Ask Electricians

After much discussion about how the community should be moderated, this is where we currently are.

First I want to get this out of the way. We will not allow hate speech, personal attacks, slurs, bigotry, or anything that resembles it. Okay? Good.

People are going to post electrical questions on the internet, do their own electrical work, and fuck up their own electrical work. This process will happen with or with out this subreddit and its rules. If there is a reliable community where someone can come and get good information on a wide range of electrical topics, then to me there will be a net positive for safety.

We are going to be allowing comments from all users, BUT I urge those who are not electrical professionals to exercise extreme caution when doing so. If information is not blatantly hazardous, it will stay up. The community is going to be asked to use the voting system it is intended. If someone takes the advice of a comment with negative karma, then more than likely, they would have done the wrong thing regardless. Once corrected, leaving wrong comments up can be a learning experience for everyone involved.

I ask you to DOWNVOTE information you do not like, and REPORT the hazardous stuff. We will decide what to do from there. Bans may or may not be given and everything will be at the discretion of the mods. Again, if you are someone who is not an electrical professional, you have been warned.

Electrical professionals: We have an imperfect system for getting a little 'Verified Electrician' flair next to your name. To get verified, send a photo to the mods that has your certificate/seal/card. In this photo, have a piece of paper with your username and date written on it. Block out all identifying information. Once verified delete the image. All the cool ones have this flair.

If we have hundreds or thousands of active verified users, we will once again talk about the direction of this community. Till then, see you in the comments.

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I just moved to New Jersey's metro area with a desire to become an electrician. I visited two trade schools yesterday, Lincoln Tech and Fortis Institute (the latter only doing low voltage), and I came away with a lot of mixed feelings. Spearheading these feelings are two things: negative online reviews (accusations of being diploma mills, lacking applicable knowledge, and poor staff), but more interesting to me are the suggestions to apply directly to an electric/utility company.

Not to tout, but I'm smart and a hard worker -- I have no doubts on my capabilities to see this through, but plenty on how to get my foot in and knowing what I'd be getting myself into.

For example, would I apply directly to a utility facility, or they mostly unstaffed and have electricians come to manage it? How would I go about locating electric companies that may be hiring? How would I know which company would be a good fit for me to apply for an apprenticeship? Anything that I should avoid? Would I indubitably receive a comprehensive tutelage, or may one electrical company thrive only on CCTV earnings and fail to prepare me for other electrical practices?

Or are there benefits of attending trade school that I'm not seeing? The only thing I could reckon is that I wouldn't be contractually obligated to remain with an electric company for an extended period of time.

Any and all advice is welcome. Thank you in advance !

The wires feeding the GFCI are not reading anything on the voltmeter, Power is not interrupted to anything else on the breaker (lights etc), I replaced the breaker, confirmed there is power going to the breaker, I am stumped and am hoping for a “duh” fix

So wife and I are wanting to remodel kitchen. Contractor says we need to upgrade from the original 60amp bus screw in fuses type thing we have now to a 200amp breaker box and have whoever does it run 2 12guage leads from new box to under the kitchen. Had my cousins son come out and take a look. He’s an electrician but doesn’t have a contractors license so we’d have to pull a homeowners permit and my city doesn’t do inspections so have to pull permit from state and have them inspect it. He quoted us $4600 which seems reasonable. Little hesitant because he’s only 24 and we’d have to do all the permit stuff which I have no clue about. We called a legit local company and they came out said we need grounding rods and quoted the other stuff and the total was $14,000 which seems very high. They were pushing 0% interest payment plan which I took as a red flag. We got a third guy coming out tomorrow who’s licensed and insured and supposedly rewired my wife’s co-workers house for $8k. My house is tiny 840 sqft located in Michigan, gonna have gas stove, gas dryer. My question is what’s a fair price?

So I am 18 years old and out of high school and I am looking to become an electrician In NYC Ive seen trade schools like Apex technical school and others however the tuition is 15k especially when the school lasts for 7 months (from looks of it and multiple tours students seem to just think of the school as a last resort)

People are saying to join a union like the IBEW program but I just called their local contact information and had said that if I wanted to have a chance to join I would have to wait for three years for their applications to open again but I simply cannot wait that long; they said submit a name and a address until three years has passed and applications are open again so I can be in line.

I've seen NYC Department of labor, with their apprenticeship programs however I am not too familiar with its quality and if its even a good choice---looking to join the five-year union from ibew does anybody know any apprenticeship program for five years or maybe a different website in order to contact IBEW for its apprenticeship program application?

My plumber replaced a 14-gallon electric hot water heater 1.5 years ago. The existing voltage (from the old HW heater) wat 240V. The voltage for the new HW heater requires 120 V. The new HW heater has fried, and does not work. The plumber said it's only her responsibility to replace it, not to check Voltage. I am amazed at her audacity to not replace this, nor suggest I call an electrician to update the voltage at the time of install. What are your thoughts? Am I wrong?

I have two one-hundred amp services in a circa 1870 3 story house.

They are a bit old and crusty, nothing hazardous, just a lot of opportunity for cleanup.

I could use SquareD panels from the Depot; but was wondering what folks in the US have found to be a good easy, to use, solid breaker panel.

Regards

Everything I look up just tells me not to use the outlet again, which I don’t plan to. What I’m wondering is if it’s still safe to use the charger that sparked when I plugged it in. There was a leak on my roof and some of it got into that outlet/on the charger. This was a week ago and it has since dried, but I haven’t plugged in my laptop at all since then. I assume the answer is probably no, and to just get a new laptop charger, but I wanted to make sure first.

Hey guys, I currently live in a tiny studio and don’t have enough counter space to place my microwave so I’m planning on putting it on top of a cabinet but the cord is too short. Is it safe to use an extension cord for it and if so, what should I look for when buying? Thank you!

Yesterday, I was changing out some wall outlets. They looked pretty old and had paint on them. (I hit the breaker off before starting.) Here's what I found:

1 The black and white were each loops of wire with the insulation removed and the bare part affixed to the appropriate screws on the outlet. I duplicated this, attached the ground wire, and it worked fine after. Is this okay?

Also #3. There was no ground wire. There were two white and one red. I figured the red was the live one, wired it as such, and it works. I'm concerned about it not having a ground. Should I open it back up and get some copper wire from HD and attach that to the metal box and the ground screw?

And #4: in the same room, but when I was handling the original outlet and I got a nice buzz-shock in my thumb. Put that back in and closed it up. I assume this means that the one outlet is on a separate breaker, correct?

I'm concerned to bring in an electrician who might tell me I need all my electric redone if that isn't the case. The breaker box is nicely done and an electrician I had for another repair said it all looked good. I'm hoping that this means the wiring in the house is okay and there are just these few oddities in that room. Thoughts? Thank you!