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We need a lot more electricians

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Re: We need a lot more electricians

#341

Post by brianwawok »

Symbiote wrote: post #295
brianwawok wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, don't go off code for having to do a big upgrade like this. I legit hit 100A several times a month. Have hit over 150A. Easy way for me to draw 100A at once: 40A: EV charging 32A: Electric Oven warming up at max 24A: Electric Dryer 40A: HotTub jets on 40A: AC ON Max Unlikely all of those are on full max, but it's pretty easy to imagine getting past 100A before we even touch things like lights and computers. EV…

Do Americans quote large appliance current at 220V or 110V equivalent? From the EV it seems the former, but in that case I'm horrified at how power-hungry your appliances are. A typical new oven sold in Europe is 3.6kW, 16A @ 230V. A new tumble drier is 600W, so about 2.5A at 230V. There's such a range of hot tub and AC sizes I can't compare these.

Almost all big appliances are 220. Fridges are 110, but the big guys

* EV Charging

* Electric or Induction Oven

* Electric Dryer

* AC

* Electric Water Heater

are all doing to be 220. The amps will vary, and most will not peg the required wire 100%, but may for example do a big pulse to startup (ACs are famous for this).

Re: We need a lot more electricians

#342

Post by mech987 »

frankus wrote: post #109

I'm curious if there is some productivity-improving tech for electricians waiting to be invented. The following will be super North-America-centric, but: Right now you have to fasten a box to the wall structure, cut the wire so that about 8" can make its way into the box, strip the outer insulation and insert it into the box, strip at least some of the individual conductors, and then splice (by twisting and using wir…

insulation-displacement-crimps are not a good idea for the relatively high amounts of power coming through household wiring. Not much contact area, lots of potential for high resistance and heat and oxidation at the contact point. I wouldn't trust them.

Then again, wire nuts aren't that great either.

Re: We need a lot more electricians

#343

Post by brianwawok »

hinkley wrote: post #278
brianwawok wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EV or not EV, I really think you want 200A service? It has been the standard for quite a few years, and I cannot imagine only having 100A service in a proper house (would be fine for an apartment or whatnot). Now I am higher electric usage than most, but I hit over 100A several times a day (but have never hit 200A and flipped my breaker). The actually switching out your circuit breaker from 100A to 200A is cheap (2-3…

I think my house has 2x200A. It was zoned multi family but the previous owners had a separate service for an electric car, and there’s still bits of electronics in the attic from where they tried to do crypto mining. I’m sure their equipment overheated. The roof is not insulated and the attic fan is pushing against a louver that’s the wrong design. It gets hot up there without any equipment.

Yah in most cases 2x200 is the step up from 200. The reason being is your wire that runs your 200A service isn't big enough to carry 400A, so you would need to tear it out. Why tear it out a perfectly good wire when you can just run another?

My house is a really big house built in the 50s. It was initially 2x100A service as I don't think 200A service at home was really a thing. It had 2 meters and everything. Sometime in the 80s they tore out the feed from the pole and put in a proper single 200A line, and just left the second meter as defunct.

Re: We need a lot more electricians

#344

Post by repiret »

Animats wrote: post #322
BitwiseFool wrote: post #11

Something to keep in mind is that most homes, if they haven't been constructed within the last 10 years, likely have some non-compliance with the current electrical code. For instance, I needed to install an exterior disconnect which wound up costing me more than a thousand dollars on top of the existing electrical work I needed done. The electrician also needed to replace my existing ground wires because they are su…

> Even after the replacement was complete the electrician had to come back and redo the wiring connections because the inspector said the PVC joint at the top of the box had to be metal instead. Right. There must be a reliable metallic path to ground. This is a big problem with PVC pipe retrofits. In older houses, plumbing and conduit are metal and good grounds, and grounding to plumbing used to be permitted. Once PV…

> ... and grounding to plumbing used to be permitted

Do you have a citation for this?

I was under the impression that using plumbing as equipment ground was never allowed, but that conductive plumbing has required to be bonded to ground for some time. I was further under the impression that by code, plumbing repairs couldn't leave behind unbonded sections of conductive plumbing.

Re: We need a lot more electricians

#345

Post by hattmall »

flavius29663 wrote: post #93
treeman79 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A recent cold snap left East coast with rolling black outs across a number of states. This is not California where you put on a warm jacket. You heat the home, find shelter somewhere or die. I kept getting notes to hold off on using appliances for a few days. Can imagine that if our areas heat was electric that would have collapsed the grid.

Was that because of insufficient grid capacity, or not generating enough juice for everyone?

In my town the temperature dropped to like 15 degrees on Christmas Eve and due to demand one of the substations exploded. There were about 10,000 people without power from 10am to 10pm on Christmas Eve. That additionally caused a lot of commercial buildings to have pipes burst which depressurized the water system. That caused main underground water lines to collapse and around 5k people had no water for 3 days. Similar events happened in a few other areas as well.

Re: We need a lot more electricians

#346

Post by epistasis »

ilyt wrote: post #113
epistasis wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is mooooore than enough spare grid capacity to deliver the electricity to electrify homes. We size the grid for peak capacity, not for average capacity, which means that there's a very low overall usage amount. And the big drivers of additional electricity, heating and transportation, are easily shiftable to non-peak times. And as we have smarter devices, and more time of use billing, load shifting will be easy…

>We size the grid for peak capacity, not for average capacity, which means that there's a very low overall usage amount. And the big drivers of additional electricity, heating and transportation, are easily shiftable to non-peak times. How's heating "shifttable" ? None of the usual systems to heat house does it (inertia is not the same)

One of the biggest current methods of "demand response" is shifting HVAC loads from large commercial buildings: pre-heating or pre-cooling by a few degrees, and then lessening the HVAC activity during the peak time. This can be done at the residential level with devices like a Nest thermostat, and be overridable by the customer if they don't want to save the $0.25 or whatever.

Water heating is even easier to implement this way, but requires smarter water heaters.

Re: We need a lot more electricians

#347

Post by bluGill »

mfer wrote: post #181
bluGill wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are confusing the grid with generation capacity. They are different. Generation capacity is where we have more need. For the most part the wires have enough capacity - though even then there are places that need upgrades.

I have a few reasons to believe the wires we have today aren't enough 1) I was recently talking with someone who lives in a community where homes have 60A service. The homes and last mile in places like that can't handle the draw people will need to electrify everything. 60A isn't enough. 2) Where I live there has been work to upgrade the wiring because it's not enough. It's not done yet and other communities I've be…

Utilities have been upgrading their wires in many areas though.

Re: We need a lot more electricians

#348

Post by sokoloff »

repiret wrote: post #337
sokoloff wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Multi-wire branch circuits (your second point) will likely always be legal, because they're fundamentally safe from an engineering point of view. Requiring common-disconnect (but not common-trip) breakers I think was a requirement since before 1998, but because it only needs common-disconnect, a listed handle-tie between the two breakers will suffice. (In other words, this should be a quite inexpensive situation to r…

Yes, I agree with both points. When done right, they're slightly safer and more energy efficient, because there's less current flowing on the full length of the neutral line. I've even seen installs where the inspector was okay with a handle-tie made with a scrap of copper wire, although I'm not convinced that was actually code. The handle-tie would get you common-trip too, wouldn't it?

No. Over-current trips do not flip the breaker to the off position. Instead, it trips internally and the handle moves ever-so-slightly and becomes “rattle-y” for lack of a more precise term.

If you have a breaker in your hand (now or at a home center), you can slap it briskly against your thigh and it will “trip” allowing you to see how the handle will look when tripped. To a cursory glance, it will appear on (but you will notice the handle can be moved about 1/8" more than normal).

That small movement is not enough to induce a trip or disconnect on the handle-tied breaker. (The requirement is only "Each multiwire branch circuit shall be provided with a means that will simultaneously disconnect all ungrounded conductors at the point where the branch circuit originates." That's to allow for safe servicing.)

Re: We need a lot more electricians

#349

Post by TheCoelacanth »

ilyt wrote: post #134
londons_explore wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously in most parts of the world, there is no electrical police who will raid your home and look for evidence of wiring done without the correct certifications. Therefore, lots of people DIY stuff illegally... If you choose this route, understand that: * The main cause of injury/death caused by electrics is fires. Fires are normally caused by improper fuses (a fuse/breaker should always be the lowest rating of an…

Are you sure that's "illegal" or just "illegal to take money for it" ? Here (Poland) you can do it just fine on your own stuff as long as you don't pretend to be electrician and sell your service, with caveats (only touching anything after power company stuff IIRC)

In much of the US, you are allowed to do any work that you want to on your own property, though if a professional would be required to get permits and inspections to do the same work then you usually still have to get those permits/inspections.

Re: We need a lot more electricians

#350

Post by lotsofpulp »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #313
lotsofpulp wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wish that our building codes and permitting system had provisions for "competent amateurs", but how on earth would you do that? What does this mean? Any “amateur” is allowed to do the work anytime they want (on their own home), and anyone can apply for a permit. They just have to pass the same inspection as everyone else. I do not see why the code (rules) would be different though, the principles of electricity a…

> Any “amateur” is allowed to do the work anytime they want (on their own home) This is not true across all US states, let alone other countries. I currently live in a jurisdiction that does allow home owners to do their own electrical work, but they have to pass a (demanding) exam before being licensed to do so. In my previous home state, home owners were not allowed - even if you did the work, a licensed electricia…

Interesting, I have not come across a US state that does not allow a homeowner to do it themselves, assuming they follow the same permitting and inspection requirements.

Which states do not allow DIY electrical? A quick search is not coming up with any examples.

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