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Last weekend Dear Ol' Dad and I installed my new inline fan for the bathrooms. The fan now actually removes damp air in the main bathroom (wonder of wonders), and vents the previously-unvented master-bath.
I always feel odd about having my dad help, because I feel like I ought to be able to figure this stuff out on my own. The truth is I CAN, but it all goes ten times faster if you're working with/learning from someone who knows best practices and isn't stumbling in the dark (and has more tools). This would have been a two-person job one way or t'other, anyway. Very useful to have someone in the attic and someone in the bathroom at some points, not to mention scampering back and forth from attic to garage. As I am short and flexible, I am better suited to scampering through the attic than Dad. I still have to bend more than half-over, but I don't have to crawl (thank goodness. The mis-built right knee turns almost instantly into a mega-bruise if I have to crawl). And of course, I needed help wiring...
I've never grokked wiring. Sure, I did all the simple-circuit stuff in school, but there's a huge difference between seeing the entire battery-light bulb circuit and reconstructing what's going on in an entire house based on the contents of one visible electric box.
Now, I know you don't have to understand the whole circuit to correctly wire something, but I don't seem to be able to work that way. I have never, ever, been a rote learner. I have to get it in order to have a hope of remembering it. And for whatever reason, wiring has been difficult for me to get. It doesn't help that my house isn't wired correctly by any stretch of the imagination. It's one thing to learn by looking at a model circuit; totally another to try to figure out what's going on when person who put it together appeared to be ill equipped, ill informed, or possibly high.
E.G.: the switch for the fan, a supposedly-grounded outlet, and the switch for the light were all in one double-gang box. The incoming neutral wires were all electrical taped together and the outlet neutral ran into the joined grounds. Even I know that's wrong.
On the upside, there is ground wire throughout the house, which I hadn't been sure of. So, since I need to learn-by-doing, I decided I'd make two-prong outlets into three-prong outlets this weekend.
First I bought a multimeter. Never have I been so gleeful about such a cheap tool. I only just figured out that a big part of my wiring problem is feeling like I don't have enough info; now I have a tool that gives me information!And makes sure I don't die! Since we'd just discovered at least one instance where the ground wire could have been carrying current, the whole 'not dying' thing loomed rather large.
Armed with a box of grounded outlets, a coil of 12-2 romex, and my new voltmeter, I set about to rewiring outlets. First, I turned the correct breaker off, which had the side-effect of making my geek housemates spring from their rooms like prairie dogs, deprived of their electrical entertainment. Then I examined myvictim first outlet. "How odd," thought I, "Wires are connected to all four screws. Is this switched?" My dad would have known at a glance it wasn't -- 2 wires entered box, not 3 -- but I AM ELECTRIKS DUNCE OK? So I treated it as if it was switched, broke the tabs on the new outlet, and reinstalled following the original pattern (w/ added ground). Then we flicked the breaker, and, lo and behold --
The guys' rooms still had no power. Savvy readers following along at home may have guessed this.
So: Now I know that outlet's upstream on the circuit, at least! I redid it with a new outlet, without breaking the tabs, using jumper wires to connect to two screws on the outlet instead of directly wiring to all four -- i.e., the way normal outlets are supposed to go. Bingo, everything works! Likemagic electricity!
On re-thinking my first mistake, I realized what should have been obvious: The tabs weren't broken, and there was no switch leg. I'd just wired it so one half of the outlet got juice, and the rest started a closed-loop to the guys' rooms, with no happy little electricities in it at all. Oops.
But I still didn't understand why the original set-up had worked in the first place.
By the way, this process involved two separate phone calls to Dad, and I'm pretty sure he answered the above question at least twice, but I didn't get it.
I looked at the original outlet again. I looked at it harder.
A very dim bulb went off above my noggin.
The two neutral screws and two hot screws weren't on two separate plates connect by a removable tab. They were on the same plate. DING! My eyebrows squinched together. I drew little white-and-black diagrams in my head. I GOT IT. I now understand all THREE situations -- the original, my fuck-up, and the correct way. LEVEL UP!
Leveling up is always easiest at the very, very low levels, but it is no less satisfying.
I always feel odd about having my dad help, because I feel like I ought to be able to figure this stuff out on my own. The truth is I CAN, but it all goes ten times faster if you're working with/learning from someone who knows best practices and isn't stumbling in the dark (and has more tools). This would have been a two-person job one way or t'other, anyway. Very useful to have someone in the attic and someone in the bathroom at some points, not to mention scampering back and forth from attic to garage. As I am short and flexible, I am better suited to scampering through the attic than Dad. I still have to bend more than half-over, but I don't have to crawl (thank goodness. The mis-built right knee turns almost instantly into a mega-bruise if I have to crawl). And of course, I needed help wiring...
I've never grokked wiring. Sure, I did all the simple-circuit stuff in school, but there's a huge difference between seeing the entire battery-light bulb circuit and reconstructing what's going on in an entire house based on the contents of one visible electric box.
Now, I know you don't have to understand the whole circuit to correctly wire something, but I don't seem to be able to work that way. I have never, ever, been a rote learner. I have to get it in order to have a hope of remembering it. And for whatever reason, wiring has been difficult for me to get. It doesn't help that my house isn't wired correctly by any stretch of the imagination. It's one thing to learn by looking at a model circuit; totally another to try to figure out what's going on when person who put it together appeared to be ill equipped, ill informed, or possibly high.
E.G.: the switch for the fan, a supposedly-grounded outlet, and the switch for the light were all in one double-gang box. The incoming neutral wires were all electrical taped together and the outlet neutral ran into the joined grounds. Even I know that's wrong.
On the upside, there is ground wire throughout the house, which I hadn't been sure of. So, since I need to learn-by-doing, I decided I'd make two-prong outlets into three-prong outlets this weekend.
First I bought a multimeter. Never have I been so gleeful about such a cheap tool. I only just figured out that a big part of my wiring problem is feeling like I don't have enough info; now I have a tool that gives me information!
Armed with a box of grounded outlets, a coil of 12-2 romex, and my new voltmeter, I set about to rewiring outlets. First, I turned the correct breaker off, which had the side-effect of making my geek housemates spring from their rooms like prairie dogs, deprived of their electrical entertainment. Then I examined my
The guys' rooms still had no power. Savvy readers following along at home may have guessed this.
So: Now I know that outlet's upstream on the circuit, at least! I redid it with a new outlet, without breaking the tabs, using jumper wires to connect to two screws on the outlet instead of directly wiring to all four -- i.e., the way normal outlets are supposed to go. Bingo, everything works! Like
On re-thinking my first mistake, I realized what should have been obvious: The tabs weren't broken, and there was no switch leg. I'd just wired it so one half of the outlet got juice, and the rest started a closed-loop to the guys' rooms, with no happy little electricities in it at all. Oops.
But I still didn't understand why the original set-up had worked in the first place.
By the way, this process involved two separate phone calls to Dad, and I'm pretty sure he answered the above question at least twice, but I didn't get it.
I looked at the original outlet again. I looked at it harder.
A very dim bulb went off above my noggin.
The two neutral screws and two hot screws weren't on two separate plates connect by a removable tab. They were on the same plate. DING! My eyebrows squinched together. I drew little white-and-black diagrams in my head. I GOT IT. I now understand all THREE situations -- the original, my fuck-up, and the correct way. LEVEL UP!
Leveling up is always easiest at the very, very low levels, but it is no less satisfying.
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no subject
Date: 2011-12-13 12:59 am (UTC)From:Yay for levelling up in electrics!
And I never mock those who have trouble grokking electrics, for there is a tale from my youth that ends with me holding both the live and the neutral of something that was, let us say, with power. It was, how shall I put this... An uncomfortable experience.
So any tale that ends with no one dead and no one having been electrocuted is a good one.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-13 01:12 am (UTC)From:I've shocked myself twice, and both times I was just plugging something in. Once I'd wired up a very cheap plug and it shorted inside. The other time I was plugging in the stove, and that was truly terrifying -- luckily I had on rubber-soled shoes.
It's a bit more of a mystery, but I think there must have been a drop of water on my fingernail from the cleaning I'd been doing, which dripped at precisely the wrong time. The wall-wart is very, very small, so fingers are naturally close to the prongs.
Oddly, I'd been wiring in a new igniter, and everything I'd fixed worked fine!
no subject
Date: 2011-12-13 01:11 am (UTC)From:I'm fairly certain that the Mad Max Movies are a bad source for wiring advice.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-13 01:17 am (UTC)From:I imagine the little picture would work better if I'd bothered to label things, but since I only threw it together to show Dad I really honestly wasn't going to shock myself and/or set the house on fire because I get it now, I didn't bother.
The secondary reason for the picture was to give
no subject
Date: 2011-12-13 01:44 am (UTC)From:My knowledge of Electrical Systems basically adds up to "Don't Touch Them."
no subject
Date: 2011-12-13 03:14 am (UTC)From:That's actually a very good rule. *g* I think it's one of those things were there's a vast gulf between 'standard ignorance' and 'real competence', and the gulf itself is rather dangerous. Kind of like martial arts -- it's possible to know just enough to get yourself into deep shit.
I did make the outlet holes into little smiley/frowny faces to help make it clear... :P
no subject
Date: 2011-12-13 03:21 am (UTC)From:I also think that once you've been through that gulf in one of the areas of knowledge where it's a problem, it's a bit easier to recognize when you're in it while learning another one.
And yes, the Smiley/Frowny faces did help.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-13 03:30 am (UTC)From:For instance, with a thorough map of which breaker does what and double-checking with the voltmeter, I can remove the danger element long enough to take apart the system I don't understand, safely.
The problem, of course, comes in turning everything back on without fire/sparks/bangs. But I have to have the 'unless' part of the rule, because I'm one of those people who has to actually take it apart and put it back together a few times to really get it.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-13 04:21 am (UTC)From:Well, that and a thorough understanding of what you don't know, so you know which bits you can mess with freely, which you want some backup for, and which you just don't mess with at the moment.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-13 04:37 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2011-12-13 09:49 pm (UTC)From:The line between stupid and dead is very thin - tread carefully!
Which seems to sum up electrickery quite well...
no subject
Date: 2011-12-19 05:59 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2011-12-13 02:13 am (UTC)From:*grin*
Stasia
no subject
Date: 2011-12-13 03:15 am (UTC)From:Honestly, I spent far too much time trying to make a 'two wires enter; one wire leaves!' joke make actual electrical sense. Hehehehe...