Questions tagged [electrical]
Distribution and use of electricity throughout the home. Electrical standards vary greatly worldwide, so you need to provide your location in your question or profile to ensure you get answers that are relevant to you. Posting photographs of wiring junctions or drawing a wiring diagram and posting it is also highly recommended.
19,129 questions
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Troubleshooting a doorbell
The doorbell in my 1930s house doesn't work. I've checked:
The transformer. Has about 19 volts.
The bell. Dings when connected directly to the transformer.
So it must be the wiring or the switch.
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Ceiling lighting fixture not responding to remote control [closed]
Ceiling lighting fixture - trade name S. O.M.Co LDT model DL-4112 item #LB-0001 - does not turn lights off or on, same with fan.
Installed new batteries, although red signal on remote is on when ...
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Rewiring gas boiler thermostat, from Hive SLR1c to Beok TGR85
My home boiler is Worcester Bosch Greenstar 28i. The Hive SLR1c thermostat is now connected to it. The connection is as follows:
I'd like to change this thermostat to Beok TGR85. From the manual, the ...
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Should I add a grounding pigtail to metal box?
I'm installing a light switch. The BX cable I have coming in doesn't have a ground wire. It's from 1989. All three prong receptacles in my house show as grounded with this plug in tester, but none of ...
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Wiring Light Switch with Common Terminal
I am installing this single pole Legrand spec grade light switch (see pics)enter image description here. My metal box has one BX cable coming into it with two wires. The white is hot. Just double ...
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How to wire a light fixture with three cables coming into the light fixture? [closed]
My Klein tools says open ground. I tightened all ground wires in the junction box and still not working.
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Electric wiring on baseboard heaters
We purchased a vacation cabin last year that was built around 1980 and renovated around 2005. It is extremely well built and insulated but it is electric only and uses electric radiant or baseboard ...
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Where does the white wire connect for a 240 volt garage heater? [duplicate]
I bought an electric heater for my garage, it requires a 240v 30 amp setup. I picked up a 6-30 outlet (3 prong), with a steel box, a double 30 amp breaker, and some 10 gauge cable which has 4 wires in ...
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electrical layout plan review
I have a bit of an odd situation where my basement is partially finished. Whoever did this decided to put the WHOLE basement lights on 1 circuit, and all outlets on another. That said, there are no ...
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Recessed lights stopped working after heat pump install. What could have gone wrong?
Mysterious situation here. I had a heat pump installed yesterday along with new ductwork, and immediately after the crew left, my kitchen lights (three recessed cans) stopped working.
Here’s what I’ve ...
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Wiring a smart light switch + fan switch
I have a box with a ceiling fan switch and a separate Lutron motion detector light switch. There are 4 cables coming into the box. The ground wires aren't show, but they're all tied together.
I'm ...
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Leveling Pendant Lights
I installed the three pendant lights in the picture. The left light is level. The middle is the most out of level and right is slightly off.
The middle light the hole for crossbar was sitting too high ...
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Is there a standard for distance between outdoor outlets?
I live in an older home and I need to add some outdoor outlets. I’d like to install them all at once and with a plan rather than doing it ad hoc over a few years. I know code doesn’t specify anything ...
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How long can a portable power supply run my fridge in an outage?
Help me understand how well/poorly this portable power station might meet our needs. In a place where power outages are not uncommon, and we do not have a generator, I'm trying to decide whether to ...
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Sub Panel upgrade [closed]
Need help figuring out the best approach in upgrading my main and sub panel.
We recently purchased this 1968 house in San Antonio, TX. As we’re preparing for renovations, I realize that the panels ...
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Fluorescent to LED fixture comes on at half bright at first, then it goes to full bright after 3-5 seconds. Any ideas?
We upgraded two 4-foot ceiling fluorescent fixtures to LED tubes. When the wall switch is thrown, the full length of the fixtures lights up at about half brightness. After a 2-5 second delay, the ...
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Buried conduit with tight 90
Homeowner here. Doing my own electrical install on a new house. We're running 4/0-4/0-2/0-4 aluminum in 2" conduit underground from the meter panel to the house. Originally we thought the conduit ...
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How should I connect my ceiling fan to 14/2 and 14/3 cables?
I am trying to replace an old ceiling fan. I don't know which wires went to which. This house was made in the 60s. I believe the cables coming out are a 14-3 and a 14-2.
The circuit breaker turns ...
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Is it possible to install NEMA 14-50 outlet in ceiling of garage?
I live in a 3 story house in a flood zone. The first level, where the garage is at, is technically not living quarters, probably because it can easily flood. I noticed all the standard outlets on the ...
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Protection for ends of aluminum water pipe bonding wire running across a block wall?
I recently added a new main breaker panel outside my house, converting my previous main panel into a subpanel. My house was built in 1979 when having a ground only to the water pipes was sufficient. ...
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Kitchen hood problem
my kitchen extractor fan has stopped working and I'm trying to figure out why.
It started when the light and the fan wouldn't work at the same time.
Then, sometimes the fan would stop after about 30 ...
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How to protect NMB next to new metal vent
I'm cutting a hole through my exterior walls to allow for an exterior vented microwave fan for kitchen smoke.
The NMB cable powering the microwave is in the same cavity as the hole, and may end up ...
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Metal Eletrical Back Box Keeps Stripping Threads from Screw
This is my first time posting here, so I apologize in advance if I'm not doing it correctly.
One of my metal electrical outlet back boxes keep stripping the threads from the screw whenever I tried to ...
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Best way to splice an old 8/2 cable with no ground?
I am getting a new oven range tomorrow and while disconnecting the current one I found out the uninvited guest I had in my house a few years ago had been chewing its way through the wire for the oven. ...
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Why does part of a lighting circuit no longer have power?
I have a 12 gauge BX line and that line was feeding two more pendant lights, so three lights in total. I initially installed pendant light number one and pendant light number two and both worked.
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To pretwist or not between two solids and one stranded?
I’m installing pendant lights. There are two 12 gauge solid wires that my contractor already pretwisted. I need to connect them with 18 gauge stranded from light fixture. I lead with 1/8” stranded but ...
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Is using something like Spin-Twist Wire Connector Socket Wrench safe? [closed]
I’m installing some pendant lights in my house. I don’t do this often but I do lots of reading and research and take care to do things safely. I’m wondering if using a tool to tighten wire nut would ...
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What is this electrical device on my basement wall?
I have this electrical device on the wall in my basement. I don't know what it is. The house was built in 1970 in central Europe. Can I dismount this thing safely?
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Outdoor GFCI not working
I’ve got 2 outdoor lights in line with a 20amp GFCI receptacle. The receptacle would trip frequently so I replaced it with a new one. The new receptacle shows green but the lights don’t work. Tester ...
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What if grounding wire isn’t long enough to go back into box?
I used one of the 12 gauge solid grounding wires to go around ground screw on crossbar. Ground screw isn’t tightened yet. Planning to connect 18 gauge stranded ground wire from pendant light w/ wire ...
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Electrical work for hardwired oven
I am in the UK. I am doing a small modification of my kitchen that requires the oven to be moved to another position. I did have an hardwired cable coming from the fuse box.
To solve this, an ...
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Are nicks in ground wire dangerous?
I stripped the insulation from my ground wire in my light fixture metal box to attach to the ground screw. The ground wire was a bit twisted and I had some trouble removing insulation and I nicked (...
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Is a proper wire nut connection possible if wires don’t twist?
I’m using the tan winged wire nuts to connect two 12 solid gauge and one 18 gauge stranded. I pretwisted the two 12 gauge. I cut the stranded wire 1/8” longer and led with that when I put the wire nut ...
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Should wires stripped too small be redone? [closed]
I installed a pendant light. The light has 18 gauge stranded wire. I stripped it to 20 gauge stranded. I realized after I installed it. I know that’s not ideal. Should I take it down and redo?
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Needed advice on wiring in sub panel from main panel
I have recently built a tiny home and other than framing I do not have a lot of experience in wiring other than outlets and small things.
I have a 200 amp GE main panel mounted on my service pole and ...
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How to close up where outdoor light was
I had a tree fall down and knock an outdoor light fixture off the wall of my house. I wasn't using the light anyway, so I want to just close up the hole safely. I'm going to cap the wires with wire ...
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Waterproof bathroom appliances
I would like to ask for help in my situation in Hungary:
Sometimes when we bath some water splashes to some electrical parts, and it is a problem i would like to fix.
Note:
I am not interested in a ...
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Is this lighting bracket allowed and if not how best to fix it? [duplicate]
I have a switched light in a closet and when looking at repainting I noticed this when I removed the wall light to repair the hole.
The wirenuts were tucked back into the hole and not behind the wall ...
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3black wires trying to connect to a switch
I have a kitchen light switch that had burnt out my previous light fixture, as a result I took the switch off and realized there are three black wires. I am not sure how to rewire the new switch as I ...
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Replacing Exterior Outlet/Receptacle Covers
I am going to replace the exterior outlet/receptacle covers on my ~25-year-old home. See pic. All of my house exterior outlets and lights are on a single GFCI circuit, with the controlling GFCI ...
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15 or 30A breaker for heat pump dryer?
I'm installing an outlet for an LG Washtower (WKHC252HBA), which has a washer and a heat pump dryer. The washer has a standard power cord (120V), the heat-pump electrical dryer has the following ...
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How to best add a dedicated outlet right next to a flush-mounted panel?
I have the following pre-existing sub-panel in my garage:
I would like a dedicated receptacle (legally) just next to it (the top breaker is available).
This would involve getting out some EMT conduit ...
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Where/how to connect Common wire to my Weil-McLain boiler
I am trying to install three new Ecobee smart thermostats that use a common "c" wire (old thermostats use red and white but not black (common)) for my three heating zones.
I have found the ...
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Replace dimmer switch with 3 black wires with a smart dimmer switch
I want to replace a dimmer switch with a smart dimmer switch. But do I connect two black wires to the smart dimmer switch as well? And the ground wire currently seems to be connected to the metal box. ...
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Converting main load center panel to subpanel nuiance
I want to change the service entrance from my home load center to an external (outside) grid disconnect switch, which will require moving the service entrance to that disconnect switch. This means ...
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Should I leave the neutral disconnected when replacing a smart switch with a conventional switch?
My home has switches from Deako, which are a proprietary quick-change style switch with various dimmers and wifi enabled upgrades available.
I'm replacing one with a regular Leviton Decora rocker ...
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To mount an electrical fixture on a slanted surface outdoors [closed]
The fascia is at a 14 deg angle. Is there an electrical fixture or block so the fixture would be 90 deg to the ground?
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Can't find electrical RMC couplings, conduit unions and sweep elbows that are fit for direct burial
I'm running electrical from an outdoor outlet out to be near a floating deck. RMC needs to be 6in underground and you use THWN-2 wires. So that's how I started the project.
I found electrical 1/2in ...
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How can I use an existing 2-wire cable for a new subpanel?
I am trying to figure out how to backup and run some key loads in the house, using the Mancave Powerwall which has plenty of capacity at the gateway. The best way to do this would be for me to put a ...
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Will this Cat6 cable be too close to the 120V electrical wiring?
I am building a new home and pulling my own network cables. I have been uncertain how close I can run the low voltage (unshielded Cat6 riser cable) to the electrical wiring. I am attaching a photo ...
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