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We need a lot more electricians

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Re: We need a lot more electricians

#351

Post by mcbishop »

wlesieutre wrote: post #283
londons_explore wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some countries you have a single one for the whole building, rather than one per circuit. That dramatically lowers the cost. The only real downside is that if you accidentally put your finger in the toaster, rather than just the power to your kitchen cutting off, the power to the whole house cuts off. I think thats a fine tradeoff to save $1200.

The bigger downside is nuisance tripping because the breaker doesn't like electrical noise emitted by some device or another in your house. I don't have any AFCIs but I've heard it's pretty common. You'd rather have one circuit go out instead of the whole house, and if all you have is the one AFCI breaker you're going to have a much harder time identifying what device(s) is the culprit.

This nuisance tripping is the bane of my electrician friend's professional life.

Re: We need a lot more electricians

#352

Post by cduzz »

londons_explore wrote: post #334
DaveExeter wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There is a good chance that if you installed GFCI in some old house it would just... trip due to shitty wiring. No, that's not true! A GFCI measures the current going in and the current going out and if they are not equal it trips.

Some old houses have exposed wiring in damp places, so there really is electricity leaking all the time. Theres probably some wire with paper insulation touching a plant root under the house, slowly steaming away. OP is correct that in this case a GFCI would trip all the time. But on the other hand, GFCI leaks are fairly easy to track down and fix, especially with the right equipment.

Doesn't that count as a feature not a bug?

If I install an GFCI/AFCI on a branch and it starts tripping and I look and find that there's some iffy wiring, that seems like a problem averted.

If I install these on a branch, decide that because it's not a problem (because the old breaker never tripped) I'm just ignoring the problem.

People ignore problems all the time and aren't always caught out, but sometimes "rely on good luck" runs into bad luck and bad things happen.

Re: We need a lot more electricians

#353

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #350
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

It's not decided at the state level, at least not always. In Pennsylvania, Lower Merion Township will not permit homeowners do perform their own electrical or plumbing work.

Re: We need a lot more electricians

#354

Post by carcostthrow »

brianwawok wrote: post #336
carcostthrow wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It has been the standard for quite a few years, and I cannot imagine only having 100A service in a proper house 100A service is fairly normal here for smaller homes. As heating here is primarily done by natural gas furnaces rather then electrical heating. Which make sense; gas is way cheaper to heat with here then electricity. And it saves a dollar for the developer. I don't know about larger homes though; I'd imagi…

I cannot find any new homes with smaller than 150. What I have seen is: Smaller House: Default 150, pay a little more to get 200 Bigger House: Default 200, pay a little more to get 2x200

I'm in Canada in the prairies, so that might be making a difference. Where are you looking at?

Re: We need a lot more electricians

#355

Post by londons_explore »

stjohnswarts wrote: post #184
bluGill wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no way a pro can install a GFCI for less than $150 in the ideal case where everything else is up to code. Anything non ideal adds cost. While there isn't much labor, you also have to count the time to get from the last job to yours, and other overhead.

I'm guessing he was talking about DIY. It's not really that hard, I did it in the 3 circuits in my garage. I'm no pro, although I'm fairly knowledgeable in electronics and electricity.

Even pro, if done with a government scheme.

If you have one guy spending 10 mins in every house on a street, he can probably fit GFCI's to 40 houses in a day. But that's only possible if it's a government/power company scheme. Installation could be even quicker and cheaper if it's installed internal to the electricity meter by the power company, and then you don't even need the homeowner home to do it.

Power companies have an incentive to add GFCI's, because ground leakage costs them real money, and those power flows are only 50% measured by the power meter (depending on the meter design). A 100 milliamp leak at 230 volts costs ~$30/yr or so.

Re: We need a lot more electricians

#356

Post by amelius »

DaveExeter wrote: post #329
ilyt wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a good chance that if you installed GFCI in some old house it would just... trip due to shitty wiring. But yeah, the law should probably have exception for installing safety devices, it's better to have some than zero because someone can't afford it.

>There is a good chance that if you installed GFCI in some old house it would just... trip due to shitty wiring. No, that's not true! A GFCI measures the current going in and the current going out and if they are not equal it trips.

> No, that's not true!

What if the return current goes through a different wire that was used as a quick fix for some wiring problem someone ran into 50 years ago?

Re: We need a lot more electricians

#357

Post by georgeoliver »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #241
frankus wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or even something as simple as studs that come pre-drilled at outlet and switch height (they already come pre-cut to slightly less than 8 feet to be the right height when installed between top and bottom plates).

What purpose would this serve? A drill and drill bit is a very common, quick, and easy to use tool. If you were screwing a box to a stud, I do not think you even need a pre drilled hole. You can just use any wood screw. Also, outlet/switch boxes get nailed to the studs during construction, and modifications to those boxes are fastened to the drywall, in my experience.

Holes for the wires/cables, not the screws.

Re: We need a lot more electricians

#358

Post by brianwawok »

carcostthrow wrote: post #354
brianwawok wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot find any new homes with smaller than 150. What I have seen is: Smaller House: Default 150, pay a little more to get 200 Bigger House: Default 200, pay a little more to get 2x200

I'm in Canada in the prairies, so that might be making a difference. Where are you looking at?

US Midwest

Re: We need a lot more electricians

#359

Post by sokoloff »

somehnguy wrote: post #124
londons_explore wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are normally required to update anything an electrician touches or could impact. So if you are having a new socket added in your kitchen, then all the other sockets in the kitchen on the same circuit will need updating, and the breaker for the kitchen. But you probably won't have to have your living room rewired.

Are you certain about that? I’m having a new service entry cable, meter box, and main breaker panel put in next week. By its nature that should impact every single circuit in my house. But my electrician isn’t touching anything besides what I listed above, and I know that there are multiple other things around the house not up to current code.

You have an electrician and AHJ that understands the NEC correctly. In this case, there are explicit exceptions written in code (210.12(B)), but that's an exception to a new part of code. In the general case, replacing like-for-like is permitted, so long as the original met code at the time of installation.

Re: We need a lot more electricians

#360

Post by frosted-flakes »

CorrectHorseBat wrote: post #328
frosted-flakes wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whole-house GFCIs are far less sensitive than the GFCIs built right into the receptacle.

That does not explain why you wouldn't want a GFCI? It's not like you can't chain them.

Because they trip much more easily, and they are sinply not needed all the time. Plugging a motorized refrigerator full of perishable food to a GFCI receptacle is a bad idea.

I used to work on residential construction jobsites and the only power on-site would be a pair of GFCI duplex receptacles in the basement beside the panel. Tripping the actual overload breaker was rare (and usually only happened when multiple people were running off a single extension cord), but the damn GFCI breakers on the receptacles themselves tripped all the time, particularly when the table saw was running at full tilt for 20 minutes straight. They're just too sensitive for certain applications. Now, you can buy combined overload/GFCI circuit breakers for in the panel, but they're ridiculously overpriced so no one uses them, and they're probably just as sensitive.

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