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  1. #1

    Suggestion: Go through your electrical...

    Hey guys, just figured I would drop a bit of advice for everyone that has recently purchased a home, and that is to go through your electrical (if you are able to do it yourself).

    My house was built in 1989 with the guy that built it/owned was an electrician with his own contracting business. I will say, after 25 years I have found more than enough stuff that needed redoing due to age, or was just flat out done poorly.

    I am going through and replacing every outlet and light switch. I have 151 duplex outlets and 79 light switches. Those duplex outlets don't include the 23 GFCI outlets we have. With the switches those include at least 5 4-ways, at least 24 3-ways, 9 regular dimmers, 7 digital dimmers, and the rest are regular 1-way switches.

    Now, I am doing this because I have found a bunch of outlets with low-tension when you plug something in, and most don't have proper back support so when you plug something in the outlet flexes inward.

    The switches I am doing because I decided to upgrade to decorator paddles from the old-school flip switches. When I did the master suite my wife asked me if I put in new bulbs since the lights were noticeably brighter. So, that just indicated to me that all the switches everywhere needed to be upgraded to decorator paddles as well, along with a bunch of occupancy sensors in strategic locations (like bathrooms, mudroom, etc).

    What I have been finding is wire-nuts that are not tight, grounds that are not hooked up properly, missing GFCI outlets where code requires them (like on the outlets on the island in the kitchen), as well as general issues with wall plates lining up, etc, etc...

    I have replaced all the wall plates with updated plates and will be going with screwless plates next year. As it is this little set of upgrades has cost a ton that I wasn't planning on doing, so the extra for screwless plates can wait...

    While doing all of this I also cleaned and painted some of the intercom stations (Krylon Fusion paint for plastic is AWESOME), as well as replaced a bunch of the older wall thermostats that are in each room (this place has baseboard electric heating everywhere as well as the gas furnace forced-air heating). The thermostats were the biggest shocker as I tore a bunch of them apart and they all had signs of internal arcing/heat/damage. I am talking to the point where they caused the bakelite material to discolor from the heat. I can only imagine how much energy was lost in those faulty connections. I did check with the manufacturer and those units are original from 1998 and they are rated for a 10-12 year lifespan, less with heavy use, so they have been needed to be replaced for quite some time.

    Oh, I also replaced all the yellowed old-school central vacuum inlets with new full-cover plate inlets. Things look much cleaner and nicer. I do believe I will be doing some painting over the winter, or in spring at the latest.

    In going through the electrical I found out there was a breaker that had a line that went into a junction box on the back of the house with nothing hooked up to it. I found the dishwasher spliced onto another circuit instead of it being on it's own (which is weird since this place is so overbuilt with two 200amp services and two 40-breaker electrical panels, every counter outlet in the kitchen has 12-gauge wire with a 20-amp breaker and an dedicated GFCI outlet for just that one, along with all the major appliances on their own circuits, so there are 12 dedicated breakers for stuff in the kitchen alone, every bathroom has at least two breakers with one for the GFCI outlets and the other for lights/fan/heater, etc, etc), I found extra GFCI outlets off one of the panels wired to other breakers in the panel where the breaker was a 20-amp with only 14awg wire (a big no-no, as 15-amp is the max breaker for 14-awg, unless it is an approved motor connection that has startup surge, in which case a 20-amp is allowed), found the sump-pump originally was supposed to be in the lighting panel and was cross-wired over into the power panel and also found a leak in the wall area where the electrical service conduit comes through.

    I ended up redoing everything that was wrong, put the dishwasher on it's own breaker, rewired the sump pump outlets back to where it was supposed to be, sealed up the leak by the conduit with polyurethane concrete & masonry sealant, ordered up 30 new 15-amp breakers and 20 new 20-amp breakers and will be replacing everything as well as tightening down everything and checking the buss bars when I do the breakers. I also took the opportunity to balance the phases on the lighting panel (not needed on the power panel since it is all 240volt stuff), and took readings on everything. I found my whole-house blower fan is pulling just over 10amps continuously, so I am looking into replacing that ASAP (new ones have a 7.9amp startup rating, with less than 4amps continuous run draw), I balanced out what phases a bunch of the rooms were on and in doing so I ended up reducing the amount of interference noise that comes over the intercom.

    In regards to the intercom I found that was one of the temper-tantrums done before the previous owner left after it foreclosed, since not only was the main intercom unit mis-wired, it had a fuse half-in. If I would have pushed the fuse in and not checked the wiring it would have fried out the main unit. That was taken care of just after I bought the house. But the other sabotage was that a lot of the intercom stations had their wiring wrong in the wall. When they installed the intercom they put a large nail near each station and wrapped the intercom line around the nail to keep it taught between points as it was run throughout the house. Well, I found a lot of the wiring off the tension posts and actually wrapped around the electrical wiring in the wall. All that did was cause a ton of electrical noise over the intercom when it was in use. I redid all of that and now the entire intercom system is damn near noise-free. I think I have one or two more circuits to balance between phases on the breaker panel which should take care of the rest of the induced noise, but it is near the point when you make one change it unbalances something else, so I have to really work out a power loading chart and a listing of what wires run near what intercoms to determine if I can squash the remaining interference (but, then agian, I may just leave it alone since it is only noticeable when the volume is maxed out, not when at normal talking levels and it really is a majorly overly anal thing vs something that is an issue).

    I will say it took me over two days to map out all the circuits everywhere. And the previous owner did do some cool stuff, like putting all the built-in entertainment cabinet outlets in the family room on their own 20-amp circuit and a 20-amp switch so he could switch everything off and not worry about it when he went on vacation. I am thinking that is why he also moved the sump pump to the power panel, as he could then pull the main breaker for the lighting panel and still have sump pump protection??? Then again the security system is on the lighting panel so maybe that wasn't the case... Maybe the bank moved the sump pump over and removed the power to the lighting panel to pay for only one service while it was for sale???

    But, yeah, if you have the ability, go through the electrical in your place. You will be amazed at what you would find.

    I am just happy to update a bunch of stuff that *should* be done properly, stuff that was just unsafe, and adding some protection that was missing in critical areas, as well as adding some conveniences (the wife LOVES the occupancy sensors).
    Last edited by 95 TA - The Beast; 11-18-2013 at 02:06 AM. Reason: fixed the date the house was built

  2. #2
    Formerly known as Yellow Wagon jbiscuit's Avatar
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    I'm sorry but this is just OCD kicking in x100. Plus Dennis can you ever post anything with less than 5000 words? Lol!
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  3. #3
    Grandpa Grocery Getter 2.0 wrath's Avatar
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    All the stuff in the house was probably built using leftovers from other people's houses. I'm surprised about the GFCIs, not surprised about the rest. He probably didn't understand intercoms (most electricians can't grasp communications). I'm fairly certain he got the GFCIs from other people's houses leftovers because by then most electricians were switching to GFCI breakers and many of the non-Leviton ones were Made in China and people were having problems with them. I was wiring a lot of houses at this time and the cheapskates used non-QO panels and non-Leviton switches/outlets. Also at this time, many of the electricians were still crimping and soldering because only 3M was making decent wire nuts and they were expensive.

    All the home theater equipment should be on the same leg sharing the same ground bus, otherwise you will likely hear a 60hz hum.

    The wiring in my house is skeery. 100 amp pushbutton service with only 8 circuits. I've made it worse with a bunch of pseudo-temporary crap I'm not proud of. I do have a couple 16 space and a 40 space QO panel sitting new in the box, plus 1250' of 12-2, 750' of 14-2, 250' of 12-3, and 100' of 10-3 to rewire the house. I already have one 16 space panel for powering the garage and garden shed. Theory is to use the ATS to power just the lighting panel (16 space) and the main equipment panel (refrigerator, water heater, and well) so when the generator kicks on the 40 space panel and the 16 space garage panel is dead. Someday I'll get to it, right along with the 25" wide attic ladder sitting next to it. Which is in front of the 1500 sqft worth of R30 that have been sitting there for 3 years. Which is behind the 300' of crown moulding I made two years ago.

    But I digress. I definitely agree, should look at the electrical.
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  4. #4
    Well, he actually used all Leviton GFCI outlets (the ugly ivory ones with the red and black test/rest buttons), the panels are Crouse-Hinds LCT240PC panels with MP series breakers, a few MP-T newer ones for a few 60 amp 2-pole breakers and a MP250GF GFCI for the hot tub, otherwise all Model 3 Crouse-Hinds MP-series. He even chose the "good" Crouse-Hinds main "fuse plug" that has dual fuses in a removeable carrier to disconnect the mains vs the old "shut it off and never get it back on" breakers they used at the time (buddy told me horror stories of how you flipped them off and the lever would break trying to turn them back on). And yes, the desire to have everything match was riding high when I scored 30 "New Old Stock", in the original boxes of 10 each, Crouse-Hinds MP breakers for $80 shipped, since I figure that is quite a bit cheaper than $4/per for the newer Siemans-made MP-T breakers, and keeps everything looking the same...

    No crimping and soldering anywhere, but lots of wire nuts... He wired everything pretty well, using 6 gauge for the kitchen range, 8 gauge for the dryer, etc, all solid copper wire stuff, no stranded to be found anywhere. Everything affixed properly at the panels, interior of the panels are very well organized.

    Actually, the intercom was originally installed properly. You could tell by the paint overspray that it was wound and wired properly at one point. Like I said, he physically wrapped the intercom wire around some romax in the wall on purpose and bolted the station back into place. Key point is there would be zero reason to take the intercom wiring off the tension posts and put them with the electrical.

    And I know he balanced the electrical by the original label in the box. I am pretty sure he just fucked with shit because he was pissed it foreclosed. Like putting a 30amp breaker on a 6-gauge run for the electric range in the kitchen, putting a couple 14-gauge electricals on a 20-amp breaker (again, they were not motor loads, since he still left the 20-amp breakers on the refrigerator and freezer circuits), putting a 30-amp breaker on the AC condenser feed that requires a 40-amp for the startup surge, etc... All I had to do was shuffle the breakers around to put them in the right spots, so it wasn't like he even pulled any and left them out. I also found a host of other "sabotaged" items that a lot of people would have overlooked and corrected them pretty quick after we closed. Nothing really to get overly pissed about, and I can understand someone being salty because the home they designed and built themselves got foreclosed on.

    Most of the duplex outlets were decent ones, kinda funny though, they had "Builders Square" stickers on them (I bet most people won't remember that store)... The switches were all Leviton, Cooper, some Lutron Maestro dimmers, some Pass & Seymour - LeGrand dimmers and switches... Like I said, he used quality stuff it seems, I think he just got lazy (a lot of people that do stuff for a living find they don't have the energy or drive once they go to work on their "own stuff" and I think a large portion of that is what I am encountering)...

    jb, yeah some of this stuff is "OCD"-like stuff, but I view it this way, do it all right off and never have to worry about it. Some of it is part of the "fix it up" aspect, others are required updates/upgrades and others are just flat out being anal retentive. But, I view it all as "might as well get it done now" since we all know we can end up running short on time and I don't want to get busy with other stuff and never "get back to it"... And, yeah, I guess I am kinda "wordy" on posts... Just trying to be "detail oriented"...

  5. #5
    i neex this done in my house badly. im positive everything is wired wrong. ive got at least 5 junction boxes in my basement ceiling alone. ive got a blank cover in my living room that has so many wires in it the cover barely fits. i have no clue where or how to begin. id like my entire house rewired and a new panel done. anyone interested?

  6. #6
    The man in the box Jukebox Hero Champion My House Is Bigger Than Your House Champion Smaugs Treasure Champion Lash's Avatar
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    FYI...just because there isn't a gfci at the island doesn't mean it's not there. A lot of times they wire outlets in series with a single gfci outlet. That makes all the outlets in the series protected. Just something to remember....

  7. #7
    The man in the box Jukebox Hero Champion My House Is Bigger Than Your House Champion Smaugs Treasure Champion Lash's Avatar
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    New panel you need a master electrician that can pull a permit.

  8. #8
    Brumbrabrabra!! nismodave's Avatar
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    Damn Electricians.

    Im curious though....23 GFCI outlets?

  9. #9
    The man in the box Jukebox Hero Champion My House Is Bigger Than Your House Champion Smaugs Treasure Champion Lash's Avatar
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    ^ tis what I was thinking lol

  10. #10
    Senior Member..now yer posting!
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    Quote Originally Posted by nismodave View Post
    Damn Electricians.

    Im curious though....23 GFCI outlets?
    That is interesting, as is two 200amp panels...

  11. #11
    The man in the box Jukebox Hero Champion My House Is Bigger Than Your House Champion Smaugs Treasure Champion Lash's Avatar
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    Two?!? I missed that lol.

    Is this one of them 15,000sqft homes???

  12. #12
    Lurker 77thor's Avatar
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    Over-kill.
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  13. #13
    Actually, all of the outlets in the kitchen that are above the counter (5 of them) and the one on the island are all 12-2 w/ground wire and all are on their own 20-amp breakers. So nothing is shared on any of them. I could run bigly Nesco cookers as well as mixers and griddles and not pop those circuits...

    The only GFCI outlets in the house that have extra outlets chained on the load-lines are the ones in the main and master bathrooms. And they only have one extra outlet chained on them (as well as the whirlpool tub in the main bath is chained on a GFCI too). In the garage there are two 20-amp circuits, and each chain of outlets is GFCI protected back to a GFCI outlet. Outside the house they are all individual GFCI outlets, except for the front door outlets which has a GFCI outlet on the left and a chained outlet slaved on the right. All of the exterior outlets (including the ones in the soffits) are switched so I can control what is on/off.

    Like I said, I mapped every outlet and every switch everywhere in this place back to the panel, so I know what is hooked up where. Hell, I even got up on a ladder and checked the outlets up in the soffits to verify which circuit which ones are on. And, just for info, there is 7 duplex outlets (14 outlets total) in the soffits.

    As far as the GFCIs, there is 6 in the kitchen, two in the main bath, two in the master bath, two for the other baths (one in each other bathroom), two in the garage, one in the mudroom, two in the auxillary kitchen, two off the lighting panel, and 4 on lower outside of the house. I only have two GFCI breakers, one is a 50-amp two-pole for the hot tub and the other is a single-pole 15-amp I added to protect the backyard light posts and outlet attached to that circuit. I still have the capped off electrical that was originally for the pool lights on that circuit already wired to a switch so I can add extra lighting pretty easily if I decide to put in a stone patio and have accent lighting for it (or I may decide to put a decent sized pool in next year and the lighting will be easy for it).

    This place is just under 5000 sq/ft, so it is a decent sized house (including the lower level that is, with about 3300 above grade, 1600 below grade, as well as 700 sq/ft for the garage, so over 5600sq/ft including the garage). But, yeah the electrical is way overbuilt, which I have no issues with. About the only improvement I would have liked to see would be to have the theater outlets be on two different circuits. The previous guy put 2 sets of track lights (6 bulbs each track) and 7 outlets all on that circuit.not a big deal except for the fact that I have two bigly computers on that circuit (one has a 1200 watt power supply and the other a 1000 watt), so I am concerned that at some point I might pop the 15-amp breaker if those computers are doing heavy gaming and people are in the theater at the same time... But the highest draw I have seen on that circuit is 12.2 amps so I think we are pretty good for now...

  14. #14
    The man in the box Jukebox Hero Champion My House Is Bigger Than Your House Champion Smaugs Treasure Champion Lash's Avatar
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    Now you're just trying to brag.

  15. #15
    151 outlets...
    79 light switches...
    23 GFCI's...

    That is overkill o_O
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  16. #16
    Brumbrabrabra!! nismodave's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by wikked View Post
    151 outlets...
    79 light switches...
    23 GFCI's...

    That is overkill o_O

  17. #17
    ┌∩┐(◣_◢)┌∩┐ Super Mario Mushroom Champion Starcastle Champion Korndogg's Avatar
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    You're going to have to step up your game if you want to roll with the big dogs.



    This is a pic of my servants quarters living room.

    Last edited by Korndogg; 11-17-2013 at 05:42 PM.
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  18. #18
    Formerly known as Yellow Wagon jbiscuit's Avatar
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    Lol

    Sometimes I think the detailed oriented nature of your posts is to be sure everyone knows you have a 5000sf house. Bragging is a dish best served chilled with a side of humble pie.
    Last edited by jbiscuit; 11-17-2013 at 05:42 PM.
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  19. #19
    I want to see pictures of this house. I like looking at fancy houses.
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  20. #20
    The man in the box Jukebox Hero Champion My House Is Bigger Than Your House Champion Smaugs Treasure Champion Lash's Avatar
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    Suggestion: Go through your electrical...

    Mark, that's the exact image I have in my head of what the house looks like, lmao!!

    That and a lot of hallways and staircases, hence the need for 24 3-way switches.
    Last edited by Lash; 11-17-2013 at 07:14 PM.

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