r/AskElectricians

My house has a cheap battery doorbell and I’m looking to install a wired ring doorbell. I pulled out the existing wires and they measure hot with a voltage tester but they measure 0 volts with a multimeter.

For the life of me, I cannot find the doorbell transformer, and the chime does not seem to have power and measure 0 volts as well.

I assume this is just a false positive with the non contact voltage tester?

My elderly neighbor smelled smoke and said there was a brief fire.

Lots of noise, half of the outlets/lights stopped working. Utility came out, shut us off.

How much work/cost are we looking at to get the house side incoming power cables fixed?

Least it’s not freezing….yet.

I think I know the answer to this already...

I had this switch moved about 12" lower as we're having the boiler replaced and it needs to be centred on the wall.

The work was done earlier in the week and I'm now getting round to plastering over it but looks really quite dodgy.

From my understanding the electrician connected to the original cables using electrical crimps(?) and said I'd be fine to fill it with plaster filler.

Any advice would be great!

Based in the UK.

EDIT: thank you all for the help you are giving, I’m just a young gal with no idea what I’m doing to be honest and no one that I can ask that I know.
I’m adding a couple photos of the plug/ other side of plug and my power box.

I am located in the US and got a treadmill delivered that is not the correct plug. The technician told me I could just use an adapter.
My house is standard rated, built in the 90s. Is it actually safe for me to use an adapter or should I have the plug switched?
Including photos of adapter and also of treadmill plug and machine. The plugs in my garage are just standard plugs so it won’t plug into them.
Thank you!!

Does anyone have a story or memory to share about these deadly multimeters? As you can see, there’s no fuse; it looks like the copper traces on the circuit board are meant to act as fuses. If I recall correctly, I owned a DT9205A that fried when exposed to 280 volts. I also bought a DT830 once that wasn't working right from day one.

_of course, they cost under 10 dollars but they hadn't to write "1000v"

Brand new integrated fridge freezer arrived today. Whilst sliding it into place, wasn’t careful enough and the cable snagged pretty bad.. pulled it back out to assess the damage…

I have zero sparkie knowledge. The outer cover grey wire is cut open, the internal coloured wires seem to be fully intact… is this something that can be taped up and turned on? Or would you guys suggest otherwise… not sure what my options are here!

I tried installing a new light switch for the kitchen, now the lights wont turn on. I put everything back and it still wont turn on. A couple of clues. The switch has power, the second switch that also controls the kitchen now does not have power using a non voltage tester. I did not touch the second switch. Also none of the breakers or gfci outlets are tripped that I can tell.any help before I call an electrician.

Homeless person walked by and turned the power off to our whole restaurant. Can I drill a hole in the same piece of metal to lock it off to lock it on? Or is that against code? In the city and county of Denver if it matters.

Edit: Ngl didn’t expect this to be so divisive or popular lol. Another redditor posted the manual to the unit and I can in fact drill a hole to lock it in the on position.

Another redditor mentioned devices can be locked on and it’s compliant with OSHA and NFPA codes.

I’ll be calling my local fire department to ask them about locking and if they approve and give guidance I’ll be drilling a hole into that knife switch protector and locking it.

Thanks all!

I know nothing about electricity except that I think EVs require some sort of high amp hookup.

Couldn’t help myself snagging this box of junk for $5 on FB marketplace. Taking it all apart with my 5 year old for fun :)
Bunch of old phones, remotes, robotic vacuums. Got two small gems- an old car phone and a powered 1/4” drive right-angle household power ratchet.
I’ll be saving the motors and sensors for the vacuums. Mics and speakers from the phones. Anything else of potential use in these old phones or remotes that I may be unaware of? I’m a hobby electronics guy and amateur PCB designer (Altium) for simple random shit, mechanical engineer by profession.. so if there’s any chance of use, gimme a heads up. Component level or otherwise.
Cheers!

My house is from the early 80s. I've done some light work on the main panel in the past but now I'm looking to add a 100 amp sub panel. I ran 1/0 1/0 1/0 2 wire and the sub panel side is easy. I'm having trouble figuring out how to add the wires to the main panel side though. Both the ground bar and neutral bar are full with 2-3 wires in each hole all mixed up on both sides. I added an additional ground bar that I'll move some connections to. My questions are 1) is AWG 4 copper enough to connect the two ground bars together 2) what do I do on the neutral bar side? The lug that holds 2/0 needs three slots so I'll be cramming even more to make space for it. I can try to move the ground wires to the right side proper ground bar but that will add more wiring and pigtails to an already very crowded panel. I'm assuming adding a neutral bar is not acceptable even though this is a main panel and ground and neutral are all bonded together.
Note that I had an electrician do analysis and the main panel can support the sub panel.
Thanks!

EDIT: Thanks for the helpful feedback. Most of the work such as transfer box was done before I bought the house. I did hire licensed electricians based on reviews (none were friends) and different ones installed the surge protector, an EV line (no longer visible, plan to pull it out of the sub), and provided quotes for other services such as close to 2k for sub panel. None mentioned any issue with the panel unfortunately. I wish one of them would have highlighted these are suspect breakers over 40 years old and you want to look into replacing them for instance. Yes load calculation was done (again by an electrician not me). The A/c and a jacuzzi we no longer use are off to the side and there are bedrooms with two breakers so I trusted the load calculations. Not a troll post.

Is this an electrician graveyard I came across on the side of the road?

The black wires look like they have been melted together and they are hot to the touch. Also, why would the installation be black like it is ? Is that black mold, or is that just how it looks after years? Thank you in advance for your help.