The property I work at unfortunately has about 95% federal pacific panels from the 60s. I know they are fire hazards and we are in contract with a local electrician to start replacing these panels in phases throughout the next couple of years. That's close to 450 fpe panels.

When a breaker fails its normally a 2 pole 30 or 40 amp for the stove or ac and we replace the breaker with a fpe style Connecticut electric breaker.

Here's my questions

1.) Is this a safe alternative to the breakers themselves? Or is this just lipstick on a pig because the panels themselves are the issue?

2.) If that's a safe alternative, would it make sense to replace all of the breakers? I can source these pretty cheap and save the property a chuck of change if so.

Just a random shower thought I had and figured I'd ask people more qualified than myself before I even asked the question out loud at work. TIA

Hello! I didn’t consider the ceiling fan when my kid set her heart on a loft bed. After getting it all set up and trying every possible configuration, we’ve accepted that the ceiling fan is always going to be an issue as is.

I’m wondering if I can just remove the blades and the pull chain for the time being? Is that dangerous? She’s a smart, cautious kid so I’m not thinking she’d mess with it, my concern is mostly overthinking.

Thoughts? (And yes, I know we can replace it with something else, and we will if she decides to stick with this set up)

Hello all and thanx in advance

Need advice in selecting the proper service amperage

This is a virgin install, nothing has been begun or permited yet....still waiting on E911 address

Moving into county into our RV to build our own house....house will be the last phase endgame so im going out on a limb and figuring that that will be a later added connection with second 200amp meter.

The question is I need to select the proper setup to get the intial power to my RV....100amp box with a 50, 30, and 20gfci. My wife has a sheshed thats coming with us as an office that I wired to 100 amps....who knows if that will pass from the county inspector I loving call Doctor Doom....and also a well, which I guess will be 30 to 50 amps...all i need is to run the pump and a light and small heater in winter.

I was told theres a way to do the combo meter base and 200 and also have a 100amp run beside it to get 300 amps.......is this cost effective and safe....or just spend a fortune and get a 400 and have WAY more than I ever need ?

I’ve been reading about electricity a lot lately, both electrical theory and real world (residential) setups.

I have a decent (basic) understanding, but have a knowledge gap that I can’t reconcile.

I understand that electricity wants to return to its source and will take all available paths, and that the EGC provides a safe way to do this in the event of a fault. The high current would also trip the breaker, protecting the wiring.

My stupid scenario: If we had no EGC, and no grounding stakes, how would the electricity get back to its source in a meaningful way? Couldn’t we theoretically energize every metal appliance and touch it all day long? The fault path back to the source would have extremely high resistance, so the current (through you) would be negligible, no? Wouldn’t it be safer (shock risk wise) to NOT give electricity a low resistance path back to the source?

I know this isn’t correct, I’m just trying to understand the why. I get that we need a ground for other reasons (stabilizing voltage, etc), I’m purely talking about the shock risk here.

Excuse my incorrect language here as I’m (obviously) not an electrician.

We had a single center ceiling light in my daughter’s (10 years old) room. We’re having some renovations done and we had four recessed lights installed into that room. We’re eventually going to replace the original center light with a ceiling fan, but we don’t have the fan yet. Now there are two switches when you walk in…one for the original ceiling light (eventual ceiling fan) and one for the new recessed lights.

My daughter decided she liked her original light better than the recessed, so she figured out a way to stack a bunch of stuff on her bed to reach, unscrew the blank cap, unscrew some wire caps, and take her old light and just shove it up into the hole. There was a “giant” (her words; I didn’t see it) spark, it scared the ever living shit out of her, and she dropped the light and ran to me crying.

I’m NOT concerned (believe it or not) about her doing it again. She learned a VERY scary lesson. How do I redo what the electrician had done to that fixture so I can screw the blank plate back on? There’s a red, white, black, and ground in there that I can see. What’s the proper way to tie off a box that’ll eventually be used but isn’t being used currently?

Hi,

Looking for some advice. I keep my car on a trickle charger/battery maintainer (Noco Genius 10). Today I noticed a bit of a tingle when touching the car body (or anything grounded) - enough to be uncomfortable. My meter says this is 75 VAC. That seems like a dangerous amount? I note that the charger mains cable does not have a ground pin and I have read that a little bit of leakage is common, but was expecting just a few volts.

Waiting to hear back from their support but I assume I should unplug this thing and back away? Or worrying unnecessarily?

Extra context: I am in Australia.

TIA

The guy who came out to provide us the estimate took a bunch of photos last week and then we got our estimate today. The master electrician said that he could tell from the photos that our two subpanels were improperly bonded and it would be an additional $700 for that repair. I've asked him if he could point out in the photos where he's seeing that and am awaiting his response.

I bought my house four years ago and nothing concerning was mentioned about the electrical in the inspection report. We've also had other electrical work done (installing mini splits, troubleshooting a light that didn't work) and nobody else mentioned it.

Would you expect an issue like that to be mentioned on my home's inspection report? Or for it to be noticeable to a handyman looking at the panel? I guess I'm trying to figure out if it's as big of a concern as he's making it out to be, and if it is, why nobody else caught it.

EDIT: these are the the photos he took but added some photos here https://imgur.com/a/LgERWMc

Hi All,

I have two sets of outlets on the exterior of my home, each set has two plugs. The sets are on either side of the front door. There are two interior switches for them, one for each side. I have one strand of LED Christmas lights plugged into each of the four outlets. The switches are turned off but the lights are flickering so they're getting power somehow. This is the first time this has happened, or at least that I've noticed. Any ideas as to what could cause this? The switches have not been touched in at least a couple weeks. I have not noticed any surges or dips in power on anything plugged in within the house.

Hi Experts,

I have a 1956 cabin with old wiring. I have successfully changed out a few of the outlets and breakers myself so I’m hoping this is something like that that I can do myself — but if it would be dangerous to do myself then of course I will call in a pro.

Last night I flipped on the kitchen light switch, and the overhead lights in the kitchen and dining room both flashed without turning on. Then turning the switch off again — same thing happened (lights flashed again, but didn’t turn on). Flipped switch on again — same thing (flash, didn’t turn on). Off — flash, didn’t turn on.

Does anyone know what is wrong and how I can fix this? Thanks!

There are two outlets in my bathroom. The first is wired properly according to my tester, but the second (which was added after raw first) is open ground. I haven’t opened up either one to see if a ground wire is loose. I have a feeling the guy who installed the second just didn’t connect the ground wire or ran into an issue and gave up. He did use a GFCI outlet. Should I be concerned about the open ground outlet? Is it something I should have fixed? Every other outlet in the home is wired properly according to the tester.

I have Inovelli smart switches controlling Philips Hue LED downlights throughout my house. The switch in one of the bedrooms gets hot while it's powered, even without the lights being on. I normally leave the air-gap pulled out and only turn it on briefly when I need to.

I've had two different electricians come to check it out. They both confirmed that the switch was too hot, checked the circuit with a multimeter, and checked the connections to the lights, but neither of them could find the problem. I've also swapped out the switch with one from another room that I know is working, as well as a different brand switch, and they all have the same problem in this room.

When I had the lights turned on recently, I noticed that there was a barely audible high pitched buzz coming from a One Connect box for a nearby TV, which was plugged into an outlet near the switch. I realized that it stopped after I pulled the air gap on the lights.

Does this give any hints at what the problem might be? What could potentially cause buzzing from electronics plugged into an outlet when a nearby switch has power?

My house is in bad need of rewiring. It's a very old house with (possibly) oak framing. Would I be ahead to get something like a Hole Hawg? Or would a regular drill using an auger/paddle bit do just the same? My thinking is removing the baseboards and cutting the drywall and running wire along the bottom of the studs.