What home improvement work did you do today?

okay, I have the 2. I might look those up, they look nice and long lasting. As I was attaching mine I remember not being impressed with the stock ones.

 

Question for those of you who have a generator backup. Is it whole house or just specific panel switches? As I've never looked into how to connect the genie I'm pretty much a five yr old on any knowledge of how it works. Off to google I go to do some research. Because my power was out this am in -38 temps. Not a good problem if I don't have anything in place to mitigate it...

 

I have 3 generators, and they are all full house/building. Not the cheapest approach, and prices have basically doubled or more since I had to buy them. But I've got young kids and a business that relies on having power at important times, so it had to be done.

You can have them just power certain aspects, like your furnace, easily enough. There are a lot of videos on youtube, but electrical is something I hire out, plus I needed to get someone to instal the gas line after trenching from the tank.

 

You could do a transfer switch or an inlet box. Inlet being the cheapest, it can also be the most dangerous/less fool proof. Main thing here is that you want to make sure you kill the main breaker and you have an interlock kit (With inlet box) so you cant back feed the grid. The transfer switch does this automatically for you.

 

Thanks for pointing out some aspects to consider when looking further into this process. I know a few electricians so I'll also give them a call and ask all the questions I have as well. Just wanted to get some basic understanding beforehand. Again, Appreaciate the feedback.

 

I have a portable 5500 watt generator that powers 10 'important' circuits when needed. I had an electrician wire the sub panel (or whatever it's called), then I just plug in the generator to an outlet outside which feeds that subpanel. Certainly not as convenient as a whole house backup system, but it'll allow you to stay in the house for a fraction of the price.
Obvious drawbacks are that you have to be home to hook it up, it's loud, and my wife has a hard time starting it (they do make ones with electric start). I've had it for about 12 years and probably use it 8-10 times per year (we lose power way too frequently...). After going without power for a week twice in the first 2 years in the house, it became a necessity.

 

They make basically the same thing but all electric now too, and the price to match. But it would also allow it to be inside in his basement with no fumes. The downside is, if you lose power for more than a few hours regularly, you can't refill it!

 

Forgot to mention that with the inlet box, you then can/have to turn off the breakers you dont want to power (220v circuits or misc stuff) and leave those you want on. Once power is restored, you simply shut off your generator, kill the 30 or 50a breaker you installed and flip your main disconnect back on.

An electrician should be able to propose whats best for your current setup, needs and budget

 

Damn a week at a time. And here I am complaining when I lose it for hours. Every winter we seem to lose power for up to 12 hours. When this happens we lose our water too as the well pump is connected
to the panel. I'm more concerned with pipes freezing because of losing power than anything else.

 

I live in an old a frame cabin and it has a crawl space where it would be installed. Also in the crawl space is my tankless water heater and well expansion tank.

 

Exactly. Luckily both of the week long outages were in the fall, but if it had been the middle of winter I would have been in trouble. Ours powers the well pump, ignition for the furnace, outlets in the kitchen (coffee pot/ microwave/toaster oven), refrigerator, and lights in a few rooms. I got lucky that my router and TV are on the opposite side of the wall from my kitchen, so I have wifi and can watch tv too!

 

That's basically what I'd want to power as well. We also have a lock off detached from the main house that only has electric for heat. So in the winters I'd want to have power to that unit as well.

Thanks again to everyone here giving me some good pointers to get me headed in the right direction. Waiting for a call back from my electrician for his advice as well.

 

I rewired a new entryway ceiling light yesterday; trying to figure out the wiring in this house (45 years old) is sometimes confusing. This entryway has switches at two different parts of the house. When I removed the old light, it wasn’t attached well so the wires easily slipped out of their connections and I couldn’t figure out which wire went to which lead. The house wiring has red/black/white and the new fixture only had black and white. Let’s just say I got a little buzz on my first attempt……all is well that ends well. Much more light in the entryway now

 

Let me know if you want a hand figuring anything out.

 

Sounds like those were your travelers for the 3way switches.
Fun times!

 

for sure. Electricity is still one of my "I'm not sure I should be doing this" fixes. Once I have more questions I'll for sure reach out. Im tied up in work and kid life today.

 

Taped up the doors that open out between the camper and the bedside to eliminate a draft and replaced the propane gas detector.
I wasn't using that useless storage area for anything but the jack tripods anyways.

 

that’s exactly what it was!!!!

 

If you need something like those 3D printed ones, let me know so I can give you some potentially cheaper options. if you want anyway.

I see a lot of answers, but I will chime in late with mine. I have a 5k that I will be getting a transfer switch for. It will plug directly into my panel area and control specific breakers so it isnt overloaded. One day, when I get my 14k propane I will do a whole panel switch so I can just run anything.

For now, I run it to a couple of cords and run the bare essentials. Thankfully power outages here are typically when we are warmer.

 

Decided to tackle something that should have been a quick job, but there is always something....

cut a hole behind my outlet to put another box in so i can hide these cords and keep things away from my soon to be toddler. Doing so, i failed to take wall depth into account. So I raised the hole and put the box in. It is ugly, but it doesnt matter since it hides behind everything and functions as needed now.

Before:



what is hidden:



after until I do the wire hide work when the baby is awake again:

 

Came here to say this!

But since I got beat to the punch, this is what I did today. Snow hit ATL again and my neighbor, who I helped replace a garage door spring for and urged him to do both sides, called me to say, “FUCK! The other side just popped, like you said it would!”

So I helped him swap it out before the snow started, and while I don’t drink much lately, unless it’s quality, I got paid in kind with one of my favorite hazies out of LA.

I cannot express to yall how dangerous these springs are. That eye hook was bent at a 35° angle, I had to shorten it with a rotary and clean the threads, I’ll need to replace later. I dunno if these pics will show how bent that angle iron is but the spring absolutely hammered it when the spring blew, and took the emergency cable with. I can only imagine what it sounded like inside.

PS - If you have this style of door, PLEASE make sure you have safety cables passing thru the spring.
. Their safety cable did its job, but was shredded in half as a result. If it hadn’t, there’s a good chance he’d be a widow today.

 

Since we've taken an electrical turn. One of the GFCI outlets in my shed failed. I went to replace it, but the electrician didn't leave enough slack in the box. I need to fire him, he drinks on the job and takes too many smoke breaks.
So, I'm going to take the wallboard off and add a junction box. Easy enough. Question is, are Wago splices OK to use? They sure seem easier than wire nuts. Would I still need to add a j-box, or can they just be left in the wall?

 

I personally won’t use them but I would defer to @bmf4069 or @RainMan_PNW

 

They're NEC approved but I don't like them.

You need a j-box for all splices, bad juju will find you if you bury a splice in the wall.

 

it was probably a few years ago now but I heard of a local guy who literally had his face taken off by one of those springs…..I swore after hearing about it that I would NEVER touch a garage door mechanism. I will gladly pay someone else who knows what the heck they’re doing and has the right tools for the job.

that said, I probably should have paid someone to wire this light since I had no idea what a traveler wire was before attempting this. I popped the breaker twice before learning that it was white (fixture) to white (box) and black (fixture) to red traveler wire (box). Then the two blacks joining from the switches get tied off together…..as GI Joe used to say “now I know……and knowing is half the battle.” Just glad I got buzzed and not fully jolted….

 

You should fire that guy…
100% need a junction box per code. Any splice needs to be contained in a box with an appropriate cover.

I’ve never used them myself, but our service electricians have been stocking them and using them for a while now in their work. They are more expensive and feel to me like they take up more room in the box (thinking larger multi-wire splices), but they are much faster and easier to install - something that makes sense when you are talking about the labor cost of a union electrician doing many many splices on a job.
For a basic homeowner, I don’t see any compelling reason not to just use some quality brand wire nuts of the right size and call it a day. You’re talking about three splices of two wires each…

 

Two types of springs: Torsion, Extension.

These are extension springs. When the garage door is up, there's zero tension on the spring and they're safe to handle. Like a rattlesnake in a K-hole. That fucker ain't gonna bite, it doesn't know its fang from its tail, as you can clearly see in my 1st pic. Limp. Flaccid. Needs blue pills. But if the door is down, and the spring extended, you don't touch that MF.

Only "aha!" with extension springs is, you need to unlock/unlatch the door, open it, and clamp it so it won't fall. In that state, no tension, no risk, and you can get to work. Undo your safety cable that runs thru the spring. Pop pulley off the spring. Swap out spring, reinstall pulley. Reinstall safety cable. Unclamp the door and relock it, you're golden.

I don't fault anyone for being worried about it. My friend next door is too, and I got a 4pk of beer that would've cost me $15 as a result of my 20min of work, altho he knows damn well I'd have done it for free.

Torsion springs? I know jackshit about them, and I like my face un-torn-off, so not messing with them w/o more experience. But I'm sure with those, you just need to respect a few fundamentals and you're fine.

 

I’ll give a few comments wrt generator backups.
My old house I installed a 6 circuit backup panel with separate switches for each circuit so you are not using the breakers. It worked fine, as it had a built in transfer switch. I had an extension cord from the generator outside the garage to a plug in the garage. It worked but did not ever get used if I was not home. When I was working there were a couple times when I was out of town(overseas) and the power was out for 4 and 5 days.
Fast forward new home. We have propane heat (and tank) and added heat pump, then added solar panels with 10 KWh battery backup. It powers partial home. But the propane furnace is still hooked up and provides heat when power is out. Other circuits are: Master bath, family room (Internet and cable box), septic pump, tankless water heater, kitchen outlets and kitchen fridge, as well as fridge and freezer in garage. Power back up is seamless with battery, and will last us about 12 hours. I also have a generator hookup for when power is out for longer than 12 hours. My sub panel has a transfer breaker to provide generator input. The generator I have is dual fuel, and have it running on propane only. We had power out for 22 hours a couple of months ago, so that was a test. My generator is electric (battery) start and about 8000 watts on propane fuel. It handles the house load with no problems. Ten days ago I had the propane company guy add a quick connect to my 500 gallon propane tank. No more moving propane tanks around for this old guy.
Getting the backup battery was a no hesitation decision from my wife. Most of our power outages are short 30 minutes to 3 hours.
Photo of my propane tank connection. I’m ok working with electrical basics but leave the main tank connection to the company.