MacGyverS2000
Electrical
- Dec 22, 2003
- 8,504
Getting ready to remodel major portions of the significant other's house, which means messing around in the breaker box. As an electrical engineer I'm fully aware of electrical safety practices, but that also means I'm very nervous about approaching the box because I know what can go wrong (been shocked too many times building high-voltage circuits as a young'un, but they were obviously low current). The house was built the early 70's, and everything looks copper (thankfully). There doesn't appear to be a main breaker in the box, so I'm hoping there's a cut-off on the meter (I'd feel much safer doing that anyway). I'll be doing a lot of work on and off, so I don't want to call the power company each time to shut it all down.
The first change is to move the water heater downstairs, but I'll also be debugging a nagging problem... the power to the bathroom goes out about once a month. With no warning, the lights fail to come on and the outlet attached to the same box supplies no power, and power is restored in the same manner by next morning. It happened two nights ago and the meter shows no power being supplied to the switch, so I'm thinking it's in the breaker box (loose terminal screw?). I don't smell/see any arcing or burning in the switch/outlet box. I love the puzzle, but hate that it's on a high-voltage/current circuit
Just wanted to grumble about having to do it, maybe get a few "I was once nervous, too" stories added in. Now that I think about it, some self-learned safety tips would be good to add here, too (maybe easy ways to block off live bus bars while working in the breaker box, etc.).
Dan - Owner
The first change is to move the water heater downstairs, but I'll also be debugging a nagging problem... the power to the bathroom goes out about once a month. With no warning, the lights fail to come on and the outlet attached to the same box supplies no power, and power is restored in the same manner by next morning. It happened two nights ago and the meter shows no power being supplied to the switch, so I'm thinking it's in the breaker box (loose terminal screw?). I don't smell/see any arcing or burning in the switch/outlet box. I love the puzzle, but hate that it's on a high-voltage/current circuit
Just wanted to grumble about having to do it, maybe get a few "I was once nervous, too" stories added in. Now that I think about it, some self-learned safety tips would be good to add here, too (maybe easy ways to block off live bus bars while working in the breaker box, etc.).
Dan - Owner
