed, causing it to lay too flat. It's not really a gutter problem. The fact that rainwater was running down the fascia was an issue that needed resolution anyway.

You can try to adjust your drip edge by flexing it downward, but it may be better to fit some flashing behind it that extends into the gutter. You can purchase suitable galvanized steel or aluminum from a home supply store and cut it to fit.

The downspout solution seems ok to me. The only bends available are much too large for that situation. It shouldn't be a problem at all unless there's a blockage.


How much less power does a three-phase air conditioning unit use than a one phase unit? I'm planning to install a 5 ton central AC. I'm deciding between a condensing unit that runs on 220V and a costlier unit that runs on 207Y three-phase.

My understanding is that three-phase motors use less power, and that this is their primary advantage. But no one seems to be able to tell me how much less power. Without knowing that, it's hard for me to make a decision.

I'm sure the answer is some form of "it depends," but can anyone give me a ballpark? Should I figure 10% less power consumption, or more like 50% less. Any guidance is greatly appreciated.

Also, the wikipedia article on three-phase power claims that three-phase motors vibrate less. Is this something I should care about? Will a three-phase motor therefore last longer than a single phase motor?

Think I'll chime in here and add my two cents to these other good answers.  There are two components to the original question:

How much less power does will the 3 phase A/C compressor unit use?
Longevity of three-phase motor versus single phase

Power
Motor Efficiency = Power Output / Power Input
It takes a certain amount of power to run the compressor regardless of single or three phase power... this is the power output.  The power input is what you are trying to minimize, thus you want to increase efficiency as much as possible.  The trouble is this metric (efficiency) is a hidden combination the components inside the compressor unit (compressor, fans).  It is not necessarily true (but it usually is true) that three phase is more efficient than single phase.
I would look at the SEER rating which 'automatically' includes the motor efficiency for a better indicator of "cost to cool".
Longevity and Reliability
Three-phase motors and compressors are generally more reliable than their single-phase couterparts.  But like anything else, there is more to it than that one attribute.  Using Philps' automotive engine example, a 4 cylinder Honda might be more reliable that that old smallblock V8.
Vibration
Certainly less in the three-phase motor.  And generally less vibration equals greater reliability.
Motor Starting
Three-phase motors have lots of starting torque and don't (typically) require any special circuitry to start (capacitors, centrifugal switches).  And of course fewer components means fewer things to go wrong.
Cost
Is disappointing that the three-phase equipment is more expensive.  Almost always, three-phase motors are actually cheaper than an equivalent single-phase motor.


When filling a hole with loose earth, should there be extra? I just want to know if what I'm being told is right, or am i getting bamboozled.

Following modifications to my house, I was left with a 8' x 8' x 6' hole on the side of my house.

Thing is they filled the hole, but added maybe half a feet extra on top (where we wanted it to be flush with the ground, to do a patio on top)

He then told us to just watet it down for hours at a time every few days, and it should fit in over a few weeks.

Is that right or did he just put us some extra dirt on top that we are gonna have to get to the city dump?

They should have compacted the fill in shallow layers to speed up the settlement, in which case settlement would be essentially done in maybe a year.
If they just filled the hole, that will take many years to fully settle, and there isn't much you can do from the surface now.

For loose fill, that's probably about the amount of soil you need for it to eventually be level and not leave a dish in the yard.

Unfortunately, you'll need to rethink your patio plans. If they didn't compact it in layers, anything you put there in the next many years will seriously settle and be a mess.


How do I connect my replacement 3-way switches? I was wanting to replace an older light switch in my place. It's part of a pair of switches that turn on/off a the same light. One at the top of the stairs, and one at the bottom. After doing some research it looked like i needed a 3 way switch. So i bought 2 of them.

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures at the moment so i'll try to describe what I have.

So at the top of the stairway I was able to replace it easily. There were only 2 cables(This is a house built in 1954, so there's no ground).

When I went for the bottom switch, there were a lot more wires. There were 6 wires coming in, 2 black, 2 red, and 2 white. 4 of those wires, 2 red, and two white, were attached to the light switch. Also, the light switch had no labels on it as to what was plugged in where, and all screws were bronze-ish in color. And the two black were together with a wire connector.

When I went to replace the switch with the new one, but it only had 3 screws. One black, and two gold.

What would be the proper way to attach the wires to this light switch? I can get some pictures and post them later tonight if it will help.

This is the socket

It sounds like your setup is like the following:

You seem to have the source coming to one, and then being looped to the other switch. Often time what happens in homes is that other devices get joined at a junction box. The "extra wires" you are mentioning are more than likely going to other devices and the box is just providing a spot to do so.

You will want to turn off the power to the switches and determine which wire goes where (for the other devices) and which ones goto your light and other switch.


changed taps and now there's no hot water We live in a detached bungalow with a combi boiler. We changed the bath and basin taps in the bathroom when we turned the water back on there's no hot water in the bathroom and no water at all in the kitchen!!!!!! can anyone help

Odds seem high that you didn't actually turn the water back on correctly, since the taps in the bath were what you worked on and the kitchen now doesn't get water which cannot be caused by the bath taps - but can be caused by not opening valves after closing them to work on the bath taps. Impossible to provide any more specific hint from afar, but follow the waterlines and recheck all the valves.

I suppose if the new taps were soldered on and you really went overboard with excess solder you might have plugged the pipes, but that's really reaching for a cause (i.e., seems not very likely .vs. just closing a valve you thought you were opening, or the like.)


Does a 4x8 sheet of 1/4'' pegboard need support across the middle of the board? Simple question, I'm hanging some pegboard in my garage tonight after work, and am not sure if I can get away with just screwing the edges into 2x4 (I'm using thicker boards to accommodate a recessed outlet behind it that powers a lamp above it and power bar to the side) boarder, or if I need additional studs throughout the pegboard. If I do need additional studs, would one laterally mounted in the middle screwed into the existing wall studs be sufficient?

For reference, this will hold metal hand tools only, I store my power tools (drills, reciprocating saws, etc) in the cases they came in underneath the workbench.

The board should hold the weight you describe vertically. The board will probably bow a little bit naturally even without tools on it.  I would add the extra stud because it's cheap, easy, and better to do things right the first time.

I think 2" x 4" studs are a bit over-kill here.  You could probably use 2" x 2" boards to make it lighter (easier to mount) and not stick out from the wall so much.

Pre-drill all your screw holes.  If you try and screw into it near the edges without pre-drilling, the board could tear.  That sounds bad; it really isn't, just looks noticeable.


Do I need water protection over tile grout in my bathtub? A handyman suggested to me that I might need to periodically apply water-sealant to the tile and grout on the tile wall of my bathtub. Is he correct?

If so, what's a good sealant to use,  how is it best applied, and how often should I re-apply it? (It's probably been 15 years since the previous owner refinished this bathroom and put in a tile wall, so probably been 15 years since any sealing was done.)

After a good cleaning, (Tris-odium Phosphate and a stiff brush), Apply generic furniture lemon oil. Wipe off excess. I have been setting tile for years and this works wonders.


When doing electrical work, what do I use to check wires are safe? If I am thinking of replacing a light switch, a light-fitting, a socket/outlet or doing other work with household wiring where there may be 120 Volts or 240 volts present ...

There is already a question on "what should I have done differently [to avoid electric shock]" which is mostly about procedures but ...

what types of tools are available for testing that wires are safe and, as an average householder, which type of tool should I buy to help avoid electrocution?

Test Tools

In approximate descending order of safety (though the professional multimeter could arguably be higher if you are careful about how you use it)

Voltage tester

A professional electrician would very likely have one of these:

If you expect to do occasional DIY electrical work in the rest of your life, you should consider buying something like this.

It does not make you part of the circuit.
It has no knobs or switches that can accidentally be left in the wrong position.
It has no removable leads that can be accidentally left in the wrong socket.
it can easily be used with two hands (more so than a typical multimeter)
It will operate without batteries.
It is relatively inexpensive (<£25 in UK).
It is a major brand - so the design can be expected to incorporate high standards for safety and reliability.
It will likely last the rest of your life.

If money is an issue you can get cheaper versions of the above as shop-brand items (e.g. cheapest CPC/Farnell "Tenma" branded device <£8), this is what I use now.

2-in-1 tester

At the cheapest extreme you might consider one of these instead:

It does not make you part of the test circuit
It will work without batteries
Cheap (~ £4 from eBay vendors)

It does have some disadvantages

It is very cheaply made.
The LED indicators are a bit dim and hard to see, especially at lower voltages.

I'm not sure I trust it fully. It is certainly safer, and a better buy, than a "voltage test screwdriver" (see below).

Non-Contact Voltage (NCV) detector

Sometimes called a "voltage detector pen" or just "voltage detector"

This type of detector is widely used for the following reasons

Inexpensive (the one pictured is more expensive as it also detects current).
No contact with wiring needed.

So does not make you part of the circuit.

few or no controls to set (so fewer mistakes possible)

It has some disadvantages

Can be misleading and "detect" voltage several inches (or more) from the wires
Not very good for detecting which specific wire is live in a cable
Battery required
Can be fiddly to verify correct operation.

The one I have has a thumb-wheel that has to be turned to set the sensitivity, you need to do this each time you use it and a consequence is that the test result isn't necessarily as clear and distinct as the other types of tester.

Some electricians say that NCV detectors are good for an initial test but that, for safety, you should follow up with a contact based voltage detector like the one at the top of this answer.

See Is a negative reading from a non-contact voltage detector sufficient?

Multimeter (professional)

I have several of these bought cheaply from eBay (around £70).

Advantages:

It is credibly Cat-II rated .
The leads are also Cat-II rated.
It has a four-socket design, so current measurements are physically separated from voltage measurements.
It contains a good HRC fuse (two actually).
It has lots of other protections (MOVs etc).
The case is sufficiently well-designed and made to contain the small electrical explosions that might occur when you make a bad mistake.

Hold

A nice feature with this meter is that the "Hold" button is a true hold and not a mere "data hold". This is useful for those of use with fewer than three arms.

With a true hold, you can put the multimeter on the floor (or hang it nearby), press the hold button, then take a probe in each hand and make the measurement without looking at the meter display, you stop taking the measurement when the meter beeps, you take your hands away from the wiring then look at the meter to see what value it shows.

With a "data hold", you have to use a third hand and your other set of eyes to press the hold button during the reading. In practice it can mean using one hand to hold both probes, looking away from what your hands are doing near the wiring (dangerous) and pressing the hold button.

So the former (rarer) type of "hold" is useful, the latter not.

Low-Z

A problem using multimeters to test for voltage is that they typically have high impedance, typically 10 MΩ and can pick up "ghost voltages". These are induced voltages caused by proximity of wires. They are not dangerous voltages as no significant current can be supplied inductively in typical household wiring. Some meters have a Low-Z setting designed to prevent this measurement artifact.

Disadvantages

Like all multimeters it has some significant disadvantages

You can accidentally try to measure volts with the leads plugged into the current sockets (some meters have a jack-alert feature to warn about this)
You can accidentally try to measure volts with the knob set to the wrong range (perhaps making you think wires are safe when they are not)

Multimeter (cheap)

I have several of these type of cheap multimeters

Even though this one is apparently rated Cat-II I prefer not to use it to test for 120V/240V. Because

The case is not designed to contain electric arcs.
The fuse is a cheap fuse not a high rupture capacity fuse.
It has a 3-socket design. The same socket is used for volts and current.

All these things mean more likelihood of unpleasant injury when you make a mistake.

Voltage Test Screwdriver

Most folk have one of these

The bottom type contains only a small 1/4W resistor and a neon indicator.

The top type is battery powered and can be used for a variety of purposes: mains voltage, continuity test, finding the break in a cable, etc.

Both of them are fundamentally unsafe because

They make you part of the 120V/240V test circuit.

This is bad. Even though they are cheap and millions of people use them. Buy the 2-in-1 tester if money is an issue.

Test Tools Summary

Use a reputable simple voltage-tester, a really decent multimeter or a 2-in-1 type tester. An NCV detector is useful for initial tests but be careful not to rely on it too much. Don't use a tester that makes you part of the circuit and don't use a cheap multimeter.

Other Tools

Most DIYers own ordinary screwdrivers, pliers, wire-cutters and strippers. It can be safer to buy insulated tools intended to protect you when working on 120V/240V AC electrical wiring.

There are different standards bodies which makers test their products against. In Europe it is normal to look for VDE rated tools. In the US I guess the equivalent is UL. This should be stamped on the tool (but be wary of cheap unbranded or off-brand tools made in countries that have a poor record for faking such marks)

Insulated screwdriver

Often a low-cost set of these will include a voltage test screwdriver (see above) which I suggest be discarded.

Insulated wire-cutter/stripper

Note that this one combines wire-cutting and insulation-stripping features

Insulated Pliers

Note that the insulation is rated for 1000 volts and that the handles have protruding guards to help stop your fingers slipping onto the metal conductive parts.

Electrical test tool categories

Test equipment is rated and marked as Cat-II etc -

So Cat-II is OK for most electrical work around the home - changing light-fittings, light-switches and sockets/outlets. For working inside the main electrical panel, or near to it, Cat-III would be more appropriate.

Techniques

See Electric shock - was I stupid, unlucky, or a combination of both?

The main principles are

turn off the circuit using the circuit-breaker at the main electrical panel. It is prudent to mark, tape or even lock the circuit breaker switch so that someone else doesn't switch it back on while you are working on the wiring.
keep your hands away from bare metal (wires etc). This is why good probes have prominent finger-guards and probe-tip shields.
check and recheck that your test equipment

leads are plugged into appropriate sockets
knobs are set to appropriate ranges
other features of the test equipment are set appropriately

After a test confirms a wire is dead, check the equipment has not just now failed. Test it on a known live source before proceeding to handle the wiring.

The third point above is why multimeters are not an ideal tester for 120V/240V work.


I need to add a subpanel for my electric car, need to know wire gauge/breaker for main My new car needs a charge station that will run off a 60 amp circuit breaker.  I have plenty of room for the added load in my 200 amp service to the house, but not enough spaces to fit a new double pole breaker in the box (apparently I went cheap/small when I installed it 15 years ago when I was young and dumb- LOL).  I have several double poles in there (some that stay off 99% of the time like the one for the generator) and used tandems to replace the circuits we removed to make room for those, but there are not any more tandem spots in the box.  Our plan is to remove 2 15 amp breakers and add a double pole breaker in their place to run to the new subpanel, then have those 2 15 amp circuits and the new 60 amp circuit breaker in the new sub-panel.  Total max load in the subpanel would be 90 amps if everything is on at the same time and drawing full power.

I'm just double checking that I am correct that we need a 100 amp panel and 100 amp breaker in the main box to run the panel off of.  We have about 2 feet of #6 wire left from a previous project, can we use this from the main to the sub panel or do i need #2 or #3 gauge? The sub panel is only about 12 inches from the main.

Normally we oversubscribe panels quite a lot because the chance is remote that all circuits will be fully loaded at the same time.  However when a single load is 60A and definitely will run continuously when it runs, that only leaves 40A for all the other circuits to share.  That's a little bit small for that "oversubscribe" logic to really work.

You might consider making the subpanel 125, 150 or even 200A.  There is nothing wrong with a subpanel being the same current as the main panel.

Since the subpanel is right next to the main panel, you don't need a main breaker in the subpanel.  However if a subpanel does have a main breaker, its only purpose is a shutoff switch, so its breaker size doesn't matter (as long as it's not too small.)  You might consider using a panel with a 200A main breaker, as a hedge against some future when you move all the circuits to that panel, and switch it over to become your main panel.

For that matter, with power company and inspector approval, you can lay it alongside and make both of them main panels under the tap rules.  (this is how it's handled when an all-electric house has 400A service; they fit two 200A main panels).

Now back to your original question, about wire sizes, firstoff, the 6 AWG is out of the question, and  I wouldn't use copper wires anyway for big stuff like this.  I'd use aluminum.  Really.  The lugs on the panels will all be aluminum, and copper wires on aluminum lugs means dissimilar metals, differing expansion rates, galvanic corrosion, i.e. all the stuff that makes small aluminum wire scary.  Aluminum is also 1/3 the cost and half the weight for the same ampacity.

Anyway, once you have decided your metal and ampacity, it's off to see the wizard to get the wire sizes.  Put in 240V and 3% loss.**  The wizard says for 100A, #1 Copper, or 1/0 Aluminum.

Obviously five feet of it won't cost much either way, but I would still favor Al because of the metal-compatibility issue with your lugs.

**Just to be clear, when you are doing long runs, also try it with 30% loss.  That will force the tool to fall back on the minimum permitted size (irrespective of length), and will tell you what actual voltage drop you'd have if you used that.  Often it'll be like 3.7% and you may decide 0.7% isn't worth spending $400 more on wire.  Or you can play "what-if" until you strike a balance between cost and voltage drop.  Won't be an issue in this case.


Attaching wall frame and soffit to a load supporting beam The image shows a load supporting beam in a basement. The plan is to attach a wall frame (depicted by green colored lines) and a soffit (red colored lines) to the load supporting beam. A very basic question: Is it OK to fasten these structures to the existing supporting beam? Can the fasteners (3 inch screws) (1) damage the supporting beam or (2) can the supporting beam cause problems down the road to the new wall and soffit by thermal expansion movement?

Yes it is ok to add your wall and box in the vent lines. This is is very common, in fact.


Is it sufficient to ground to a box using the NM clamp? Is it NEC compliant to wrap the ground wire from a 14-2 around the sheathing and then clamp it using the NM clamp in a metal junction box?  I live in a house built in the 60s and I see that a lot but I don't know if that's sufficient for grounding.

There are two use cases in particular that I'm curious about for this style of grounding.

The first use case is receptacles.  Say you have an incoming and outgoing cable both with the grounds wrapped and clamped, then the receptacle is attached to the box with a ground screw (e.g. not spliced to the incoming/outgoing grounds).  Is everything grounded properly or does the receptacle need to be spliced together with the ground wires directly?

The second is lighting.  Basically the same question; if the cable grounds are wrapped and clamped, can the light be grounded directly to the box or does it need to be spliced with the ground wires directly?

In either case, if you splice the grounds do you also need to have a connection to the box?

No, that's a "cowboy move" - there are 10-32 threaded holes in virtually every metal box specifically for a grounding screw, and using the cable clamp as a ground connection is not compliant/listed/correct.

The ground wires should all be connected to each other and to that grounding screw. In the unlikely event that your boxes don't have a pre-threaded hole there are thread-forming grounding screws available, but generally you just need to grab a bag of short 10-32 screws (you can find green ones in the electrical aisle, but they don't have to be green.) They specifically need to be the "-32" or fine thread variant so that they have sufficient threads in the box metal - and really, if you look carefully, you will almost always find that hole in the box ready for it.


Natural decay resistant wood Which wood does the icc not recognize as decay resistant? It is either western red cedar or redwood, cannot find in code book.

You didn’t indicate where you’re from, but The ICC Code identifies “Decay Probability Map” in Figure R301.2(7) which includes a strip along the entire west coast and a wide strip from Iowa south to the tip of Texas and from Iowa east to Massachusetts and extending south through Florida.
Likewise, Section R319.1 requires pressure treated lumber “or decay resistant heartwood of redwood, black locust, or cedars.”
Also, decay resistant lumber is required for “buildings and structures constructed in flood hazard areas.”


How can I repair a rusting dishwasher tray? See the below image. Do I need to replace the entire tray, or is there some kind of fix I could do to the corroding area on the tray?

If I need to replace the entire tray, is this something that has a degree of standardization?

The racks in virtually all dishwashers are unique to the particular models from each manufacturer. In other words no standardization.

It is possible to imagine that it may be possible to clean up the rust and corrosion on the wires of the rack. Doing so would require removal of the plastic coating that covers the afflicted area. After you get it all cleaned up you would have to apply a new coating to the wires that would also bond to the rest of the existing wire coating.

It is possible to purchase the plastic coating material specifically for this type of repair.


Why did my surge suppressor make a "pop" sound when I plugged something in? I bought a surge-protecting power bar yesterday. It's a seven-outlet model, made by American Power Conversion Corp.; I found it at the thrift store for $4 second-hand. It appeared to be in decent condition, though I did drop it a few feet onto the hard floor shortly after buying it.

Last night, the house was quiet. I plugged the power bar into the wall outlet and turned it on. The "Protection Working" LED lit up. Good.

I then plugged my laptop's AC adapter into the power bar. As I did so, I heard a "pop". The sound was a bit louder than a finger snap, but quieter than a hand clap. My heart started racing.

Wondering if I damaged anything, I turned the laptop on. Thank God, it still works perfectly.

What could have caused the "pop" sound?
Is it safe for me to try plugging other things into the power bar, such as a lamp, to see what happens?
Should I continue to use the power bar, or should I discard it?

Edit: I experimented by plugging the AC adapter into a wall outlet, and unplugging it, a number of times. It indeed sometimes does make a spark and a "pop" sound. I plugged a couple of things into the surge suppressor. It's still working as expected. I'm keeping the surge suppressor. Thanks to Pigrew's answer, I now think the "pop" sound was normal. Pigrew, thank you very much for your answer; I've upvoted and accepted it.

Popping sounds are generally either a sound from a spark, or a failure of an electronic component. They do not always mean that something failed. For example, plugging in electronics that use lots of power will often cause a small spark to form when plugging them in. As an example, my Lenovo laptop power adapter will often make a sparking noise when I plug it into an outlet and it is not a cause for concern.

Does your power adapter create such a noise when using other outlets? If so, then you may not need to worry at all. See this question for some more details on this transient arcing.

But, sometimes noises do indicate failures, for example when a capacitor, MOV or IC explodes. You could also hear a click when a circuit breaker trips, but this would cause a circuit in your house to be no longer be energized. Some power bars also have internal circuit breakers, which can also make a click when they trip.

In your case, I'd first say that a used surge suppressor probably may not provide much protection for your electronics. If you are concerned about surges, you should look into verifying that your house has a good ground, installing a whole-house surge suppressor, using quality surge suppressors where your electronics are installed on both the power lines and data lines such as telephone or CATV. Surge suppressors do age, and can only handle a certain amount of surge during their lifetime. Ensure that new surge suppressors meet the new UL standard 1449 v3 by checking for a holographic sticker that says "Surge Protection Device".

Now to your other questions:

2) This should be safe. Any over currents should be protected by your house's circuit breakers, and a lamp is a pretty "robust" device that wouldn't be seriously damaged by a bad power supply (though the bulb may burn out). That said, do this in an area where if the power strip catches fire, it won't damage anything, and you could quickly pull the plug out of the wall socket if something bad happens. Don't put water on an electrical fire.

3) As I said above, the power bar may not provide significant surge protection, especially now that it may have failed. You may want to dismantle it (while it is unplugged) and see if there are any burnt/charred/damaged components.

This answer is more of a matter of opinion. To be safest, you could replace it with a high quality surge suppressor, but with some investigation, it is likely as safe to use as any other power bar.


What wire type & size for sub-panel in a shed? I need to install a sub-panel in a shed.  Total run distance from main panel to sub-panel is 80 ft and includes three 90 degree turns.  Burial distance will be 18".  I'm thinking to install a 60-amp main breaker in the sub-panel and running #6-3 THWN in 1-1/4" PVC conduit.  I hesitate using direct buried cable as it seems a bit more vulnerable (but I'm no expert).  I will be driving an 8' ground rod.  A worst case inventory of expected loads is about 30-amps (1500 watt heater, 300 watts in lighting, 12.5-amp table saw, other?).  This gives me a bit of room to grow.  Am I doing anything stupid?

Well, I would not say you're doing anything stupid.  You have some very good questions.

First,

If you did decide to direct bury the wire the minimum depth for direct burial is 24", not 18".
At least three #6 ( black, red, white) and one #10 insulated ground ( green coating).
Anything <= 60amps just requires a #10 insulated ground with green coating.

Second, Consider voltage drop:

Load: 30 Amps @ 240V Single Phase.
Length of run: 80 feet
Wire Size: #6 Copper
Voltage: 240V
Voltage Drop: .81 %
Voltage At End of Circuit: 238.05

That is less than 3% which the NEC recommends for a feeder. Very Good !

Note: I would hesitate to install the ground rod if you have a in-ground pool in line of the transformer.

Correction: This being a feeder would require a grounding electrode!


how to identify and correctly wire a new light if there is a copper ground wire currently hanging down, can I just marry it and cap it together to the silver grounding wire that the new light came with??

If the "silver" wire goes directly to the frame of the light putting it with the bare copper is the correct thing to do. Then connect the black to black and white to white and you can say "let there be light".


Washing vinyl siding -- hard to reach high up places? There's some spots on my vinyl siding that have gotten dirty. Unfortunately these spots are pretty high up-- about 15-20ft up. What are the best way to clean these spots? Would a power washer aimed up at the siding be a good idea?

I use a brush and pole for washing RV's. The pole is a telescoping one usef for painting. I stand on a tall stepladder and the combination can reach pretty high. Lowes had the RV brush. So I spray on some soap, brush, and then rinse.


Is it dangerous to run electrical cords through heating vents? I'm living in an old apartment, and my roommate has fed electrical cords through a heating vent from the living room into the bathroom, up to a power bar on the side of the sink. I see this as a double hazard and illegal.

The heating vent exits from the wall behind the toilet, about 3 inches off floor. He says it is safe because the power bar and the cords behind the toilet will not cause a fire because the heat in the vent will dry any condensation that might cause an electric fire. But wouldn't using an active vent be dangerous, as well as being near water?

I know very little about any of this, but doubt any amount of safety or grounding will make this safe. Would anyone know how to make this situation safer? Or give me some peace of mind so I can sleep.

Update:

This roommate is a contractor and is educated through college for home renovations. I cannot convince him to remove this hazard and will move out soon. I was told I was overreacting and do not understand how it works...so I appreciate the confirmation that it is dumb and dangerous.

Any electrical socket in a bathroom must have GFCI protection. You're damp, you touch something with a ground fault, feel a slight tickle and wake up wearing a halo and wings. Of all places to hack together power supplies, a bathroom is absolutely the worst place to do this. Mystical theories about the heater protecting the strip from dampness don't remove the shock hazard.

Fire hazard is not your problem here


Shut-off valve fitting waxed hemp vs unwaxed hemp vs teflon tape? EDIT: Or some of those combinated?

What is the best method and why, and what is the proper way to apply?

Hemp is natural fiber will last but adding wax helps to lubricate and will last longer , for the longest lasting valve stem packing I use PFTE. PFTE rope not tape although tape will work with enough wraps the "rope" comes in different sizes, PFTE won't freeze like hemp that has some water in it, PFTE in a powered form is a great lubricant where hemp can be a bit abrasive over the years. Both are goodproducts but I would use Teflon over hemp and the best option would be the rope or round PFTE products tape will work but it takes a lot of wraps.


HVAC Furnace - Adding C Wire to Older Wiring Style Hello! Trying to add a smart thermostat to an old system (currently running a mercury thermostat on it).

There is an extra wire (orange) which you can see both inside the thermostat and also in the image of the furnace. I should be able to use that for the C wire.

You'll notice that the wiring of the furnace is done with wire nuts. All of the instructions to add the C Wire that I can find are assuming that I have a C port on the furnace, which I don't, since this is all done with nuts.

My question is this: on the furnace side, into which wire nut should the orange be joined to get the correct power supplied?

Thanks so much!

You already have a C wire, it's just not called by that name

From a close examination of your furnace's wiring diagram, the fat brown wire it supplies in the thermostat wiring compartment is the C-wire feed from the transformer.  The way your system is wired connects the brown wire in the outdoor-unit cable and the brown wire in the thermostat cable to that brown C-wire feed, so the brown wire that connects to the X terminal on your thermostat is your C wire!  As a result of this, just hook that brown wire up to the C terminal on your new thermostat and call it a day.  (If you're wondering what terminal the blue wire goes to on the new thermostat, it went to the B terminal on the old thermostat, so it goes to the O/B terminal on the new thermostat, by the way.)


Have I got a faulty thermostat in my fridge freezer? I'm wondering if a faulty thermostat is what is causing my fridge freezer to misbehave? The fridge gets down to 12C, and the freezer to -20C or so, then the compressor does nothing for hours and it comes back up to ambient-ish.

The fridge-freezer is a Hotpoint RFA52
The thermostat is a Danfoss 077B3281 B62 -20.0 -34.0,

I have taken the thermostat out to test continuity (results as follows), but not being sure of which pin is doing what, I've tested each pin against each other, at ambient and then with an ice block held against the temperature sensing tube.

Does this look like a faulty thermostat?

continuity test results: (/ohm, high = out of range)

resistance at ambient, to ground
setting    pin3    pin4    pin6
off        high    high    high
1          high    high    high
2          high    high    high
3          high    high    high
4          high    high    high
5          high    high    high

-

resistance at ambient, to pin 3
setting    pin4    pin6
off        0.5    high
1          0.5    0.5
2          0.5    0.5
3          0.5    0.5
4          0.5    0.5
5          0.5    0.5

-

resistance at ambient, to pin 4
setting    pin6
off        high
1          0.5
2          0.5
3          0.5
4          0.5
5          0.5

All results were the same when the temperature sensing tube was held against an ice block as well!

One sign that a freezer is not keeping a constant temperature is bad freezer burn (ice crystals forming around your food, dehydration, damage).

You could use an indoor/outdoor thermometer that records high/low in order to debug this. Each day, record the high/low then reset the thermometer.

If you are seeing a big range in temperature, or, your freezer is getting warm enough to start melting, then I would replace the thermostat.


Shared neutral on the same leg I have a two bedroom cape with 14-3 running to the second floor where it splits. I noticed at the panel some time much later that  the two 15 amp breakers that power up the individual rooms, are separated by a 20 amp breaker that feeds a designated circuit. The 14-3 neutral is carrying the return load of both 15 amp circuits from the same leg.

The electrician was qualified and licensed. Shouldn't he have moved the two 15 amp circuit breakers together so that they would be pulling from separate legs? I am trying to better understand this.

Absolutely right, this is super bad for exactly the reason you say!  Turn off both circuits and get yourself a 2-pole breaker of that same type.  Put the two hots on that breaker and install it, moving other breakers as needed.

The use of a 2-pole breaker will guarantee they are correctly on opposite poles, and is now required by Code.  (well, handle ties are, but it works out the same. 30 places near hear stock 2-pole breakers, only 1 stocks handle ties.)

Be careful not to split up another multi-wire branch circuit.   In fact, watch for more - where there's one, there's five.

Also, make sure you're not dealing with double-stuff or the GE Q-line "half width breakers". In a Q-line, an intermediate breaker would be correct, but a 2-pole breaker would be a great deal more correct.


correct direction for bathroom faucet to turn? I had a plumber last week install/replace an old bathroom faucet. He remarked that the faucet I had provided (a special order slant back unit from a plumbing supply house) "was backwards." Link to faucet sales site.
This guy is a top plumber, well known and respected, been working at this for probably 20 or more years and everyone swears by him, so I didn't question it.
Now, after he rebuilt it, what I have is a faucet where the knobs rotate clockwise for hot and counter clockwise for cold. I did not notice until I was shaving and it seems wrong and I compared to other bathroom faucet and it was the opposite.
Does it matter? Is it a simple matter of swapping the faucet cartridges back if it bothers me?

I've typically seen faucet handles configured in one of two ways. For radially symmetric "knob" type handles, both may be set up so that the behave like common screws - righty tighty (off), lefty loosey (on). For "lever" type taps like the one linked in the OP's comments, it may be more common to have both handles rotate "in" toward the user to turn the tap on - the off position is at 9 and 3 o'clock for the left and right taps, while the on position is at 6 o'clock for both. If the faucet taps have long handles or are close to the wall, it's not even possible to have the levers rotate away from the user to 12 o'clock, but they can always rotate toward the user to 6 o'clock.
Which way you want the taps set up will be a matter of personal preference, handle type, as well as the physical realities of if it's even possible to turn the tap backwards toward the wall.


Cold water only dribbling from faucet i have a cascade style (water runs over top of faucet) faucet in bathroom. It's only a few months old and cold water was fine at beginning but has gone down to a dribble. Other cold taps are okay. Can not block the flow to force the hot into cold line to eliminate possible air locks because of style of faucet. Any idea? Thank you! Don

Turn of the valve under the sink, remove the hose from the valve to the faucet and check for water flow by opening the valve (use another hose and bucket.) Good flow? Then you have something plugging the waterway from the valve, in the hose or the faucet itself.


Insulating a 2x4 wall with exterior rigid foam I'm gutting the interior and redoing the siding of my old house. Unfortunately the exterior walls are only 2x4 which makes it challenging to reach R20 code let alone go above it to make a greener more energy efficient home.

So if you fill the 2x4 cavity with rock wool, then mount 4 inches of rigid foam to the sheathing, would that surpass R20? What would others do in my shoes? Double studding and losing square footage could be a possibility but would seem a lot more expensive.

Also where does the house wrap and vapor barrier go?

Climate Zone 5 (cold winters/hot summers)

Given that typical foams are R5 per inch, 4 inches of foam alone will exceed R-19. Rockwool in the stud spaces will help somewhat on top of that (with a thermal break at each stud, but an additional R11 or so between studs.)