Basic Electricity For Homeowners

[Worth1]

I have been installing temperature alarms in IDF rooms and a freezer and refrigerator in a school kitchen.
They require 12VDC and a probe.
They go back to a control panel that monitors open and closed contacts.
From the instructions there are several ways to wire them up.
We are going to a security panel but they could go to anything.
I will look for the price and the make.
I think they would be the cats meow for a high tunnel or green house.
Anything for that matter.

Here they are.
http://www.diycontrols.com/p-6464-wi...ng-device.aspx

Here is the probe we are using.
http://www.diycontrols.com/p-6468-wi...viroalert.aspx

[Worth1]

Also installed a Water Bug in a boiler room.
Might be good for someone with a basement.
http://www.diycontrols.com/p-6481-wi...dc-wb-200.aspx

[kurt]

Originally Posted by franknmiss

Usually a gentle buzzing at the panel board is normal when a motor load such as an air conditioner starts. If the buzz happens during the appliance start and goes away once the unit is running normally then I would not worry about it. This is caused by the magnetic section in the circuit breaker "rattling" due to the starting current of the compressor motor. The starting current can be 4-7 times the normal or rated running current of your unit. This may be listed on the unit nameplate. As the name suggests, a thermal magnetic circuit breaker has two parts - The Magnetic section responds quickly to very high and sometime fast rising currents such as a short circuit and the thermal section of the breaker responds to currents lower near the nameplate rating that are of longer duration. Remember the purpose of the circuit breaker is to protect the wire, not the load. Worth and dm both gave good advice. Check the terminals in the panel board for tightness - a motor load "rattles" the circuit breaker connection every time it cycles and can eventually loosen the screws which is a fire hazard.
Of course switch the load breakers to off before doing this or if not comfortable putting a screw driver in an electrical panel board - open the main circuit breaker first - that is the safest way.
My answers are to long...sorry.
Frank

There is no other alternative,short and not complete answers will harm and even worse in some cases.Answer on.

[dmforcier]

Meaning what? If you have a gripe, be explicit.

[Worth1]

I dont think my answers were short and not complete and I didn't take it that way.
Sometimes I give short answers so as not to give too much information thus making them confusing.
Kurt said "Short ((and not)) complete" not, short ((or)) incomplete.

One thing I have noticed over the years is the size of the breaker panels and amount of breakers in them increasing.
You wont find many but they are out there.
Old houses with only 2 to 4 breakers in them.
I lived in one once in Austin.
Back in the day we just didn't have that many things to plug in around the house.

An example would be the way many people think about electricity and how it evolved in our areas.
I find it interesting.
One is the fact that rural areas were the last people to get it.
The highland lakes of central Texas is an example.
Before they put them in nobody had electricity in the country but city folks did in Austin.
Before he became president LBJ had a roll in getting this done.
My father worked clearing timber at the lake Buchanan site in the 30's when he was in his early 20's
They used cross cut saws and axes to cut down the trees.
Even after it was put in everywhere electricity was sporadic at best.
Even when I was growing up we didn't have a back up generator we had the old lamp tables with nice kerosene lamps on them.
Now what did those folks in the country do for food preservation with no electricity.
I was part of it because even when I was young born in 1958 it still took time for the transition.
We canned, cured and smoked meat and dried fruit.
A refrigerator and freezer was reserved for the most luxurious of items and food.
If it wasn't in season we didn't eat it fresh.
If it was cold we burned wood and if it was hot we would sleep out on the lawn.
I cant count how many times growing up my mother and I would get sheets and go outside it was so hot in the summer.
Sometimes some kind of bug would be crawling on us we had no idea what it was.
Which brings us to another phenomenon, the siesta.
Many people relate this to the people of Mexico.
It couldn't be farther from the truth.
A siesta is an afternoon nap.
It has nothing to do with being lazy.
It has everything to do with it being too dam hot to work.
We would eat then sleep until it started to cool off and then go back to work.
I remember when my wife first met my cousins she had never nor was around people that did this.
My cousins would come in from the fields catch up on the soap operas eat and sleep in the afternoon.
Then get up and work until way after dark.
She was flabbergasted at the practice of men watching soap operas.
To this day the siesta is practiced all over the hotter parts of the world.
Don't go to these places and expect someone to jump up and do something for you after the noon meal it isn't going to happen.
Many shops are closed down for awhile.
So there you go from electricity to the reason behind the siesta.


Cole if you are reading this still, who is the maker of the breaker panel?
If it is Federal I would pull it and toss it in the river or make a bat house out of it.

[Cole_Robbie]

Originally Posted by Worth1

Sounds like a loose connection.

You were 100% correct, by the way. I think after the breaker had flipped, when I flipped it back, it must have loosened it.

I ran the 20 amp circuit last night. Nothing in a mobile home is easy to work on. I had to take out a piece of drywall under the panel to get the wire through. It works, though. The AC ran all night without tripping.

[Worth1]

Glad it worked out for you.
I bought the Ironite but blew off the 240 plug in I am going a different route.

[kurt]

Originally Posted by Worth1

I dont think my answers were short and not complete and I didn't take it that way.
Sometimes I give short answers so as not to give too much information thus making them confusing.
Kurt said "Short ((and not)) complete" not, short ((or)) incomplete.

One thing I have noticed over the years is the size of the breaker panels and amount of breakers in them increasing.
You wont find many but they are out there.
Old houses with only 2 to 4 breakers in them.
I lived in one once in Austin.
Back in the day we just didn't have that many things to plug in around the house.

An example would be the way many people think about electricity and how it evolved in our areas.
I find it interesting.
One is the fact that rural areas were the last people to get it.
The highland lakes of central Texas is an example.
Before they put them in nobody had electricity in the country but city folks did in Austin.
Before he became president LBJ had a roll in getting this done.
My father worked clearing timber at the lake Buchanan site in the 30's when he was in his early 20's
They used cross cut saws and axes to cut down the trees.
Even after it was put in everywhere electricity was sporadic at best.
Even when I was growing up we didn't have a back up generator we had the old lamp tables with nice kerosene lamps on them.
Now what did those folks in the country do for food preservation with no electricity.
I was part of it because even when I was young born in 1958 it still took time for the transition.
We canned, cured and smoked meat and dried fruit.
A refrigerator and freezer was reserved for the most luxurious of items and food.
If it wasn't in season we didn't eat it fresh.
If it was cold we burned wood and if it was hot we would sleep out on the lawn.
I cant count how many times growing up my mother and I would get sheets and go outside it was so hot in the summer.
Sometimes some kind of bug would be crawling on us we had no idea what it was.
Which brings us to another phenomenon, the siesta.
Many people relate this to the people of Mexico.
It couldn't be farther from the truth.
A siesta is an afternoon nap.
It has nothing to do with being lazy.
It has everything to do with it being too dam hot to work.
We would eat then sleep until it started to cool off and then go back to work.
I remember when my wife first met my cousins she had never nor was around people that did this.
My cousins would come in from the fields catch up on the soap operas eat and sleep in the afternoon.
Then get up and work until way after dark.
She was flabbergasted at the practice of men watching soap operas.
To this day the siesta is practiced all over the hotter parts of the world.
Don't go to these places and expect someone to jump up and do something for you after the noon meal it isn't going to happen.
Many shops are closed down for awhile.
So there you go from electricity to the reason behind the siesta.


Cole if you are reading this still, who is the maker of the breaker panel?
If it is Federal I would pull it and toss it in the river or make a bat house out of it.

Over the years ,and as a lot of us have had to crawl under the home(you know wood beam/joist)and encounter the leaking 6"urine feces bath crud rotted pipe(that stupid rubber band aid).I have seen the wire and ceramic insulators ( bare copper,wrapped on ceramic spools)throughout crawl space to rooms above.Naturally they were abandoned by now but what a rude awakening on the earlier methods of the switch to households when Edison stole AC power concept from Tessa.Then the rush was on to power up.

[Worth1]

I remember the old razor blade slot in the medicine cabinets people dropped the used razor blades in.
They would just fall to the ground under the house or in the wall.
Here is a pictuer of an oldy but goody razor blade slot along with power outlet.

You could get ceramic tiles with razor blade slots too.

I have ((looked)) under houses with broken sewer lines but never went under one.

[Worth1]

Helping friends, when to do it and when to not.
I have came to the conclusion ((not)) for the most part.
Most of the time in my life help involved me doing all the work while they sat around a watched.
Earlier in this thread I mentioned helping someone.
They worked on it while I was there but simple things they could have done while I was gone never happened.
Then there was the fact that I had to fight tooth and nail to get them to do it right.
It seems every time I turned around they wanted to cut some sort of corner to save a dollar here and there, and I mean a dollar.
Two other occasions I flat out turned down helping friends out because the houses didn't have ground wires they were so old.
Just not worth it in my book at all.

Worth

[Worth1]

Today I'm toning out wire people didn't label in a new school.
Worth

[dmforcier]

Okay, now that's a shi##y job.

[kurt]

Originally Posted by Worth1

I remember the old razor blade slot in the medicine cabinets people dropped the used razor blades in.
They would just fall to the ground under the house or in the wall.
Here is a pictuer of an oldy but goody razor blade slot along with power outlet.

You could get ceramic tiles with razor blade slots too.

I have ((looked)) under houses with broken sewer lines but never went under one.

http://www.electricshockdrowning.org/esd--faq.html

Not to make this narrative ugly or beyond the bounds but above in article are some details if not understood clearly.Took me awhile.

A must for your "bucket" list.All in all I like the Idea of being able to get under ,repair,beats jackhammers ,new concrete.Trick is to calculate the distance between those red eyes,adjust for body length,check for retinal details(horizontal/ vertical vipers,rat snake or my favorites constrictors.At this time you call your nephew to finish the work.

[Cole_Robbie]

The electrical shock drowning link is disturbing indeed.

[Worth1]

I spent some time reading about ultra high voltage DC transmission power lines.
You talk about a complicated quagmire of information.
I first read about it in Alaska a few years ago as a way of transmitting power from the oil fields to the rest of the state.

They wanted to or do want to turn all of that gas into power way up there and send it down these lines to villages and so on.
Here is a Wiki read on it for those that want to read about such complicated stuff.

Worth
https://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=AwrT...DPVLv5kRZGaok-