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We need a lot more electricians

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Re: We need a lot more electricians

#491

Post by Gigachad »

efitz wrote: post #308
tstrimple wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And every time I see a video online of a dance floor or stadium collapsing or people getting electrocuted by accidentally touching ungrounded electrical devices I'm reminded why. That's not to say those things don't happen here, just at a lower frequency. Safety standards are written in blood after all.

Structure collapses are extremely rare, which is why they are always news. I am not unhappy with the state of regulation when it comes to building structures that have the potential to kill hundreds or thousands of people at a time. However I think many locations in the US way overdo regulation when it comes to residential building codes. When you buy a house, you get a professional inspection. If it comes up dangero…

Presumably you pull out a report and do a rundown of all the not to spec electrical work before any guests enter the house? Or are you making the safety call for them too?

Re: We need a lot more electricians

#492

Post by nixgeek »

sokoloff wrote: post #161
londons_explore wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They only need to be installed in specific places... But they ought to be installed for the whole house. You do want your refrigerator on one. What when your mom is putting a metal saucepan into the fridge of leftovers, knocks and smashes the lamp inside, and the AC lamp power supply kills her though the metal saucepan? What when a baby puts a fork into an electrical outlet in the living room? What when floodwater co…

I have twice lost a fridge full of food due to spurious GFCI trips, once when I was a recent graduate and it was a painful experience financially. I now make sure my fridge/freezer is NOT on a GFCI. I'll take my chances of getting a 120VAC shock from my fridge [which is attention-getting, but very unlikely to be injurious].

A shock on 120VAC can absolutely kill. It’s not the volts which kill you, it’s the amps, and it’s specifically why GFCI trip at somewhere between 5mA and 30mA (depending) — it’s because those are not levels as likely to cause fibrillation.

Re: We need a lot more electricians

#493

Post by nixgeek »

traceroute66 wrote: post #219
anikom15 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which country? In the U.S., GFCIs only need to be installed in specific locations, which is good. I do not want my refrigerator or computer on a GFCI. In the U.K., you just can’t have plugs in bathrooms (aside from the shaver plug), which is probably more sensible.

> In the U.K., you just can’t have plugs in bathrooms (aside from the shaver plug), Disclaimer: I'm not an electrician My understanding is that is not entirely technically correct. You can have standard sockets in bathrooms in the UK. But, and it's a big BUT , 99.999% of bathrooms in the UK are not big enough to be able to place the socket 3m away from the relevant wet "zone" (shower and/or bath and/or sink, IIRC). H…

You’re correct, bathrooms in UK are zoned and most houses aren’t big enough to meet the distance requirements from the “wet zones” to accommodate a regular socket/outlet.

Shaver sockets are typically going to have ingress protection.

https://www.tapwarehouse.com/blog/how-to-guides/understandin...

Re: We need a lot more electricians

#494

Post by midoridensha »

Spivak wrote: post #401
techie128 wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The annoying part is when I plug in some faulty device that is not immediately dangerous Do you mind, re-reading that statement? I don't even understand that argument. You should not be plugging in faulty devices in the first place...

Also because plugging in faulty devices into outlets is something that ought to be safe. Because with probability 1 it will happen in every house. If the way the house is wired makes the only safe action to shut everything off that's the problem and shitty wiring.

Exactly: it's just like computer OSes. You should be able to run a faulty program that divides by zero or dereferences a null pointer without the whole computer crashing. The computer should flag the error, tell you what went wrong and why, and let you continue with your work and the other stuff going on in other windows.

Fault-tolerance is an important and useful thing.

Re: We need a lot more electricians

#495

Post by specialist »

rootusrootus wrote: post #449
atoav wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are some devices that trip GFCIs In Germany where I lived for the past decade I have never seen a non-faulty device trip a RCB. The ones that tripped it hat the full 230V on their metal case.

I've got three examples for ya. 1. Deep freezers are prone (for reasons unclear to me at my level of knowledge) to tripping GFCIs. For this reason they're allowed to be on a non-GFCI outlet in the garage (must be a single outlet receptacle by itself on the circuit). 2. Downstream GFCIs are prone to messing with upstream GFCIs, so you should not put them in series. My RV has it's own power distribution panel with GFCI…

My Vitamix blender keeps tripping the GFCI breaker. (My panel was upgraded a few years back.)

My kitchen's circuits are to code (as far as I know). I've asked Vitamix themselves and on various forums (eg r/homeimprovement) about how to fix this. No joy so far.

Re: We need a lot more electricians

#496

Post by atoav »

phpisthebest wrote: post #471
atoav wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, that means somewhere there is current flowing through some pipe, some wall, something. And that is bad. 30mA is not much of a threshold, but it has been chosen because currents above that (or currents that flow longer than the 0,03s it should take maximum to trip an RCD will kill people. Not to speak of fire hazards. So, somewhere you have a thing, that could kill you, a firend, a loved one or whomever. And you…

[flagged]

Just FYI I am a certified electrical engineer and I do risk assessment as well, all the time. Certain things are "taking a risk" as in "there is sharp knife in the kitchen", others are just plain stupid like "one of the door knobs in this house is a knife".

So the results of my risk assessment might just look a little different, because I am more familiar with the matter and the potential consequences than you might be.

Best of luck to you.

Re: We need a lot more electricians

#497

Post by atoav »

rootusrootus wrote: post #449
atoav wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are some devices that trip GFCIs In Germany where I lived for the past decade I have never seen a non-faulty device trip a RCB. The ones that tripped it hat the full 230V on their metal case.

I've got three examples for ya. 1. Deep freezers are prone (for reasons unclear to me at my level of knowledge) to tripping GFCIs. For this reason they're allowed to be on a non-GFCI outlet in the garage (must be a single outlet receptacle by itself on the circuit). 2. Downstream GFCIs are prone to messing with upstream GFCIs, so you should not put them in series. My RV has it's own power distribution panel with GFCI…

1. Deep freezers are prone (for reasons unclear to me at my level of knowledge) to tripping GFCIs. For this reason they're allowed to be on a non-GFCI outlet in the garage (must be a single outlet receptacle by itself on the circuit)

Guess when the compressor kicks on you get sharp current spikes in units that do nothing to prevent that from hitting the grid.

> 2. Downstream GFCIs are prone to messing with upstream GFCIs, so you should not put them in series. My RV has it's own power distribution panel with GFCI, so it gets plugged into a dedicated TT-30 RV outlet without GFCI protection.

I don't know if this is an english word, but in German this known under the term selectivity. You cannot just put any RCD behind any RCD, you must select them specifically to have the downstream one trip first (otherwise, what is the use of having two in a row)?

3. My Tesla doesn't like GFCIs at all. It does a brief ground check before charging and trips the outlet. Known issue, solution is to find an outlet that isn't protected by a GFCI. In a pinch, when I was renting my first Tesla from Turo I stole the freezer outlet in the garage for a few hours at a time to charge the car. When I bought my own Tesla, I put in level 2 of course, problem solved.

Might be an issue with the wiring or the connector (some current is flowing where it should not flow), but it could also just be a broken GFCI.

Re: We need a lot more electricians

#498

Post by atoav »

specialist wrote: post #495
rootusrootus wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've got three examples for ya. 1. Deep freezers are prone (for reasons unclear to me at my level of knowledge) to tripping GFCIs. For this reason they're allowed to be on a non-GFCI outlet in the garage (must be a single outlet receptacle by itself on the circuit). 2. Downstream GFCIs are prone to messing with upstream GFCIs, so you should not put them in series. My RV has it's own power distribution panel with GFCI…

My Vitamix blender keeps tripping the GFCI breaker. (My panel was upgraded a few years back.) My kitchen's circuits are to code (as far as I know). I've asked Vitamix themselves and on various forums (eg r/homeimprovement) about how to fix this. No joy so far.

There are device testers where you can check if the PE resistance and isolation resistance of your mixer are within spec. If not, it is a broken device.

The grid, wiring, connectors etc can also be tested.

In Germany any company is required to have external contracters carry out these tests every 24 months due to work safety laws, this test is called DGUV and I think there is an ISO equivalent. If you ever have an electrician over that is worth their money they should be able to carry out those tests.

Re: We need a lot more electricians

#499

Post by atoav »

silisili wrote: post #475
rootusrootus wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've got three examples for ya. 1. Deep freezers are prone (for reasons unclear to me at my level of knowledge) to tripping GFCIs. For this reason they're allowed to be on a non-GFCI outlet in the garage (must be a single outlet receptacle by itself on the circuit). 2. Downstream GFCIs are prone to messing with upstream GFCIs, so you should not put them in series. My RV has it's own power distribution panel with GFCI…

My brand new Samsung fridge has tripped the upstream GFCI since day 1. Called an electrician, and he just moved it off the upstream circuit and called it a day

I know many (european) electricians that would label that a wreckless action. It would also be illegal over here.

Weirdly enough Samsung fridges work over here without tripping RCDs.

Re: We need a lot more electricians

#500

Post by atoav »

epistasis wrote: post #31
mfer wrote: post #15

The article is touching on the important issue of homes but is missing three very important related issues. 1) The network that delivers power to the home. It's not able to handle everyone electrifying everything. If you electrify everything (electric stove, electric car, air conditioner/heater) you are going to be hard pressed in many locales to be covered by at home solar. 2) Electricity generation. We need a lot m…

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…

> There is mooooore than enough spare grid capacity to deliver the electricity to electrify homes.

I know some electrical engineers who work in the field who are of the polar opposite opinion. I am trying to paraphrase:

1. the wires we have deployed will not be able to carry the currents needed

2. the deployed transformers are not beefy enough for the expected demand

3. the existing house wirings are not beefy enough for the expected demand

4. there are not enough people with the propper training in the field to change this all as quickly as is needed

This is not my judgement, but what "word on the street" is with electrical engineers who do nothing else than put copper under the earth 24/7

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