Home wiring
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From: Eric R Snow on 12 May 2005 20:48 On Sat, 07 May 2005 11:18:55 -0700, Jamie <jamie_5_not_valid_after_5_Please(a)charter.net> wrote: >Dr Engelbert Buxbaum wrote: > >> Rick wrote: >> >> >>>Hi Group, >>> >>>I am wiring a room in my basement. It is a new room. I have purchased 2 >>>books on home wiring and I am confident about doing the work myself. >> >> >> Frankly, I am not so sure. At least, have your work checked by somebody >> qualified. In most jurisdictions, you are actually required to do that >> by law. >> >> >>>I >>>have 4 plug outlets, one light switch, two light ceiling outlets. I am >>>'daisy chaining' these together to go on the same circuit. As such, I >>>am pig tailing the wires to connect to the actual outlet devices. My >>>question is about the grounding. To save a few dollars, I purchased >>>these metal cases for the outlets that seem to be all I would need. >>>Except, when I look at the existing ones that were put in when the >>>house was built, they are a bit different, namely, there are two screws >>>in the case for the ground wires. >> >> >> Normally, you have 3 wires in house installation: live (usually brown), >> neutral (usually blue) and protective earth (PE, usually green/yellow >> bicolour). Some heavy duty equipment may have 3 different live wires >> (brown, grey and black) carrying the voltage with different phase, >> giving a total of 5 wires. This includes kitchen ovens, air >> conditioning, flow through water heaters and the like. >> >> Only in very old installations are neutral and PE connected at the >> outlet ("nulling"), this type of wiring has been forbidden for a long >> time, because it prevents the use of residual current devices (RCDs). >> >> By the way, have you included a RCD in your fuse box? If not, reconsider >> because these thingies are real life savers if things go wrong. 30 mA is >> the prefered size for house installation. > >when wiring lighting and plugs, the 2 two are not to be on the same >circuit. they need their own breakers. > color codes normally are Black for HOT, white for Neutral and Green >for earth Ground. the neutral and earth ground are to be connected in >the breaker box on the ground bus bar, then an earth ground electrode >and possibly a water pipe that is near by that has been conductive >tested connected to the ground bus bar using no smaller than 10 #awg bar >copper >wire. > this is the NEC codes the last time i looked. > P.S. > Remote fault breakers (GFI's) are also required in some localities. > >just thought i was spit in my 2 cents worth. > > It's obvious that the two responders are from different countries. So color are different. That said, the original poster's question about running pigtails to the receptacles is right on. Running a pigtail with a ground is the way to go. If the box is metal ground it too. Don't rely on the box to ground the receptacle. Even if this is OK in some municipalities it is bad practice. Especially since you don't know what the next homeowner is going to do. Some people use the push in type of receptacle to bring the power in and use the screws to bring the power out to the next receptacle. Bad idea. Instead, use the screws provided for both power in and out. But a pigtail is still better. You can buy a high quality screwdriver in either phillips or flat. These screw drivers have a pin sticking out of the handle parallel to the screwdriver shaft. This short pin is for sticking the end of the wire in and making a U shape to fit the receptacle screw. These are high quality tools, low in price, and make the job go way faster. My father-in-law, who is a commercial electrician, helped me wire my machine shop from scratch. He worked hard but I worked a lot harder and learned tons. The guy from Puget Sound Energy, our power supplier, said it was one of the best wiring jobs he'd ever seen. Doing your job right will only add a small amount of time and expense and pay off with no trouble later on. A good example is your pig tail wiring of the receptacles. If one goes bad only a short wire needs to be removed and maybe replaced. Wirenuts are real easy to use and replacing the pigtail with the receptacle is no big deal. If the pig tail is OK then only one wire set needs to be messed with: the pigtail. You will not have to worry about any other wires in the box. Cheers., Eric
From: Dr Engelbert Buxbaum on 14 May 2005 08:17
Jamie wrote: > color codes normally are Black for HOT, white for Neutral and Green > for earth Ground. What place are you in? Here in Europe, there used to be black - live, grey - neutral and red - PE many, many years ago, but now its brown, blue and yellow/green. IIRC the change was made so that colour blind people (regardles of the type of colour blindness) couls safely do the connecting (dark-live, bright-neutral, bicolour-PE). > the neutral and earth ground are to be connected in > the breaker box on the ground bus bar, then an earth ground electrode > and possibly a water pipe that is near by that has been conductive > tested connected to the ground bus bar using no smaller than 10 #awg bar > copper > wire. Yes, but that's all "behind" the fuse box. The idea is that all metal items (water pipes, heating...) is at ground level and can't "bite" anybody touching them. |