Wiring Project of the Day

 
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Rob R.
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Post by Rob R. » Tue. Sep. 06, 2016 10:26 am

After 7 years of living here, I finally mounted a light (on a separate circuit) in front of the circuit breaker panel. That sure makes it nice to do work in that corner of the basement...especially since my next project is to rewire the basement lights. Also mounted a few outlets in the basement, including one next to the EFM. Should be handy the next time I vacuum out the boiler to not need a 20' extension cord.

While doing this project I found some other interesting things...the most exciting was an overheated neutral wire (yellowish color instead of white). At some point someone added a circuit to the garage, and rather than running the neutral all the way up to the other corner of the panel, they pigtailed it with one that was nearby. The neutral they spliced into was serving a circuit on the same phase, so there was the potential to pull 2x20amp through that wire. It probably would not have overheated the wire if there was a light load on those circuits, but it turns out they added an outlet in the garage to the neutral for our 1200 watt microwave. Naturally that garage outlet serves duty for my beer fridge. :no1: I spent more time on this than I was planning for today, but at least those things have been corrected.

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Post by rberq » Tue. Sep. 06, 2016 5:22 pm

Shouldn't that basement outlet be GFI ?
I think about that every time I grab hold of my 45 year old Craftsman drill -- double-insulated but not grounded :cry: . I have one GFI outlet in the basement and one in the garage but I'll run an extension cord to reach them rather than use the others.

What? Batteries to power a drill? Can I do that now? :o

 
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Rob R.
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Post by Rob R. » Tue. Sep. 06, 2016 6:21 pm

I added multiple outlets to the basement, and the first one is GFI - the others are hooked in series and ground fault protected as well.

 
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Post by titleist1 » Tue. Sep. 06, 2016 7:47 pm

It's always fun trying to figure out somebody else's spaghetti wiring?!?! Noticed you flipped the ground to the top....is that a background working in medical buildings showing up?

 
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Rob R.
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Post by Rob R. » Tue. Sep. 06, 2016 8:06 pm

titleist1 wrote:is that a background working in medical buildings showing up?
Nope, I just feel that it is less likely to cause excitement if something metallic drops on top of the plug. Tape measure, piece of wire, etc. Depending on where the outlet is being installed I will do it either way - especially if I know a nearby appliance has a 90 degree head on the plug.

As for the spaghetti wiring, I blame most of it on the old guy that lived here before us. He was retired, and thought he was a real "handy man". In my opinion he never should have been allowed to touch a paint brush, much less wiring.

 
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Post by lsayre » Tue. Sep. 06, 2016 8:08 pm

titleist1 wrote:It's always fun trying to figure out somebody else's spaghetti wiring?!?! Noticed you flipped the ground to the top....is that a background working in medical buildings showing up?
All of the outlets in my house have the ground wire at the top.

 
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Post by Olllotj » Tue. Sep. 06, 2016 9:25 pm

I really think that light fixture should be an automatic for the electritians when building the house. They would just be looking out for themselves! :D :idea:

Good call Rob


 
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Post by Rob R. » Tue. Sep. 06, 2016 10:01 pm

Maybe if the last guy had a light he wouldn't have made such crazy wiring mistakes. :roll: I mounted mine off center so you don't bump your head on it when working up high.

 
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Post by Rob R. » Sat. Sep. 17, 2016 9:30 am

Had an outlet that was pretty sloppy from lots of use. It often serves USB chargers for phones, tablets, etc, so I decided to replace it with an outlet that has 2 USB charge ports. Seems to charge the iPad quicker than our other charger. So far so good.

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Post by rberq » Sat. Sep. 17, 2016 3:52 pm

Rob R. wrote: replace it with an outlet that has 2 USB charge ports
Cool. Didn't even know such a thing existed.

 
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Post by CoalHeat » Sat. Sep. 17, 2016 10:37 pm

I installed one of those in the kitchen a few months ago, comes in very handy.

 
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Post by titleist1 » Sun. Sep. 18, 2016 7:43 am

I saw one of those a couple weeks ago for the first time. There are a couple outlets I am thinking about replacing with them. Does anyone know if they continually use power if nothing is charging like the wall warts do?

 
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Post by Rob R. » Sun. Sep. 18, 2016 7:51 am

The draw is on the order of 0.3 watts an hour, or less than 3 kilowatt hours a year.

 
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Post by WNY » Mon. Sep. 19, 2016 6:04 am

Rob R. wrote:Had an outlet that was pretty sloppy from lots of use. It often serves USB chargers for phones, tablets, etc, so I decided to replace it with an outlet that has 2 USB charge ports. Seems to charge the iPad quicker than our other charger. So far so good.
I saw those come out a couple years ago when they came out, neat outlets. I need add a couple in the kitchen where the cell phones charge. LOL
I've see another version with just the cover plates has the USB ports and no rewiring.

 
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Post by Rob R. » Mon. Sep. 19, 2016 6:15 am

I thought it was a good idea since we always seem to have plenty of the charger cables, but not the chargers themselves.

Did some more wiring yesterday. Ripped out most of the remaining cloth-covered wire in the basement...no more ungrounded cables going to the panel. :) My heating system was still being powered by a 50+ year old piece of wire that went through a junction box that was even older. Found a loose/blackened connection inside the junction box. Good riddens.


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