Lessons in home ownership

[mithriltabby]

When taking possession of your new home, have one person stay at the circuit breaker box while one other person goes around to every single electric socket in the house with a small device to check and see which breaker controls which socket (and each lightswitch that doesn’t obviously control a lightsocket, for that matter). Make a map that shows what the circuit breaker box really does.

I would never have thought to go look at the pump for my pond when attempting to trace a short under the breaker labeled “bedroom”.

Comments

[tronpublic.livejournal.com]

Corollary: When an electrician waves one of those beeping/glowing wands at an outlet and says "it works", he might be wrong. It will only detect if one of the three wires is connected. Hardware stores sell a small device that you plug in to your outlets that check if everything is connected AND that no wires are crossed.

[mithriltabby]

That would be the right device to use for checking each socket, then.

Alway, ALWAYS have a breaker map

[chuckles48.livejournal.com]

Been having fun with that with a friend down here. The builder's electrician doesn't seem to get that having part of the living room on the same circuit as the kitchen isn't safe OR legal. Never mind that the fridge is on it, too.

Pretty bad when I know the codes better than a licensed electrician.

Re: Alway, ALWAYS have a breaker map

[mithriltabby]

Then there’s the joy of discovering that someone used white wire for both the hot and neutral terminals...

Re: Alway, ALWAYS have a breaker map

[chuckles48.livejournal.com]

Ah. Done by loving hands at home.

I always, _always_ pull "to code". And I have an electrician do the hookups.

And yes, I've had my fair share of 110AC moments. Not as bad as they make it on screen, but, well, it leaves an impression.

Re: Alway, ALWAYS have a breaker map

[weregamer.livejournal.com]

This was standard back in the days when outlets were 2-prong. The neutral terminal was in fact grounded at the breaker box, and the hot wire was pulled from one of the incoming phases. When my dad retrofitted 3-wire outlets in our house, he did exactly what you described - ground terminal and neutral terminal tied together.

It's nowhere near as good as a solid ground connection, but it's serviceable if you don't want to rewire the house.

Timely!

[weregamer.livejournal.com]

A good reminder when Tess & I move in later this month...

[racerxmachina.livejournal.com]

Fish 1: Our bad. Genius here had to plug in his heater while all of us had our computers on...
Fish 2: WHAAAT? It's cold, sue me!