Time out to play electrician

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Smitty37

Passed Away Mar 29, 2018
In Memoriam
Joined
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Location
Milford, Delaware 19963
When we moved into this house it had a range hood over the range. We took it out and put in an over-the-counter micro wave - which was too high for my wife but we got along with me putting anything heavy in and taking it out, But awhile back we bought an new microwave that we put where it's at the right level for her. So a couple of days ago the microwave over the range broke (probably the magnetron) so we decided to go back to just a range hood. I put it in today....my wife was having fits because I wired it up while it was hot because they had it on the same circuit as the lights and it was dark.

I sent her in to watch TV while I did the wiring, the wires were still there from when we took the old one out and all I had to do was connect them. It was kinda fun.
 
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:eek: Many times in my 38 years at the mill I have wired 120 volts hot, but than agan I was an electrican. Against company rules, but as Smitty said, "you can't work in the dark" I have worked with millavolts up to 27,000 volts which would require a full flame suit, gloves, flash shoes, full tinted helmet, and a 10 foot wooden pike pole to pull fuses. I have found that 120 volts is the deadlyest voltage to work with if your not 100% knowledgeable about electricity. A LITTLE knowledge could get you killed. The reason being, that if you become part of a live circuit containing 120 volts you may not be able to let go of it. If the voltage passes through your heart, it will cause it to go into fibrilation or go into an abnormal beat. Blood does not pump properly throughout the body causing damage or death. Any voltage above 120 volts will usualy blow you off, but may cause severe damage and burns in the path it takes across your body. If it doesn't cross your heart, you will probably live, maybe with a few parts missing. Let me add one thing to this thread however, it's not the voltage that kills you, it's the amperage. Less that 1/2 Amp across your heart can kill you, and it's not always the black wire. Could be the red, blue, white, or even the green. In industral locations they are allowed to use more than one circuit with the same neutral (white) wire. One time, while changing a light fixture, I had to shut off 4 circuits in order to take the power off of the white wire to ground. It's the unexpected or something out of the norm that will get you. Personaly I would never give someone advice on how to wire or correct something unless I could first look at it and check it out with a meter. If I have gone that far, I might as well finish the job myself. Sorry for the lengthly tread, but I have seen the results of to many surprizes!!!! Bottom line, test and retest everything you work on !!! The life you save may be your own. Jim S

P.S. The most painful and lasting shock you can get is from DC voltage. AC current goes in both directions, DC only goes in one so it never goes down to zero volts in the middle of a cycle. That may hurt for weeks!!! Jim S
 
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At least you got it done without the misses saying "I told you so." I have learned a little bit about electricity in my young life. Most of it is to the effect of "just turn it all off" when it comes to working at home. I got hit with 11.7 kV at work about 8 months ago, and luckily it was very low amperage. My fingers took the shock, and it threw my whole system for a loop! Anyhow, that gave me a great respect for electricity!
 
I used to service neon signs, there's nothing like being bit by 15,000 volts while working 50 feet in the air! Of course the neon transformers were only 30 milliamp, that's why I'm still here!
 
I also work in an industrial environment where live circuits are everywhere and sometimes you must work in a "Hot" box.
The old TV repairman's rule of one hand in your pocket, comes to mind quite often.
I have seen the aftermath of a hand where it didn't belong. It was a terrible mess and a very sad funeral for a man who died way too young.
Respect it, you may not get another chance.
Like I always say "You only get to die once, you might as well enjoy it."
 
Since I was an ET in the Navy 58 years ago, I have been working with electrical wiring (house 110/220ACV single phase to several thousand VDC and up to 208/230Vac three phase) since before half the people on this site were born. I have wired an entire house (new build) and rewired an old house where I replaced all of the wiring that could be replaced without riping all the walls and cielings down including changing the entrance from 60amp to 200 amp and going from fuses to circuit breakers.

I have a full understanding of what electric shock can do. I also know how to avoid electrical shock when working with house wiring. There are places where I would not work on a live circuit because the location of the wires and my body make it unsafe because even if I don't get shocked the wire might come into contact with something else and cause damage.

I would not recommend a neophite work on hot circuits,
plantman said:
:eek: Many times in my 38 years at the mill I have wired 120 volts hot, but than agan I was an electrican. Against company rules, but as Smitty said, "you can't work in the dark" I have worked with millavolts up to 27,000 volts which would require a full flame suit, gloves, flash shoes, full tinted helmet, and a 10 foot wooden pike pole to pull fuses. I have found that 120 volts is the deadlyest voltage to work with if your not 100% knowledgeable about electricity. A LITTLE knowledge could get you killed. The reason being, that if you become part of a live circuit containing 120 volts you may not be able to let go of it. If the voltage passes through your heart, it will cause it to go into fibrilation or go into an abnormal beat. Blood does not pump properly throughout the body causing damage or death. Any voltage above 120 volts will usualy blow you off, but may cause severe damage and burns in the path it takes across your body. If it doesn't cross your heart, you will probably live, maybe with a few parts missing. Let me add one thing to this thread however, it's not the voltage that kills you, it's the amperage. Less that 1/2 Amp across your heart can kill you, and it's not always the black wire. Could be the red, blue, white, or even the green. In industral locations they are allowed to use more than one circuit with the same neutral (white) wire. One time, while changing a light fixture, I had to shut off 4 circuits in order to take the power off of the white wire to ground. It's the unexpected or something out of the norm that will get you. Personaly I would never give someone advice on how to wire or correct something unless I could first look at it and check it out with a meter. If I have gone that far, I might as well finish the job myself. Sorry for the lengthly tread, but I have seen the results of to many surprizes!!!! Bottom line, test and retest everything you work on !!! The life you save may be your own. Jim S

P.S. The most painful and lasting shock you can get is from DC voltage. AC current goes in both directions, DC only goes in one so it never goes down to zero volts in the middle of a cycle. That may hurt for weeks!!! Jim S
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PSNCO said:
edohmann said:
Real men work with hot wires
Click to expand...

I had my father help me with most of my wiring. I would always try to flip the breaker before he worked on the wiring. Most of the time he would threaten to leave if I turned off the breaker.
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Well I'm not that hard nosed about it. I turn off the breaker unless I have a reason not to.
 
Magicbob said:
I also work in an industrial environment where live circuits are everywhere and sometimes you must work in a "Hot" box.
The old TV repairman's rule of one hand in your pocket, comes to mind quite often.
I have seen the aftermath of a hand where it didn't belong. It was a terrible mess and a very sad funeral for a man who died way too young.
Respect it, you may not get another chance.
Like I always say "You only get to die once, you might as well enjoy it."
Click to expand...
Industrial wiring is a different ball game. House wiring usually involves no more than three wires plus ground and in nearly all cases the black wire is hot the white wire is not. Industrial, you better have the circuit drawings in front of you and even then you might have to guess about some things. I've done some industrial work, but we usually had to leave that to the electricians.
 
I'd say you'd have been better to get a helper to hold a light for you...

In a home, there's no reason to be working on a live circuit - it's overconfidence that can kill you, if you misstep...that's why they're called 'mistakes'...

ESPECIALLY with 220v - don't mess with that - it won't just bite you, it'll chew you up!

(As a curious aside: are homeowners even allowed to work on their own wiring in the USA? In Canada, with a permit, a homeowner can do his/her own wiring, if it is inspected afterward...just curious if the USA is the same)
 
I use to have to carry a pager for work.

I would be doing "live" electrical work at home and
the darn thing would go off, well, as you can imagine
when the vibrating pager was activated, the screw driver
would go one way one and I would go another

Happened more than once

now retired and no pager,
 
And no assumptions - assume it's live until proven otherwise, by a voltmeter and tester.

When I was rewiring my bedroom (under a permit), I found that with the old wiring - even with the switch off, there was live power...the hot went through the box, then to the switch...

So assuming that shutting off the switch would turn off the power in the box would have been a mistake! Never assume! :smile:
 
maxwell_smart007 said:
(As a curious aside: are homeowners even allowed to work on their own wiring in the USA? In Canada, with a permit, a homeowner can do his/her own wiring, if it is inspected afterward...just curious if the USA is the same)
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It might vary by county, city or state but in my city, you can do your own electrical as long as it's inspected and you have a permit. I did all of the electrical on our house addition and detached garage and things went just fine. I did have a little 'coaching' from an electrician at the beginning but it sure saved a lot of money by doing the work myself.:smile:
 
maxwell_smart007 said:
I'd say you'd have been better to get a helper to hold a light for you...

In a home, there's no reason to be working on a live circuit - it's overconfidence that can kill you, if you misstep...that's why they're called 'mistakes'...

ESPECIALLY with 220v - don't mess with that - it won't just bite you, it'll chew you up!

(As a curious aside: are homeowners even allowed to work on their own wiring in the USA? In Canada, with a permit, a homeowner can do his/her own wiring, if it is inspected afterward...just curious if the USA is the same)
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Wjether you can work on your own home wiring depends on the local code...some cities you can't other places you can. In most places there is no way to check who did the wiring. I wired my own place and the only thing that was checked was the service entrance. The jurisdiction where I built had no local code and no inspection.

Like I said, I know when I can work on wiring that is hot, it isn't exactly rocket science to work with a black, a white and a bare wire.

btw I've gotten some pretty good belts from high voltage DC while in the Navy working on radar and radar repeaters. You can't fix broken equipment without finding out what's broken and to do that you have to work with power on and many bad things can happen.
 
Smitty; My comments have no reflection on you personaly. You and I and other electrictions understand electricty and what can go wrong without warning. 95% of the others out there have never seen their co-workers with their fingers or toes blown off, and these are the lucky ones. I think the service motto of "know your suroundings and expect the unexpected"' applys the best here.

Maxwell; Most of the time when I was working with the power on lighting, I was in a crowsnest 15-20 feet in the air. My helper was my mouth or shirt collor trying to steady the flashlite. If I turned the power off I would be shutting the entire building and machines down. As Smitty and Maxwell said know what you are going to do ahead of time, check with a meter to see if what you are looking at is realy what you expect it to be and, never keep your free hand in contact with any metal surface. As for working on your own system, it depends on what you are going to do. When I wired mine and my sons new homes, I could not get an electrical permit in my name because both my son and I were industrial electrictions. You need to be a residental or commercial electriction to wire a house or building here for 110-220. Most of our machines in the mill were run on 440 volt 3 phase. Luckely a friend and fellow worker was a state certified electrician and can work on anything anywhere in the state, and could sign the permit. I just needed the village inspector to ok the work, The whole mill was run on his state licence. He went over my blueprints and corrected anything that did not meet present codes. The village inspector ran his own electrical company and was not happy with my state licenced pemit, so he was realy nit-picky on the rough-in inspection. When my house was completed I called him to do the final inspection and set up a time to meet him at the house. He never showed up and refused to do the final inspection. After 24 hours of the set time he agreed to inspect the house, I had my friend check out the house and no longer needed our publis servent. Every city has their own codes and permits. Almost anybody is allowed to own a gun. Doesn't mean it is safe to handle. Famous last words " I have done this a thousand times before and nothing went wrong" !!!! Jim S
 
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maxwell_smart007 said:
And no assumptions - assume it's live until proven otherwise, by a voltmeter and tester.

When I was rewiring my bedroom (under a permit), I found that with the old wiring - even with the switch off, there was live power...the hot went through the box, then to the switch...

So assuming that shutting off the switch would turn off the power in the box would have been a mistake! Never assume! :smile:
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You know what assume stands for ??

makes an a$$ out of you and me..........for those who didn't know
 
One more to keep in mind..

You may assume you phone line is a safe low voltage item to play with..
They run 48v DC but jump to 90v AC when the phone rings.

I had the misfortune of replacing a jack one day when a call came in.. SHOCKING!
 
I got an electric shock once changing a light bulb...wiring was from the day of 2 wires and it was to a light with a pull cord on/off switch. It had probably been wired 40 years earlier. On that type of light anything metal such as the fixture in this case would be touching the bulb receptical which was metal...they were supposed to be wired with the hot side going to the center post of the bulb and the neutral/ground going to the threads. This one had been wired backwads so the chan holding the bulb to the ceiling box was hot, of course I had no way of knowing that and grabbed the hanging fixture to hold it while I replaced the bulb and got shocked fortunately there was not a very good connection between my body and ground so it was very mild....I don't understand why the prior owners had never discovered this. It was a quick and easy fix.

The same house had a lot of romex with vulcanized rubber insulation which was notorious for drying up and flaking. You'd be amazed at how many places I hand to tape 6 or 8 inches of wire because the insulation was gone and the wire could not be removed. But that's what happens when you buy a house that was built originally before houses were even wired at all and updated many times, we had everything from knob and tube to the latest and greatest (circa 1974 - 1980) wiring. We had knob and tube, romex, bx, two wire w-small bare wire ground, 2 wire with large bare wire ground, conduit and wire mold in the house. Air line and underground connections to the barn. In short, if you wanted to work on the wiring in that house you hand to understand all of them.
 
Smitty37 said:
When we moved into this house it had a range hood over the range. We took it out and put in an over-the-counter micro wave - which was too high for my wife but we got along with me putting anything heavy in and taking it out, But awhile back we bought an new microwave that we put where it's at the right level for her. So a couple of days ago the microwave over the range broke (probably the magnetron) so we decided to go back to just a range hood. I put it in today....my wife was having fits because I wired it up while it was hot because they had it on the same circuit as the lights and it was dark.

I sent her in to watch TV while I did the wiring, the wires were still there from when we took the old one out and all I had to do was connect them. It was kinda fun.
Click to expand...

If you didn't get a tingle and your hair didn't curl, you must have done it right.... :biggrin:
 
Smitty37 said:
maxwell_smart007 said:
I'd say you'd have been better to get a helper to hold a light for you...

In a home, there's no reason to be working on a live circuit - it's overconfidence that can kill you, if you misstep...that's why they're called 'mistakes'...

ESPECIALLY with 220v - don't mess with that - it won't just bite you, it'll chew you up!

(As a curious aside: are homeowners even allowed to work on their own wiring in the USA? In Canada, with a permit, a homeowner can do his/her own wiring, if it is inspected afterward...just curious if the USA is the same)
Click to expand...
Wjether you can work on your own home wiring depends on the local code...some cities you can't other places you can. In most places there is no way to check who did the wiring. I wired my own place and the only thing that was checked was the service entrance. The jurisdiction where I built had no local code and no inspection.

Like I said, I know when I can work on wiring that is hot, it isn't exactly rocket science to work with a black, a white and a bare wire.

btw I've gotten some pretty good belts from high voltage DC while in the Navy working on radar and radar repeaters. You can't fix broken equipment without finding out what's broken and to do that you have to work with power on and many bad things can happen.
Click to expand...

I understand this... I saw an ET on Guam that almost lost a finger when he reached into a TD/Reperf and got across a 300 volt transformer... the electricity cut him like a knife from his thumb around to the index finger... lots of blood.

and a few months later, was changing out a reperf without shutting it down... normally you pull one, set the new one in place and push it back to the contacts... I set the new one crooked and when I pushed, somebody hit me in the elbows with a baseball bat.... knocked me about 6 feet back and laid me flat on my back on the chief's desk.... knocked out every circuit in the radio shack.... my elbows hurt for days.
 
I have a healthy respect for electrical things... not afraid of it, but as Dirty Harry said, "a man's gotta know his limits" .... I wired my own shop with all the plugs and lights, but when it came time to hook up to the breaker box, I knew that was out of my league and called in a pro ... he checked my wiring before hand made sure all was right and then hooked me to power... money well spent
 
I've done a couple of breaker boxes they're not too bad. I'm not sure all of them divide the 220 main down to 2 110s with the same physical layout though so you have to be a little careful to equalize the two sides of the main. I think some of the older boxes divide the load differently than the new ones. The one I put in my house in NY as I recall had only 4 places where I could put 220 breakers, where the house I llve in now they can go anyplace you want to put them. The bare wire grounds and the neutral can be a pain because the circuit bar can get so crouded.
 
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Most new codes require a seperate bar for the neutral (white) and the ground (green). If you want you can also buy another bar to fit in your electrical box should it become over taxed for space. Many boxes come with a main breaker installed to disconnect incoming power. This also shuts off your entire house. As a last resort, say your basement was flooding and you didn't want your furnace or other devices to short out and you were a little leery about standing in water and pulling breakers, you could go outside and pull the meter. This will require breaking the lead lock on it, and explaining to the power co. why you did it. With todays gizmos most codes require a 200 amp service. It's nice to have a ballanced system, but this only happens on paper. You will never have the same amount of lights or appliancs on at any one time, and if you keep the total under 200 amps you won't have any problems unless you have a circuit itself overloaded. New panels can have 48 circuits. Sounds like a lot until you throw in 4-5 220 volt breakers, each taking up 2 spots and add all the items that are required to have their own circuit by code. Jim S
 
plantman said:
Most new codes require a seperate bar for the neutral (white) and the ground (green). If you want you can also buy another bar to fit in your electrical box should it become over taxed for space. Many boxes come with a main breaker installed to disconnect incoming power. This also shuts off your entire house. As a last resort, say your basement was flooding and you didn't want your furnace or other devices to short out and you were a little leery about standing in water and pulling breakers, you could go outside and pull the meter. This will require breaking the lead lock on it, and explaining to the power co. why you did it. With todays gizmos most codes require a 200 amp service. It's nice to have a ballanced system, but this only happens on paper. You will never have the same amount of lights or appliancs on at any one time, and if you keep the total under 200 amps you won't have any problems unless you have a circuit itself overloaded. New panels can have 48 circuits. Sounds like a lot until you throw in 4-5 220 volt breakers, each taking up 2 spots and add all the items that are required to have their own circuit by code. Jim S
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I know you'll rarely have a balanced load with usage but you still want to be using both sides of the main. I have seen the bars you can add. I think requiring the extra bar for ground and neutral was probably to aleviate crowding.
 
maxwell_smart007 said:
And no assumptions - assume it's live until proven otherwise, by a voltmeter and tester.

When I was rewiring my bedroom (under a permit), I found that with the old wiring - even with the switch off, there was live power...the hot went through the box, then to the switch...

So assuming that shutting off the switch would turn off the power in the box would have been a mistake! Never assume! :smile:
Click to expand...

When I was changing the light over my dining room table in my first house, which I had an electrical contractor wire, I pushed the white wire against the side of the metal box and got a shower of sparks. This was with the switch turned off and the lights were out. After shutting off the breaker, I found that the black tape on the ends of the white wire ment that it was a contuination of the black hot wire. I wasn't an electricion at that time and had to ask my uncle, who was, to check this out. Contractors did this to save wire or to have a hot wire in the box if you added a fan with a light kit and wanted one or both to run at the same time. Not illlegal, but if you don't know about it, could be deadly!! This allows you to run the fan during the day and not have the heat of the lights, or have the lights on and not blow the food off the table. Now days your fans are prewired with a blue (Hot) wire to add your lights and has a wire nut on the end if you don't use it. As Smitty said, in my case, the black wire should have been broken at the switch. Since that experience I checked the wireing in that house with a meter every time I worked on something. Jim S
 
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plantman said:
maxwell_smart007 said:
And no assumptions - assume it's live until proven otherwise, by a voltmeter and tester.

When I was rewiring my bedroom (under a permit), I found that with the old wiring - even with the switch off, there was live power...the hot went through the box, then to the switch...

So assuming that shutting off the switch would turn off the power in the box would have been a mistake! Never assume! :smile:
Click to expand...

When I was changing the light over my dining room table in my first house, which I had an electrical contractor wire, I pushed the white wire against the side of the metal box and got a shower of sparks. This was with the switch turned off and the lights were out. After shutting off the breaker, I found that the black tape on the ends of the white wire ment that it was a contuination of the black hot wire. I wasn't an electricion at that time and had to ask my uncle, who was, to check this out. Contractors did this to save wire or to have a hot wire in the box if you added a fan with a light kit and wanted one or both to run at the same time. Not illlegal, but if you don't know about it, could be deadly!! This allows you to run the fan during the day and not have the heat of the lights, or have the lights on and not blow the food off the table. Now days your fans are prewired with a blue (Hot) wire to add your lights and has a wire nut on the end if you don't use it. As Smitty said, in my case, the black wire should have been broken at the switch. Since that experience I checked the wireing in that house with a meter every time I worked on something. Jim S
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Yea I think you could run into that with three-ways too, a white wire that might be hot, marked with black tape on the wire. Only problem with that is that some older houses the electricians used electrical tape instead of wire nuts on connections in the box and that could confuse things.
 
For those of you out there that have a light that can be turned off and on from two locations, this is called a three way switch, and is a different type switch than the normal on/off switch. As Smitty said older houses may use a white wire with the ends painted black or taped in black. A modern three way switch should be wired with a 12/3 or 14/3 (depending on what circuit breaker you are using (15 or 20 Amp) wire with a bare copper ground. Black will be the hot feed wire, white the common, bare copper the grond, and the red will be the hot carrier wire between switches. So even though your switch is in the off position and the light is off, the red wire will still be hot. Red wires should not run anyplace but from switch to switch. Exceptions would be a 220 volt circuit, but than you should not have a white wire, only a black (110 hot), a red (110 hot) and a ground wire leading back to the breaker panel. I have seen wireing installed to save money using a 14/2 or 12/2 with ground to run 220 volts. It works, wouldn't pass code here, but could give someone a real surprize. You can't make a fool safety proof. I'm not telling anybody not to do their own wireing or repairs, just buy a $10 meter and check what you have before plunging into something that you did not install in the first place. Even though you are safty minded, doesn't mean the person ahead of you was. Here is something else to think about !! Those Christmas lights that you fight with every year. If they plug directly into the wall without a transformer, the wires are 110 volts. Jim S
 
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plantman said:
For those of you out there that have a light that can be turned off and on from two locations, this is called a three way switch, and is a different type switch than the normal on/off switch. As Smitty said older houses may use a white wire with the ends painted black or taped in black. A modern three way switch should be wired with a 12/3 or 14/3 (depending on what circuit breaker you are using (15 or 20 Amp) wire with a bare copper ground. Black will be the hot feed wire, white the common, bare copper the grond, and the red will be the hot carrier wire between switches. So even though your switch is in the off position and the light is off, the red wire will still be hot. Red wires should not run anyplace but from switch to switch. Exceptions would be a 220 volt circuit, but than you should not have a white wire, only a black (110 hot), a red (110 hot) and a ground wire leading back to the breaker panel. I have seen wireing installed to save money using a 14/2 or 12/2 with ground to run 220 volts. It works, wouldn't pass code here, but could give someone a real surprize. You can't make a fool safety proof. I'm not telling anybody not to do their own wireing or repairs, just buy a $10 meter and check what you have before plunging into something that you did not install in the first place. Even though you are safty minded, doesn't mean the person ahead of you was. Here is something else to think about !! Those Christmas lights that you fight with every year. If they plug directly into the wall without a transformer, the wires are 110 volts. Jim S
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Those things used to be the bain of my existance. Even though we always bought the ones where if on bulb burned out the rest were supposed to stay lit ---- they never worked that way for us
 
I have three ways of working on Christmas lights. 1- buy a light pen, it is used to tell you where the power in a wire stops. Bad connection, burned out bulb, broken wire. 2- You can also buy a battery operated booster that plugs into a empty light socket and sends a charge throgh the system and will short out the shunt in the bulb and close the circuit so you can find out what bulb is bad. This will also help you remove the bulbs, check fuses , and test bulbs. You may have to repeet this several times if you have more than one bulb burned out and the shunt didn't close to begin with. 3- The best way !!!! Go to your Big Box Store just before Christmas, when they are selling their light sets for half price or less, and buy new light sets for next year. Try the old sets once and if you can't get them lit, throw them away. Saves a lot of time and frustration, and you won't have to explain to the wife were you use that kind of language. As for replacement bulbs. You can test and keep the ones from the old sets (remember they may be different wattages from different sets), so some may burn very dim or some may burn very bright before the burn out. You can buy replacement bulbs (check the wattage) for $2 or $3 dollars for for a pack of 5, or you can buy a whole set of 100 lights for a doller or two on sale. You could also start now in preporation for the Christmas comming. Jim S
 
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