Your Resident Electrician for all your electrical questions!

[thatmanMIKEson]

When I started as an electrician in Manhattan in 1973 EMT, BX and Romex were illegal. In a house we could use BX but in Manhattan on new construction everything was in threaded rigid pipe. I got really good at bending pipe and we built a lot of high rise apartments and office buildings.

(As an "A" Journeyman we almost never worked in a house, it was all commercial and industrial work. "M" class electricians worked in houses or renovation work at a reduced pay)

In Rockefeller Center everything is Rigid pipe even in existing work. We had to chop out the walls and install rigid, threaded pipe. And the entire place is built out of marble and granite.

Of course everything in new construction in the deck is rigid threaded pipe. We also couldn't use PVC anywhere except in our fish tanks.

luckily Florida is pretty laid back we run alot of emt, I do mostly commercial work alot of motor controls, 3phase 480&277v ,transformers, industrial work, thats the stuff i prefer. a day in residential going house to house is a long day for me.

almost all our residential is done in romex very simple and ugly looking stuff , it's nice to run racks of emt it starts to look like art work but almost never get to thread pipe and mess with ridgid. I can really appreciate that kind of work!

 

[Paul B]

, it's nice to run racks of emt it starts to look like art work but almost never get to thread pipe and mess with ridgid. I can really appreciate that kind of work!

Mike I used to love doing big pipe work especially service work. All the pipe is 4" galvanized threaded rigid and it all had to have concentric bends which you can't do in EMT.
I did a lot of service work in the Empire State Building, Chrysler building, and World Trade Center and built many buildings from a hole in the ground, up. I lit up the top of the Empire State Building the first time. I'm sure it was re done a few times after that because we didn't have LEDs then. Then I installed the fire alarm there in the entire building. I ran the pipes from a Bolsons chair in the 86 floor air shaft.


We almost never worked in a house.

These are not concentric bends and I feel it is a lost art as very few people know how to do it. All of our bends had to be concentric.

 

[dangles]

I finally found some 20 amp GFCI breakers for my panel. At least I think I did. They’re for a Siemens panel, but does the “type” matter?

Here’s my panel label:

And what I found…

What gives me pause is that none of the other breakers are Type QPF2

 

[dangles]

And what sucks is that in order to feed the new wires into the panel, I’m going to have to remove some drywall. And there’s definitely no whole house surge protector (and no room to add one) even though the house was built last year (final inspection was early this year)

Another question I thought of…

What determines the total capacity of the breakers? I mean it’s a 200 amp panel but obviously not all the breakers will be at max capacity. I added up the total of the breakers and came up with over 700! That seems like way too much isn’t it? It makes me question whether I can remove the 50 amp 240v double breaker and replace it with a 60 amp sub panel after all.

*edit - From what I read, the sum of the breakers capacity doesn’t matter, as long as the load doesn’t exceed 80%

 

[thatmanMIKEson]

And what sucks is that in order to feed the new wires into the panel, I’m going to have to remove some drywall. And there’s definitely no whole house surge protector (and no room to add one) even though the house was built last year (final inspection was early this year)

Another question I thought of…

What determines the total capacity of the breakers? I mean it’s a 200 amp panel but obviously not all the breakers will be at max capacity. I added up the total of the breakers and came up with over 700! That seems like way too much isn’t it? It makes me question whether I can remove the 50 amp 240v double breaker and replace it with a 60 amp sub panel after all.

*edit - From what I read, the sum of the breakers capacity doesn’t matter, as long as the load doesn’t exceed 80%

that panel looks good! they did you right, and you can see where they patched you should be able to cut a 2" slot in the drywall above the panel and the cover should hide it or use just a little drywall patch, it's common with adding a new circuit to existing panel, no real way around it. only problem I see is there are alot of wires coming into the top you may have a difficult time getting the wire down into the hole you need, it may be better to bite the bullet and make a large hole from stud to stud and plan on patch and painting the wall.

with the surge arrestor, you can have an electrician install one outside on your meter, or you can install them also, but it technically requires the power company to remove your meter we charge about 500$ for that.

looking at your panel it's hard to say what you can add as far as a sub panel or not you would need to do some load calculations, but if your trying to remove the 50a why can't you just use that spot for your new circuits?

that's a good panel great brand and they did a good job you have lots of arch fault and gfci breakers already. I see some standard 20a and a 15a that is off you may be able to combine two of those 20's and make a spot if all you need is one. depending on what they are powering.

 

[dangles]

that panel looks good! they did you right, and you can see where they patched you should be able to cut a 2" slot in the drywall above the panel and the cover should hide it or use just a little drywall patch, it's common with adding a new circuit to existing panel, no real way around it. only problem I see is there are alot of wires coming into the top you may have a difficult time getting the wire down into the hole you need, it may be better to bite the bullet and make a large hole from stud to stud and plan on patch and painting the wall.

with the surge arrestor, you can have an electrician install one outside on your meter, or you can install them also, but it technically requires the power company to remove your meter we charge about 500$ for that.

looking at your panel it's hard to say what you can add as far as a sub panel or not you would need to do some load calculations, but if your trying to remove the 50a why can't you just use that spot for your new circuits?

that's a good panel great brand and they did a good job you have lots of arch fault and gfci breakers already. I see some standard 20a and a 15a that is off you may be able to combine two of those 20's and make a spot if all you need is one. depending on what they are powering.

Great thank you!

So are those the right breakers? What does the “type” have to do with anything?

Yes the current plan is to remove the 50 amp double breaker and replace it with 2x 20 amp circuits for aquarium outlets. Eventually, I’ll likely use that spot to run a sub-panel into the garage (6 feet away on the other side of the wall to the right) and put the garage outlets/lights and aquarium outlets all on that.

So are those breakers I bought ok? I couldn’t interpret the panel label to figure out if the Type QPF2 are compatible.

My panel is set up with 2 neutral bus bars and 2 grounds. The bus bar on the left side of the panel that’s normally used as a ground is being used for neutrals, and the 2 ground busses were added on (both on the right). Are those 2 added-on ground busses still supposed to be bonded to the neutral bars since it’s still in the main panel? I don't see where they're connected in the photo but I'm not there right now to open it up and look.

The reason I ask is that the pigtails on the new 20a breakers are too short to reach the neutral bus. But there is a ground bus right next to it. If the ground bus that was added is also connected to the neutral bus I can just run the pigtail to that can’t I?

 

[thatmanMIKEson]

Great thank you!

So are those the right breakers? What does the “type” have to do with anything?

Yes the current plan is to remove the 50 amp double breaker and replace it with 2x 20 amp circuits for aquarium outlets. Eventually, I’ll likely use that spot to run a sub-panel into the garage (6 feet away on the other side of the wall to the right) and put the garage outlets/lights and aquarium outlets all on that.

So are those breakers I bought ok? I couldn’t interpret the panel label to figure out if the Type QPF2 are compatible.

My panel is set up with 2 neutral bus bars and 2 grounds. The bus bar on the left side of the panel that’s normally used as a ground is being used for neutrals, and the 2 ground busses were added on (both on the right). Are those 2 added-on ground busses still supposed to be bonded to the neutral bars since it’s still in the main panel? I don't see where they're connected in the photo but I'm not there right now to open it up and look.

The reason I ask is that the pigtails on the new 20a breakers are too short to reach the neutral bus. But there is a ground bus right next to it. If the ground bus that was added is also connected to the neutral bus I can just run the pigtail to that can’t I?

if thats the main panel with the service wires from your meter the grounds and neutrals will be bonded and it does not matter where you land the pig tail. ( I assume since the panel looks so nice the electrician got fancy and separated them so it looks neat) but you should have continuity between both ground and neutral. they will only be separated in a sub panel.

as far as breakers being correct I am not sure off pictures but the panel type and breaker should have the same code, if not call a Siemens distributor and ask they can help you out for a quick call.

 

[crabgrass]

I have a very newbie electrical question. If I have 2 lights (lets say AI Hydras), are there any safety considerations to attaching both bricks to a Power Cord Exension splitter? E.g. so that there is only one connection for lights to my power strip/surge protector? Obviously I need to make sure that the AMPs are covered both on the strip and the extension cord?

Something like this (picked at random, not sure its the best example).

 

[thatmanMIKEson]

I have a very newbie electrical question. If I have 2 lights (lets say AI Hydras), are there any safety considerations to attaching both bricks to a Power Cord Exension splitter? E.g. so that there is only one connection for lights to my power strip/surge protector? Obviously I need to make sure that the AMPs are covered both on the strip and the extension cord?

Something like this (picked at random, not sure its the best example).

thats fine there's not much power draw from the ai hydras, a recpticle is rated around 1500w. the ai hydra 64 is maxed out at 135w each, you are well under a maximum wattage rating, I do something similar for my lighting.

 

[crabgrass]

thats fine there's not much power draw from the ai hydras, a recpticle is rated around 1500w. the ai hydra 64 is maxed out at 135w each, you are well under a maximum wattage rating, I do something similar for my lighting.

Thanks!

 

[ulrichgood]

That's great experience

 

[Paul B]

Dangles, Mike is correct as he normally is.
The electrician did a decent job of wiring that panel and I like that he put a strip of black tape on the white wires going to hot terminals on the 220 breakers. Many people don't do that, but they should. I think the newer code says to completely tape those wires black but thats just stupid.

I think many of these silly rules or codes were not made by electricians and instead written by people who drive those sit on lawn mowers for golf courses and have no knowledge of electrical wiring.

I know the electrical inspectors here in New York City on commercial and industrial jobs are normally not electricians and just have to go to some type of inspector school which doesn't mean much.

I have built many 60 or 70 story buildings which are many millions of dollars to build and could take 3 years and an inspector will just come in for 5 minutes and count the main disconnect switches to be sure there isn't more than seven. He may also look at the ground but thats about it.

I know this because I was normally the general foreman.

House electrical inspectors are usually electricians who live in the town or have a license there

 

[captainsmitty]

Ahoy there,
I have been following this page off and on for a couple of years. I have a question that I have not seen addressed. I have a gas powered generator that is not the best and it has a variance in its operating rpm which i think is causing surges in the output.
So my question is that when I use it ( power outages) Is there a good surge protector that I can plug my apex and other devices into to protect them? I have not had an issue so far but would also like to have a decent inline surge protector for my system.
Thanks for helping and if this has been covered earlier please advise where.
Happy reefing!
Capt. Smitty

 

[Turbo's Aquatics]

Ahoy there,
I have been following this page off and on for a couple of years. I have a question that I have not seen addressed. I have a gas powered generator that is not the best and it has a variance in its operating rpm which i think is causing surges in the output.
So my question is that when I use it ( power outages) Is there a good surge protector that I can plug my apex and other devices into to protect them? I have not had an issue so far but would also like to have a decent inline surge protector for my system.
Thanks for helping and if this has been covered earlier please advise where.
Happy reefing!
Capt. Smitty

Sounds to me like it's a governor issue. I'd just have it looked at by a small engine tech or gearhead, you're likely to cause more expensive problems than you would trying to protect against voltage sags & swells - which is what you would be getting, not really surges - so that's a different device usually, like a double-conversion UPS ($$$$)

 

[alton]

Like Turbo said fix your generator, then run your sensitive equipment through a UPS. If you invest in a new generator buy an invertor generator. Puts out power that is safe and units are much quieter

 

[justin.rupe]

How much to help me with a solar panel project to keep the tank alive during hurricanes