I decided to change this outlet in my rental, but noticed this copper wire going from neutral to ground. I’m not an electrician…but this seems wrong. What’s going on here?
Paid the electrician before testing and found out two plugs aren’t working. How do I finish this?
*Edit: he’s not answering his phone now.
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1 - 200 Amp Main Breaker Panel
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1- GFCI 125 Volt 15-20 Amps Install New GFCI Volt 15-20 Amp. Repair burned wiring (Electrician's Courtesy Outlet that was then ran to the outside, main floor half bath, and upstairs bathrooms, wiring repair is to the EC Outlet)
They also mentioned they'd have to cut into the wall to install the larger breaker panel and put two new grounding rods in.
I was quoted at 8k for this in Montgomery County Maryland and everything I'm seeing seems to indicate this is pretty high? A similar job I saw in NoVa on reddit was around 5k for instance.
Hey folks! My husband’s uncle is here doing work for us on a gutted bathroom. He just came in and asked me which breaker was for which bathroom (we moved in a year ago, they are labeled “bathroom 1” and “bathroom 2”), and I told him he could just turn both of them off as the water is off anyways so we’re not really using the bathrooms.
He said he “tried to trip the right breaker by creating an arc but the breaker didn’t trip” and implied this could be a bad thing.
We lost our previous home to an electrical fire in Dec 2024 so this made me feel pretty nervous. I tried googling but it was confusing.
Additional context: We had an electrician do a ton of updates before we purchased (we couldn’t get homeowners insurance before updating at least the glass fuse box so we opted for all of the repairs recommended by our inspector). The original house was built in 1943 but the previous owners did a total of 3 additions/expansions.
The only electrical thing I’ve noticed since living here is we can’t run the toaster and the espresso machine at the same time or the kitchen breaker trips).
What exactly does it mean that the breaker didn’t trip (layman’s terms please lol) and is there anything I need to be mindful of or aware of?
Tried to change lightbulb and the whole fixture fell, I'm from the Netherlands. I turned off my breaker, but I'm scared that it might still be charged with electricity.
Big storm last night took out a power line on the street, but our power was good all day. Then late this afternoon the power company said they saw that downed line pulled our meter off the wall and cut the power for safety and I need to have an electrician come out and fix it before they will turn on the power again.
If my house line was pulled down by their downed power line is Georgia power in anyway liable for the cost of the repair or fixing the meter or I am I pretty much going out of pocket on this fix?
Also a limb from the tree by the road took out the power line and I've told the city several times to take down the tree as it was a risk to the power lines. Does the city have any liability?
It was impossible to get a good picture from the outside so here it is unscrewed from the wall, as seen from the inside.
It looks like it could be Ethernet, but much more narrow - my Ethernet cables don't fit. Can't find anything online.
I'm hoping I can use this to pass high-speed Ethernet (directly or with adapters) to replace my slow powerline setup, but it might be just a slow telephone line or something.
I tried doinng it and its next to impossible. I just want to add an extra light from an existing light switch. so i replaced the switch with a 3 pole, and went in the attric and pushed the single black wire into the conduit (after disconnecting it at a bend) , that part was tricky as is and was straight. but now the rest of the live wire needs to go through the rest of the conduit into the junction box, and there are 2 sharp bends. What now??!
I have a tripped breaker. It is an Eaton Cutler-Hammer BR115AF. It powers both the lights and outlets in 2 bedrooms.
With no load, I can flip the breaker back on. As soon as I turn on a ceiling light, the breaker flips.
If I flip the breaker on and then plug in a dimmable lamp, the lamp works up until about 70% brightness, at which point the load becomes too much and the breaker flips again.
I'm 95% sure the problem is from a nail puncturing the wiring somewhere in the walls. The house has 2x4 framing. I have been nailing 4' x 8' siding panels.
I unhooked the wires from the breaker and attached a toner to the wires, with the intent of going outside and using the locating wand to find whichever nail had a beep. Here's the kicker, the house has a foam sheathing underneath the siding that has a conductive foil lining and so every nail is now essentially connected to each other and so every nail beeps.
I'm at a loss as to how to find the problem nail now, short of tearing out drywall and manually searching for a punctured wire. Any input is appreciated.
Edit: To be clear, the breaker is an arc fault if that changes anybody's advice. I did attempt to turn on the dimmable lamp under low load to, in theory, heat up the nail enough to show up with thermal imaging, but every nail shows up the same.
Interestingly enough (or not) the breaker did trip again after being on a significant amount of time with the dimmable lamp on its lowest setting, well below the usual 70% threshold that causes the breaker to flip immediately. That behavior doesn't make sense to me.
We just bought our first house, and our home inspection noted that we have aluminum wiring and need to have CO/ALR-rated devices and AlumiConn or COPALUM connectors pigtailed at every connection point. Apparently, there are AFCI breakers already installed. I'm having an electrician come to look things over and give us a quote, but electrical is over my head with trying to understand it. Does anyone have some insight to share on A) how dangerous things are before we fix it and B) how involved will having someone fix it or c) what do all those acronyms mean in non-electeixal terms. Lol
Any advice would be appreciated before we jump into things. Thanks!
Newbie here, 1970's house, I need to fish out this cable to get it out of a joist I need to replace. I thought I'd just replace the old outlet with a new lever edge version, but what's this?
There's a four wire cable, red-black-white-bare, leading, maybe, back to the breaker (the house wiring is pretty unpredictable). There are three conductors, white-black-bare, leading to the next outlet. They might have a cable housing, or maybe not, I can't tell from what I see.
The tab is intact, any guesses as to what that red wire is doing? And do I need to pop out those uncabled wires and get them wrapped all the way into the enclosure?
TIA
I have a terrible, debilitating fear of fire. So, imagine my absolute panic when I noticed the pronged connector on the end of the cord for my air conditioner and the outlet it was plugged into to be hot to the touch and scorched (honestly, I am just grateful I caught it before anything progressed). Our landlord sent his handyman who replaced the outlet and filed down the plug and expects that to be sufficient enough work. I refuse to plug it back into the wall and feel we should call an electrician. Am I overreacting?
Images include: 1. outlet before 2. plug before 3-5. plug after 6. new outlet
I'm a tad bit confused here. I have a fixture that says it takes a 100 watt incandescent light but only a 12 watt led (75 watt equivalent). Is there any reason I can't use a 100 watt equivalent bulb?
I live in a 4 unit townhome with ZERO electrical issues in our unit. Another owner who owns one of the other units called an electrician because she was having power “surges” in her unit only. They came out, and said our panel, the one that supplies all four units, has to be replaced completely to fix the issue. It is a GE panel that was installed only five years ago. The quote was in the 10,000 to 12,000.00 range. Is this in any way normal?
I am not an electrician. I was in the process of changing the receptacle in my home (DIY project) and stumbled upon here where there are two black wires (one pushed-in) and the other screwed-in) and then there is another red wire that’s also pushed-in. I know that backstabbing is not the proper way to wire a receptacle (I didn’t do it - it was done by some electrician) and would need your help on how to properly connect these 3 hot wires here without using backstabbing method.
My room only has 1 outlet with 2 spots to plug something in. Can I plug both the ac and a power strip in the same wall outlet?
Please help me. I bought a new cable and followed exactly what the set up was
First picture: this is how it was wired. It came with the home. It was working in this set up.
Second picture: instructions. Looks different than what the previous owners did.
Third picture: what I did. I copied the same configuration from the first picture.
Can someone tell me what to do? I’m so frustrated. I thought it was a simple DIY. I genuinely don’t understand why something different was done.
Edit: there’s also a very thing green wire screwed at the bottom. It’s not in the instructions so unsure what this changes.
Found this outside a house we’ve purchased, original part of the house where this is was built 1920s… can’t see where it connects indoors etc… what’s its purpose and can I snip it?!
Moved into a new house some months ago - doorbell ("smart" doorbell with camera) died a few weeks ago.
The doorbell install looks DIY: There's 22AWG wire run from the doorbell transformer through a basement window, along/tucked under the shingle siding, up through the wood porch and up to the doorbell (i.e. nearly all of which is exposed to the bitter Northeast USA elements -- and the 22AWG wire doesn't look like it's rated for exterior use...).
When the doorbell broke initially, I measured 0V across the 20V terminals of the doorbell transformer, 120V with proper ground going into the transformer... we just had a heat pump put it so I figured they may have accidentally shorted it or something (bit of a stretch, but couldn't think of any other changes) and didn't think twice... swapped it with a 24V transformer from the hardware store and was back up.
Well, the (new) transformer also blew about a week in service. 0V across the 24V terminals, power to the transformer.
Now I'm wondering WTF do I do? What could cause a not-immediate but sufficiently delayed (1 week) short like this? Should I redo the wiring, replace the doorbell, both? If I rerun the wire with something that's rated for outdoor use, I can DIY the outdoor run myself... really don't want to open the wall and fish wire if I can help it but I will if it's too stupid or against code to run it outside like it is now in most municipalities.
Hi all, hoping some electricians/sparks here can sanity check my numbers before I get this oven installed. I've done the maths myself based on our EICR but want a second opinion before committing.
Setup:
Property: flat, UK, standard 230V single-phase supply
New appliance: 11.1kW electric oven, hardwired (no socket on the cooker connection unit — just isolator/hardwire)
Existing cooker circuit per our EICR (tested May 2026):
Cable: 6mm² live, 2.5mm² cpc
Protective device: 32A Type B RCBO
Measured (R1+R2): 0.17Ω
Measured Zs: 1.37Ω
Ze at origin: 0.23Ω
My working:
Full load current: 11,100W ÷ 230V = 48.26A
Applied cooker diversity (BS 7671): 10A + 30% of remainder = 10 + (0.3 × 38.26) = 21.48A design current (no +5A since there's no socket on the unit)
Breaker check: 21.48A design current vs 32A breaker — fine, ~10.5A headroom
Cable check: 32A breaker well within 6mm² T&E capacity — fine
Zs check: 1.37Ω measured vs 1.44Ω max permitted for 32A Type B — passes but only 0.07Ω margin, which feels tight to me
Cable length: not recorded on the EICR, so I back-calculated from the 0.17Ω (R1+R2) reading using standard copper resistance (3.08 mΩ/m for 6mm², 7.41 mΩ/m for 2.5mm²) → works out to roughly 16.2m
Voltage drop at that length: 7.3mV/A/m × 21.48A × 16.2m = 2.54V = 1.1% of 230V — well under the 3% limit
So on paper this all passes, but a few things I'd love opinions on:
Is the 0.07Ω Zs margin (1.37Ω vs 1.44Ω limit) actually as tight as it feels, or is that pretty normal/acceptable in practice?
Is back-calculating cable length from R1+R2 a reasonable approach, or is there something I'm missing that would throw this off (joints, connectors, etc.)?
Anything else on a job like this that wouldn't show up in the paperwork but you'd always check on-site before signing off? (e.g., condition of the isolator switch, terminal tightness, etc.)
Not trying to skip getting a qualified electrician to actually do the install and certify it — just want to go in with a solid understanding of what's involved and not get blindsided. Appreciate any thoughts
