I’m trying to replace existing recessed light assemblies. I don’t specifically see a ground wire in the recessed fixture. Two questions…
Thanks!
I have this multiple function switch for light dimmer
All light controlling 3 different light.
The dimmer switch is bad and I’m looking to replace the whole thing box.
What’s are my options please?
Hey guys, recently the outlets in my room have been quite strange. Whenever I plug something in to any outlet, a yellow spark, accompanied by a pop noise, happens. Is this normal? Or is it time to buy a new outlets?
i dont have any pliers to try bending it back
Hi Guys, can you tell me if that ok after the light switch was replaced there is little bit of the copper visible. I pushed it in but when I tightened it came off just a little bit.
Seem to be having issues getting AI to validate, so posting this for the good old Reddit crowd. Been trying to find a reliable easy way to install outlets. I believe the BR15 series allows for a straight insert and screw clamp down…though wasn’t sure if I’m doing it right. Trying to avoid the circular twist as I personally am not very good at it. Appreciate the feedback!
Surely this isn’t good… they’re also upside down. Are wires crossed?
Hi everyone. I am a semi-decent DIYer but definitely not an electrician. We bought our home almost a decade ago and I have been setting up smart switches everywhere. I thought I had seen it all, but I just found a challenging (for me) setup upstairs.
I am trying to install a Kasa 3 way smart switch for a space that is finally getting some use. The light is controlled by three different switches. I chose the middle single gang switch to avoid dealing with the 3 gang and 2 gang boxes on either side. Unfortunately, I opened it up and realized it is actually a 4 way switch. It's got 2 red and 2 black wires and a ground I think, iirc. I was like "whaaat?" before investigating and finding out that this is what is up.
The Kasa switch has a Line/Load, 2 Travelers, a Neutral, and a Ground. I have installed these on regular 3 way circuits downstairs to great success, but 4 way circuits are *totally* new to me. I always shut down the main power to the entire house when I do electrical work, so I am hoping to get some advice before I go opening all 3 boxes, lol
This is where you come in! I have not opened the 3 gang or 2 gang boxes yet. Since they both control the same light, does it matter which one I replace? Will the wiring be identical in both, or do I need to look for something specific? I'll be using this advice in the future as well because I'm almost certain there's another light group up there that I need to do this with again, next time with a Kasa 3 way smart dimmer switch.
Any guidance on how to tackle this (and save time) would be incredibly helpful. Thank you!
What to do now
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Last winter I had a GFCI installed where my Wi-Fi and router plug in and another one across the room where I plug a heater in during the winter because I wanted a little more control over the line since heaters are notorious for causing problems. The GFCI popped off this morning and I immediately reset it. It immediately popped off again. I pushed it again it popped off again so I left it off.
I consulted Google, of course. It suggested I unplug everything on that electrical circuit and see if it turns on. I did and it did. I then went from plug to plug and replugged in the few things that were plugged in initially. (Plug one Wi-Fi and a lamp. Plug two and three hyphen no items. Plug four has air purifier and a TV that was off. Plug five has a small lamp and a wax burner and both were already off. Plug 6 has nothing plugged into it at this point and then the ceiling fan is also on this circuit) After I plugged everything back in and then turned on the fan it continued to stay on and has not popped off although it's been about 20 minutes.
I'm not comfortable just assuming this was some odd thing that happened and so I would like to try to figure it out, but I'm a pretty poor person who already had a giant expense this month and just don't have the money for an electrician. My son-in-law will come and look at it later but I want to pick the brains of all you geniuses for options and possibilities. What are next steps? How do I figure this out? Any thoughts of why it happened or what to look for or how to keep it from happening again? I have a small house and every plug except for the bathroom and kitchen downstairs are on circuit so I can't just move the TV etc and I can't even move the modem and Wi-Fi because it's fiber and it's hardwired in. I mean, I could, but it would take a lot.
He's coming anyone have ideas or suggestions? Thank you all so much!
I have a closet light and wanted a motion switch so when I open the door I have light. But for the life of me I cant get it to work. It had a regular on/off switch. There is only one 3 wire line coming from the junction box. One WHITE One BLACK One GROUND. I have wired in 2 of these and nothing will turn it off. What am I doing wrong?
Hey r/ElectricalHelp! I have a couple old toggle switches in my bedrooms. I pulled the plates off and found two yarned wires connected to the switch that I don’t know what to do with. I’d like to replace the toggles with rocker switches like https://a.co/d/09O6ftIl.
Is this possible? What would I need to do to rewire these to rockers?
Hello all. We are adding sconces to my wife’s home office setup. Built ins will be roughly the blue line with the sconces being run off of the hot electrical outlet on the bottom right. The office is on its own breaker. Aside from purchasing sconces that can be turned on/off via the sconces itself, what’s the best way to throw in an on/off switch so we can use a toggle of some kind to turn them off? I was thinking one of those circular black on offs that I can inset into the inside of the cabinet just a few inches back from the door when you open it. I’ll have approximately 2 inches of gap in between cabinets every 20-24” depending on what cabinet size we go with. Thanks for your help!
I am trying to replace outside lights on a 1970 mobile home after having it resided. The wires are capped and sticking out as shown in the photos. We can remove the outer “frame” around the fixture, but are not able to remove the white square as it sits under the siding.
The left side has twisted white wire (capped) and double red wire with a small piece of black wire inside that cap. The small wire is not connected to anything else. Could this be a ground wire? If so, how could we ground it without access beneath the white square?
On the right side, there are three white wires all capped together. There is one red wire that is capped.
This old place is killing me with its oddities! I’d prefer it did not literally kill me though! Advice?
What is this used for. Looks like 110 on one side and 220 on the other? Is it for a generator to power the house?
Hi all,
I’m going to preface by saying I’m panicking a bit and am a total amateur. This evening, I noticed the breaker for the 1st floor of our house’s lights had tripped. I tried to flick it back on, and there was a bright blue arc in the consumer unit and it flicked back off of course, and tripped the RCD. When leaving the 1st floor light circuit off, the RCD goes back on fine.
3 days ago, I drilled above a light switch in one room on the 1st floor, as that’s where the thermostat is located and I was removing the old thermostat and installing a new one. Firstly, I know this was stupid in hindsight and know I shouldn’t have - I’ll learn from this of course.
Is it the issue likely related to the drilling, given that the tripping has occurred 3 days later after using the lights on the first floor/in that room several times in the last few days? There were NO obvious signs when I did the drilling that I’d hit any wires - nothing tripped, no smell, noise, etc.
Please could anyone advise? I’ve kept the breaker for the 1st floor lights off of course & contacted an electrician - do I need to be imminently worried if the breaker remains off in the mean time before I can get an electrician to assess?
Thanks everyone - again, I know the drilling was stupid, this is our first home we only recently moved into.
Previous owners of the house barely had any attic access. It was literally a 2ftx2ft square cut into the wall of the attached garage. We closed that up and made attic access complete with drop down stairs in the main part of the house. We have no lighting up there. I noticed this on the ceiling of the attic. The yellow cord is cut but there is a white cord running from it, I dont have the balls to venture further into the attic to see where it goes. We bought a light fixture with a pull string for on/off and we were going to install it. Does this picture look like this could have electricity running to it?
I plugged in a 1500 W heater and it stopped working. No breaker was tripped. A 3 prong tester said on every respectable in the circuit that hot and ground were swapped. I knew that was impossible because the circuit had just been working. AI said it was likely an open neutral.
Opened all the receptacles in the circuit that I could identify and the picture shown is the most upstream receptacle.
The white lead connected to the melted terminal had charred insulation but otherwise didn't seem broken.
I removed the receptacle, tied the feed wire to the load wire and all the receptacles test out as wired correctly.
Is there a way to know why this receptacle melted? I suppose it could have happened in the past and then was pushed to a point of full failure when running the heater.
The only thing plugged into the bad outlet recently has been a window fan.
It's a bit scary, that looks really close to a fire to me and I'm not sure if I should try to draw 1500 W from this circuit again.
I have multiple aquariums and a couple years ago I bought some lights for them. One of them died (same issue as in the picture). I got refunded even tho it was a year after purchase. Now the same thing happened again with a different unit of the same model. What causes this to happen?
Forgive my diagram, but ever since I moved into this house, a hallway light only turns on if the downstairs switch is down and the upstairs is up. Any other combination results in the light being off.
I used a voltage tester on each switch in the various positions and found that in two scenarios, the discards switch has power at all three wires with the light being off.
Can anyone help me trouble shoot what’s going on? The house is 120+ years old so the wiring is far from being color coded.