Basic Electricity For Homeowners

[PhilaGardener]

There are two modes in which your meter will be most useful - measuring resistance and voltage - so it would be good to learn how to use those. You might be able to find on line a manual for your meter that will help explain these settings. In these modes, it is possible to test different parts of your circuit quickly to find faults and loose connections. (Measurement of current (amps) is less informative in your setting and more difficult to do, so there are settings on your meter that you won't be using to start.)

Measuring resistance (which may require fresh batteries in your meter) will tell you if a circuit is in continuity. Whether the ground really connected to ground, for example, or how well things are connected.

Measuring voltage will tell you if you are delivering 120 volts on the correct lead, or (to take Kurt's example) if you have a voltage drop because of a long wire run or some other loss. Shorts can leak current creating shock and fire hazards.

Any measurements made with circuits energized must be made with care!

[Worth1]

Any good meter has a continuity setting on it and I am not a fan of using the Ohm setting to check continuity.
Mostly because I can look at what I am doing and hear the beep.

Next yesterday I jumped out the 20 year old young man for using the Ohm setting to check a contact on a live 5 volt circuit with a resistor in series.
He said you could and I said you are getting garbage and learn to use your meter correctly and put it on volts.
No you can, see.
No #$%^ use the thing right, what you are doing is a sure indication of someone that doesn't know how to use a meter.
Please stop arguing and learn.
I did this nicely with my hand on his shoulder, he didn't get mad.
Look 5 volts DC open contact 1.6 volts DC closed contact.
The hard headed little devil.

[AlittleSalt]

Originally Posted by Worth1

Your test light lit up because the hot/(better be black's) breaker is on.
This does not mean the neutral is connected all the way back to the panel.

You need to show a pictuer because what you say is flabbergasting me.

What do you mean by white black and neutral?
White is neutral.

This is how a wall outlet is wired.

This is the way to wire a wall plug. ^^^ No other way should be used. No need for a test light or meter.

[Worth1]

Everything comes with instructions, they are in the box people throw away.
I got publicly ridiculed by a young punk chemical engineer many years ago for reading the instructions.

Worth

[Worth1]

During trouble shooting on the job this is what I found.
How not to wire up a motion detector.
Worth
IMG_20180513_22341.jpg

[Cole_Robbie]

It's grounded to the air.

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by Cole_Robbie

It's grounded to the air.

There is no ground on it the wires are stripped back too far.
One pair is for contacts the other is for 12 DC volt power.

[Cole_Robbie]

Aha. I thought green was always ground, lesson learned.

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by Cole_Robbie

Aha. I thought green was always ground, lesson learned.

Not when it comes to instrumentation wires.
The green and white have 5 volts on them going through a resistor that knocks it down to 1.6 volts.
The closed contacts open up when someone moves the volts jump up to around 5 and the system goes into alarm.
You can also use these same motion detector devices to open up or unlock doors and anything else your heart desires.

[Worth1]

Been borrowing my bosses for some time now and other peolple use it too and never get their own stuff.
Finally broke down and got one today for myself.
A Fluke 3000 tone generator and probe use to trace out wires.
Indispensable in my line of work.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&sour...27358781820984

[Worth1]

Showed the device to my neighbor lady's son that is my age.
He works on and builds huge RO systems for chicken houses and so on and does the same thing for the High Tech industry because they have to have clean pure water to wash product.
Much of this involves automation of valves and so forth which includes wires.
When I showed him how it worked his eyes bugged out and exclaimed man I sure could have used that a few times, it would have saved hours of tracing wires and trouble shooting.
He asked me how far they would trace out a wire.
I said about ten miles.
His expression.
These things run way up in price if you get them from a place that specializes in electronics like ADI and so on.
I got mine at Lowes in the telephone cable and electronic section for 72 bucks.
Not to be confused with the electrical section.

[Cole_Robbie]

I replaced a water heater yesterday in a rental trailer for a friend of mine. It is an older 1980s trailer, and has the water heater sealed in a closet that opens to the outside, behind a siding panel. It had apparently been leaking for some time. The recessed area on top that held the electrical connections was full of water! Why didn't that trip a breaker? Are wire nuts waterproof? Do you think that touching that water would have shocked someone? I don't understand how wiring can work underwater.

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by Cole_Robbie

I replaced a water heater yesterday in a rental trailer for a friend of mine. It is an older 1980s trailer, and has the water heater sealed in a closet that opens to the outside, behind a siding panel. It had apparently been leaking for some time. The recessed area on top that held the electrical connections was full of water! Why didn't that trip a breaker? Are wire nuts waterproof? Do you think that touching that water would have shocked someone? I don't understand how wiring can work underwater.

Darn I figured someone would explain besides me.
On phone at work will explain tonight if someone else doesn't.
In a nut shell water isn't conductive the impurities ions in it are.
Also depends on voltage.
Could you get shocked, maybe.
Worth

[Cole_Robbie]

After I put in the new water heater, I went back the next day, and the new one was the same way! I was putting in the last pieces of pipe insulation, thinking I was done when I saw the water. I was stunned. I didn't get electrically shocked, but I was certainly emotionally shocked. Water was coming out of the pressure relief valve on top, probably when they took a shower. I called my dad and asked him, and he had never heard of such a thing. I called the tech support line, who just put me on hold forever. I read the troubleshooting guide in the manual, and it said, "this is a serious problem which must be corrected immediately. Call your plumbing contractor at once."

Great. That's me. I started reading about it, and apparently the correct fix is to plumb an expansion tank into the cold water side of the heater, because water heaters will push water back into the line when pressure builds up. The plumbing at this trailer had been re-done long ago by someone who was an obvious novice. The used PVC coming out of the hot water heater instead of CPVC. Even I know better than that.

I ended up just plumbing from the pressure relief valve with 3/4" CPVC and making a little drain pipe stick out the bottom of the siding. Plumbing a drain into the valve is what the instructions say to do anyway, but no one I know ever does it, because the valves don't leak when they are new.

[kurt]

Water is the best conduit for electricity.Now you dealing with the new “instant hot”the electric on demand.Apartment,hotels,trailers,not,maybe,here anything on jacks are considered a home,no wheels,travel trailers?Hookups?Propane tanks will be ....