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My sewer line leaves the house well above the basement floor. To compensate for this, there is a small pump in a sealed chamber that takes any water from the floor drain and pumps it up to the main sewer line. I recently had a flow-through humidifier installed. This causes the sewer pump to...

I don't know if this is appropriate for this board or not, but I figured that most plumbers have some experience with gas lines too. Anyway, I have a commercial natural gas stove with a pilot on each burner (6 total). The pilots slowly get lower and lower over several months until they refuse...

A while back you guys (and gals?) gave me some great advice. I was looking at burying a concrete cistern to collect rainwater for irrigation purposes. Now the time has nearly arrived and I've got a few quick technical questions: 1. If I use a submersible pump, I plan to lay it a few inches...

Agreed 100%! I'm scared for the safety of the pool occupants (#1) and the safety of the house (#2). That's why I think it needs redone. I wonder if one of those "overpriced, underqualified contractors" installed their original pool wiring. :eek:

I desperately need to replace the power run to my inlaw's pool. They jumpered it off of the sunroom circuit which was probably already overloaded. You should see the lights dim when the pump kicks on. I guess that's what you get when you let pool guys do electric work. Anyway, the easiest...

Update: They installed an additional capacitor to the system. The lights barely blink now. If you are paying attention you can see when the unit kicks on, but otherwise it's hardly noticeable. The installer said he contacted the manufacturer of the heat pump, then ended up contacting the...

I've seen a small business that had this exact problem. Their solution was to work with the local telco and had them run a buried wire into the business, but leave the old wiring on the outside of the building. Now, should someone decide to cut the phone lines, they will be cutting the old...

Ok. I get it now. It detects the current going to ground ELSEWHERE on the circuit instead of back through the neutral wire, thus the Ground Fault part. If the current on the hot wire doesn't match the current on the neutral wire, it's going somewhere it's not supposed to. Well you learn...

I'm not a pro, but common sense tells me if you are putting more air into a room than you are sucking out, that room will become positively pressured. That can cause all sorts of fun things, such as doors to slamming unexpectedly. Then you just lost all airflow through room. Like jadnashua...

If you wire them in series properly, the first GFCI in the chain will protect anything that follows it. Bingo! Your GFCI's should also come with stickers that you can put on the outlets beyond the GFCI to indicate they are also GFCI protected. I'm not an electrician, but don't GFCI's work off...

Check your flue to make sure it's drawing a draft properly. I've seen this once before and the fix was to extend the pipe after it exits the roof a few feet higher. You might also have an obstruction in your flue somewhere. Is this flue shared by anything else? Do the match stick test as...

The heat pump is a GeoComfort GT072TL111CBDSSA. Of course they updated their manuals to the newer models, so my model number doesn't work against what is currently on their page. However, I did find a "catalog" of theirs with the model number reference page and all of the specs...

Now just convince my wife she's crazy too. Good luck!

I think the distance is somewhere around 100'. I'd have to go measure it off for better accuracy. It's really not very far compared to some of the other neighbors. I wasn't home when they ran the service from the transformer to the house. Being that it's all underground or in conduit, I...

The local inspector told me to not have more than 3 (maybe 4) wires under a single nut for that exact reason. I designed my wiring in my house to keep multiple wire junctions to a minimum. In some remodel work I've done with the inlaws, they had some nuts with 5 or 6 wires each under them. I...

I can't begin to tell you how many times I've seen wires fall out of the nut because they weren't twisted together first. I always twist my wires then nut them. Why risk a fire or something when you can just spend an extra 5 seconds twisting the wire together first? Also, at least for me...

I cracked open the cabinet and was following the wiring around. It looks like there is a decent sized capacitor in the wiring for the compressor. Is this what you were talking about? View from the front: View from around the back: (Sorry about the wires. It took me about 15 tries just to...

I've done some testing/measuring. Hopefully this will help. House under "normal load" (compressor not running): Hot Leg "A" to Hot Leg "B" -> 247.6V Hot Leg "A" to Utility Neutral ("N") -> 123.5V Hot Leg "B" to Utility Neutral ("N") -> 124.2V Panel Ground to Utility Neutral ->...

Another thought I had relates to bedroom outlets. Here, code requires arc-fault breakers for all receptacles in bedrooms. You may want to check up on that too while you are at it. Note: Arc-fault breakers are NOT Ground-fault (GFCI) breakers. They are a completely different beast. The...

OK pro's. Correct me if I'm wrong. I know this isn't the right way to do it, but shouldn't the switch be grounded anyway? You see where I'm going with this... I know, not the right way and probably against code, but couldn't he use the ground in a pinch for a return path to the main panel...