Hot answers tagged receptacle
18
Yikes, good find! This is most definitely the reason. The ground and neutral are only supposed to be tied together at the main panel. In this case, instead of only the neutral carrying current, both the ground and neutral will carry it.
There is no legit reason that I know of to do this at an outlet. I wonder if perhaps the neutral was open and the ...
14
That is correct.
See NEMA 14-50R
Source
G - Ground
W - Neutral
X - Hot
Y - Hot
If you look at the terminal screws on one of these receptacles, you may notice they are different colors.
The green tinted screw is ground.
The silver screw is neutral.
The two brass screws are hot.
This is a common pattern in most electrical devices, and can ...
12
You should never chain two GFCI circuits together. When you install a GFCI circuit, you should only ever chain standard outlets off of them. Multiple GFCI on the same circuit can cause each other to trip.
So yes, what you want to do is actually what you should do.
What you do need to do, however, is make sure you connect the new outlet to the LOAD ...
11
A child-proof, or tamper resistant (TR for short) receptacle, has a spring-loaded cover over the electrical contacts that retracts when both pins of the plug press against it. You need to push against both sides simultaneously, and some force is required to open the cover, making it difficult for a child to get something in far enough to get a shock.
A ...
11
All outlets that support convenience plug in items within 8 feet of a water source must be GFI protected. However, the new NEC calls for a separate non GFI circuit (home run) for the fridge or other fixed appliances. These non protected circuits must be single purpose and wired to a single outlet or direct wired and dedicated to the appliance. This can ...
11
It is difficult to test without a ground reference. One way to do this is with a very sensitive (very high impedance) voltmeter such as a digital voltmeter. Make absolutely sure you are not grounded (and no pets or children are around). Make sure the digital voltmeter is definitely on the voltage setting. Plug one probe into one hole of the outlet, while ...
11
As I said in the comments to the OP and to Aaron's answer, there are several wiring failures that could cause an NCVT (non-contact voltage tester; usually a pen-looking thing that beeps when you point it at a live electrical wire) to light up, and some that even a plug tester can miss, but that would prevent a "real" load from being plugged in. The first ...
10
The correct answer is that you cannot install a 3 prong grounded outlet without using a 2 conductor with a separate ground conductor, that's three conductors. I know people cheat and put a wire from the ground screw of the outlet to the metal box and hope that the armor case is firmly connected to the box and grounded at the panel. This is not a good ...
8
The NEC (NFPA 70 2011 edition) requires GFCI receptacles in kitchens of dwelling units where the receptacles are installed to serve the countertop surfaces. It does not mention a distance requirement in kitchens.
The distance requirement of 1.8 meters (6 feet) is for sinks located in areas other than kitchens.
Section 210.8 A of NFPA 70 2011 Edition deals ...
8
Neutrals shouldn't be connected together with the GFCI. Connect the neutral of the line and load to the appropriate connections on each side of the GFCI. Otherwise, the current will appear to go out via the hot connection and not return via the neutral on the load side of the connection, which is exactly the scenario that the GFCI detects and trips on.
...
7
Yes, that is correct.
Another alternative is to disconnect the existing supply, and run a new line to the switch/receptacle. It really just depends on which line is easier to run.
(Note, I just copied the original image, but didn't erase the ground. The ground should be connected to the box and the ground nut on the receptacle, and switch if it has one. ...
7
After some experimentation, I have a solution that I think will be useful to others. I go into some detail here, so that people can take the principles and adapt them to their own circumstances. A lot of it seems obvious in retrospect, of course!
Tools I used:
Two long plastic yardsticks (wood or fiberglass would be fine, too).
One small plastic binder ...
7
No, the plugs are different for different voltages. There are many different NEMA receptacles for various combinations of voltage and current, and also a "twist-lock" receptacles. Some common ones are:
(From Wikipedia).
6
To directly answer your question about the unused switch in your kitchen, you have to check a couple of things before you install a receptacle in it's place:
Is there a source voltage feed in the box?
If there is only one cable entering the box and both the black and white conductors are connected to the switch(es), then the voltage feed is coming through ...
6
It must be GFCI (2009 residential codes, chapter 29):
E3902.1 Bathroom receptacles. All
125-volt, single-phase, 15- and
20-ampere receptacles installed in
bathrooms shall have ground-fault
circuit-interrupter protection for
personnel.
VA building codes are online: ...
6
I doubt it's required for existing construction and repairs, depending on where you live; some states have not yet adopted the code but it looks like most (pdf) have;
The incremental cost is small and if you have small children, it'll save having to buy those plastic inserts. And since I'm one who vividly recalls being a toddler a long time ago getting his ...
6
Whenever you have an appliance that is drawing current, and you pull the plug while it is in operation, you are going to draw an electrical arc. The voltage is high enough that current still wants to flow through the air to power the item. This is not a good situation. Items that draw high amounts of current, ie; high wattage, should have an on/off switch ...
5
I bet there's a standard 15- or 20-amp outlet nearby that the previous owners used to power their gas dryer, that, before your fix, was powered by the red wire that had been attached to one pole of the breaker.
As a side benefit to fixing this you've also made your home safer: using a 30-amp breaker to supply current to a 15- or 20-amp circuit is a major ...
5
You can probably get away with a weather proof box on top of the siding, but here's the full procedure to make it look nice.
Vinyl siding can be pulled off and later reattached. To remove it, you need a siding removal tool that has a flat blade with a small hook on the end. You shove it up the gap between two pieces of siding and then pull to separate them. ...
4
Use a utility knife with a very sharp new blade and carefully cut around the perimeter of the plate at an angle as close to parallel to the wall as possible. This should get you a nice clean separation of the plate from the wall.
For the screws - if you're buying new plates they'll come with screws, and if they don't, you can find extras (including extra ...
4
The number that I look for is in a surge suppressor is the energy or Joules rating, with the higher the better. This one is rated for 720 J, which is middle-of-the-road. You can find surge strips from about 200J to 4000J.
The thing with any modern TV is that you're probably going to be using a co-ax input for cable TV, and potentially an ethernet input ...
4
One thing you could do is install a whole house surge protector in your breaker box. These typically come with a large $ warranty if something does get blown. They come in may forms, the easiest ones simply install into a single circuit slot in your breaker box. Others hard wire in and have a small box that mounts right next to your breaker box.
...
4
Get an extension cord with a flat plug, which will fit nicely behind the bookshelf.
Move the outlet, or add another, where you can reach it.
When guiding the plug in, it can be hard to get things lined up when you can't see. If the plug has a ground pin, sometimes I find the ground hole with my finger and guide it in that way. Touching the ground pin is ...
4
Is it OK? No. Aside from the dangerous confusion you experienced there is an ongoing safety problem here. You have hots from two circuits going into one receptacle, but you only have one neutral. By placing load from two circuits onto one neutral wire, you have the risk of overloading that wire without tripping the circuit breakers for either circuit.
It's ...
4
The vinyl-siding manufacturers make special attachments for mounting receptacle boxes, with trim rings to seal against the siding. The attachments are the same or similar to what is used for railings and faucets:
For small fixtures, it is also possible to just cut a hole for it in the regular siding (and presumably seal with silicone), as shown in the ...
4
Leviton has a useful web page for device lookup here. Using that, you can find the replacement receptacle is a Leviton 5252. Most shopping sites (like amazon) don't show the back, but a Google image search with that model number does show several pictures of the back.
4
It sounds you caused a short circuit by wiring the hot and neutral together. You created a circuit with no electrical resistance so the breaker pops to prevent you from melting the wires and burning down your house.
Cap each wire that you removed separately unless they were already joined together. Once the outlet is removed and everything is safely capped ...
4
You simply need to convert the outlet into a junction box:
Flip the circuit breaker off
Unscrew the hots, neutrals, and ground from the outlet and remove the outlet
Splice the hot, neutral, and ground from both sides (charge and load) and put wire nuts on
Cover the box with a junction box lid
Flip the circuit back on
That way the receptacle continues ...
4
All wires (or rather, flows of charges through space) exhibit a phenomenon called inductance, and when great lengths of thin wire are wound into coils, large inductances can be created on purpose. Furthermore, if the coils are wound around cores made from ferrite or iron, the inductance phenomenon is even stronger.
Coils wound around cores are found in ...
3
Yes, you wired the NEMA 14-30 receptacle correctly. That receptacle has two hot connections, each 120V but on different phases, resulting in a 240V potential. So if you take a voltage tester you will find it reads 240V between the two rectangular slots on the outlet, and 120V between either rectangle and the neutral or ground. You can check this using your ...
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
