And the light went out.

[Woodchipper]

Light is on a single pull chain socket in the ceiling. Went into the shop after a trip to the recycling place. Pulled the chain and nothing. Zilch. Nada. Jumped through all the hoops to track the circuit. Found other lights and outlets on the same circuit are showing power. BTW, can't understand why they put outlets and overhead lights on the same breaker. Not how I was taught. Oh well, trip to Lowe's tomorrow. The light over the lathe was OK so I was able to finish the fly fishing pen shown on another thread.

 

[howsitwork]

doesn't make sense having lights and sockets on same breaker ! So if you have a trip situation you're in darkness ? Crazy !
I have emergency battery lights rigged to come on in such a situation . I figure if the power trips when I'm using my saw bench I'd like to see when the blade has stopped before I go find out what happened. Sadly it also used to turn off the power breaker for all the house ( not what you wanted when SWMBO is watching her favourite TV show. ) but after a retire last year it now doesn't do that , saving much grief .

 

[Woodchipper]

Fortunately, I have two lights- over the lathe and over the workbench so I'm OK. Enough light from the basement through the shop door is a plus. When I moved in, I made a schematic of the outlets and overhead lights. Houses were made on the cheap back in the early 70s. Only have two places where walls are at exactly 90 degrees.

 

[randyrls]

Light is on a single pull chain socket in the ceiling. Went into the shop after a trip to the recycling place. Pulled the chain and nothing. Zilch. Nada. Jumped through all the hoops to track the circuit. Found other lights and outlets on the same circuit are showing power. BTW, can't understand why they put outlets and overhead lights on the same breaker. Not how I was taught. Oh well, trip to Lowe's tomorrow. The light over the lathe was OK so I was able to finish the fly fishing pen shown on another thread.

Agreed; I have TWO circuits in my shop. One has all the LED lights, other has all the tools. The tool breaker runs to a high quality 10 plug spot where all the tool cords plug in. I occasionally trip that thing, so I have to be careful on which tools I run at the same time.

 

[Woodchipper]

New socket and lots of light. Wife had to wait as the washer is on the same circuit. If, and a big if, I had lots of $$$$, I would tear out the sheet rock and have the basement rewired. Part of the problem is a split foyer and lines are run up to the attic, through the attic and dropped to the basement level.

 

[sorcerertd]

It seems weird at first, but typically one room is never all on one breaker, and most breakers go to multiple rooms. That way, if you trip a breaker, it won't leave you completely without power in any one room or someone else completely without in the next one. Tracing them all in a older home is a PITA, though! I'm kind of OCD about having them marked. It helps to write the circuit number inside the wall plate with a sharpie. I have them tagged where the come out of the breaker panel, too.

 

[jttheclockman]

Homes are sometimes tricky to seperate circuits and some older homes were wired according to codes back in those days. Todays homes follow much different codes and for good reasons. But if owning a older home and wanting to run new circuits can be challenging. Yes it is always a good idea to seperate lights from power outlets but remember many rooms the light source is lamps and not overhead lights so that rule can not always be followed. Another rule mentioned having more than one circuit in a room is not always practical and can get expensive. Panels are all about load consumption and rooms and aplliance are used to make up those calculations. Now work shops are very easy to set up according to what you want. How much wall space, how many tools and what size tools are being used play a huge role. But in a shop, lights should always be on circuit or circuits by themselves. Having outlets spread out as opposed to bunched up in one location is a better option. The least amount of extention chords the better. All outlets in a shop should be at least 20 amp outlets run with #12 wire. Spread circuits out as many as you can. Any larger tools always use #12 chords. Forget those #14 and #16 chords. They are not for shops. Panel size and breaker availability is always a key factor too. But the most IMPORTANT rule if you are not familar with working with electricity, do not be a hero. Hire a qualified electrician. Pay the money.

 

[randyrls]

New socket and lots of light. Wife had to wait as the washer is on the same circuit. If, and a big if, I had lots of $$$$, I would tear out the sheet rock and have the basement rewired. Part of the problem is a split foyer and lines are run up to the attic, through the attic and dropped to the basement level.

My work area had only bare studs, so the wiring I did wasn't a problem. I insulated and put up "bead board" sheets.

 

[randyrls]

Tracing them all in a older home is a PITA, though! I'm kind of OCD about having them marked. It helps to write the circuit number inside the wall plate with a sharpie. I have them tagged where the come out of the breaker panel, too.

Todd; Look for a "Digital circuit breaker finder" You put the plug into an outlet and run the detector up and down the breaker panel until the light goes off. All the outlet AND switch plates have the same sharpie breaker marking. Some of the double outlets in my house are separated and are on two different breakers???!!!

PS. The part that goes into the outlet doubles as a GFCI tester and wiring tester to show if the outlet is wired correctly. It will not detect if the neutral and ground are jumpered together.

 

[Woodchipper]

Wired it to the ceramic socket. Had to cut a pigtail for ground as the old fixture didn't have a ground. Duh. But there were three ground wires twisted and crimped. Seems with the ground, the LED lights are brighter.

 

[sorcerertd]

Todd; Look for a "Digital circuit breaker finder" You put the plug into an outlet and run the detector up and down the breaker panel until the light goes off. All the outlet AND switch plates have the same sharpie breaker marking. Some of the double outlets in my house are separated and are on two different breakers???!!!

PS. The part that goes into the outlet doubles as a GFCI tester and wiring tester to show if the outlet is wired correctly. It will not detect if the neutral and ground are jumpered together.

Ah yes, I could not have traced them all without one of those. It sounds like there's some fancier features on the new ones. The wiring in my house is annoying. It was built in 1957 without the common ground. Of course, the walls are plaster and lathe. There are horizontal braces between the studs and the wiring is stapled in place, making it impossible to just connect Romex to the old stuff and pull it through. Some of it was properly grounded before I bought the house, but some of it still is not. At least he circuits I installed are safely set up, a spare GFCI for the kitchen, a dedicated one for the dishwasher and two for the shop. I really should upgrade the panel. It's dumb that panels can never seem to handle the load if you fill all the slots they were supposedly designed to accommodate.

 

[jttheclockman]

Instead of buying a tool you will only use once such as a circuit breaker finder, just do the old fashion way and grab some appliances such as lights and or radios or hair dryers and things like this. make a fun day of it have the family join in. Like easter egg hunting. What I did was draw a basic hand drawing of my house (I do have a ranch house so easier) But even one with multiple floors is not hard. Mark outs on the walls and lights switches and things. Then as you locate different outlets and or light circuits, mark that next to them on your drawing. Just like we do with blueprints in the field. When all said and done label your panel and also tape a copy of that print to the inside of the panel. Marking the backs of switch and receptale plates is a good idea or as they do in commercial building mark the fronts of these covers with small tags (if you do not mind seeing this). But the quickest way to track down a circuit is a blueprint such as I mentioned. I also use colored highlight pens to designate each circuit. I picked that up when I was running work on my jobs. very easy to see what was what on each circuit. made a circuit key on bottom of page for reference. You can include specific notes such as what outlets are on what GFCI and things like that. If you have switched outlets in a room you can include a note designating which ones are. So much can be put on the print than what a breaker finder can tell you. Just my thoughts and I do not own one of those. I use to use them on the job site but found they can be finiky especially when dealing with 3 phase work. Breakers too close to each other. In a shop you can label all outlets and switches right on the front of the covers. Does not have to be fancy in a work shop.