Your Electrician Here

Young Frankenstein

Young Frankenstein

New member
I will take the challenge and be your new electrician here. Please any questions 24/7 and available for emergencies. I was thinking of even changing my nickname to Reef Zaper, or Reef power. Any suggestions (please be nice). We fix toasters also.
 
Ok ill be first, and give you a big project :lol: First of all I live in texas for building code purposes. I have a single story slab foundation, with an attic. I plan on rewiring my whole house when I get back home, hopefully without outside help. I dont think I will have to install a new breaker box as I have a few extra slots, but am unsure. I also plan on installing 1-2 circuits for an upcoming 120-125 g aquarium. Thats 2-3 250w halides, depending on which size I go with. I am atotal electic newbie, at least as far as home wiring is concerned. I have donea few small projects though. What do I need, what do I need to do?
 
Thanks for the work Steve. I am going for a swim in Key Biscayne when I com back I will list suggestions here for you. To star with 2 circuits with a dedicated ground and neutral would be perfect for the 125 gallon tank. The wire that you need is 12/3 romex, or even a better wire would be 12/3 MC cable. I will explain a nice electrical design for you here and since you are my first customer I will even make a drawing for you.
 
What happens if I lick the black wire leading to my halides??? :D

What happens if I hand a charged capacitor to my buddy who has wet hands??? :D
 
"What happens if I lick the black wire leading to my halides??? " Ok thats a good question. Its difficult questions like this one that make me say NO, NO NO DON'T DO IT. You cant lick the black wire. STOP DOING THAT.
 
Re: Your Electrician Here

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9549343#post9549343 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by 0 Agios
I will take the challenge and be your new electrician here. Please any questions 24/7 and available for emergencies. I was thinking of even changing my nickname to Reef Zaper, or Reef power. Any suggestions (please be nice). We fix toasters also.
Click to expand...

Now you tell me. Lat week my heat pump went out! I start looking cause my wife says oh I turned the breaker off before I left. So I go home at lunch and start looking. I see the stove is off so I open the breaker box and the 40 amp stove breaker is on and the 70 amp furnace breaker is off. Look a little further and well when they wired the house 10 years ago they put the furnace on the 40 amp stove breaker and the stove on the 70 amp furnace breaker. Go figure. I did fix it and found the short (bare wire) that caused my transformer to blow.
 
JTEAGUE hehehe do you think we label thinks correctly? NEC and the inspectors look for a label in the panel, and thats it (not accuracy). 99.99% of the time labels are wrong. Wrong breaker size ? Not uncommon at all. Residential work requires cheap labor otherwise we don't get the work.Most of the time on residential projects we use apprentices to do the work with less than 2 years experience.
 
just tell them to start licking the wires until the really get the feel of the amperage. Then they'll be able to tell between 40 & 70
 
Re: Your Electrician Here

Here's one for ya. I live in an older house with ungrounded outlets throughout the entire place. It's 100 amp service. I needed an outlet in my bathroom next to the sink for the usual personal hygeine tools. So I ran a seperate line (with ground) and made it a GFI. I can't even begin to imagine the work involved to get the rest of my house grounded at each outlet.

But here's the question: If you ever noticed, most (if not all) small appliances are two-pronged. Toaster ovens, hair dryers, curling irons, and many power tools are two prong and therefore ungrounded when plugged in. If grounds are so important in the real world to promote a level of safety, then why do most high current devices that we use around our house not have them?? TV's, Stereos, and computers have them, but we generally don't use these items outside or near water. Those grounded plugs seem to be more about protecting the equipment, not the operator. Am I missing something??

I was also wondering if most of the reef related electrical eq. had 3 prong grounded plugs....i.e. pumps, skimmers, lights, etc.

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9549343#post9549343 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by 0 Agios
I will take the challenge and be your new electrician here. Please any questions 24/7 and available for emergencies. I was thinking of even changing my nickname to Reef Zaper, or Reef power. Any suggestions (please be nice). We fix toasters also.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
Re: Your Electrician Here

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9549343#post9549343 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by 0 Agios
I will take the challenge and be your new electrician here. Please any questions 24/7 and available for emergencies. I was thinking of even changing my nickname to Reef Zaper, or Reef power. Any suggestions (please be nice). We fix toasters also.
Click to expand...

You may want to post in the Lounge, too! I think there are a few toasters that need fixing and more power!:D
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9549767#post9549767 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by 0 Agios
JTEAGUE hehehe do you think we label thinks correctly? NEC and the inspectors look for a label in the panel, and thats it (not accuracy). 99.99% of the time labels are wrong. Wrong breaker size ? Not uncommon at all. Residential work requires cheap labor otherwise we don't get the work.Most of the time on residential projects we use apprentices to do the work with less than 2 years experience.
Click to expand...

I really like your honest opinion and sense of humor. I'll be reading just to see the Q&A's.
 
K, I have a question. I am setting up my 90 gallon and through a standard, grounded outlet, what is the maximum wattage I would want to see pulled through? 800 watts of halides, 2 heaters, plus all the pumps...ballpark 1500 - 2000 watts. Would this be safe?

House was built 6 years ago...

Thanks!
 
How about a simple basic safety rules posting? There are numerous posts of fires, electrical failures and other safety issues related to the electrical side of this hobby...

How much stuff goes on a power strip
How to keep salt water out of connections
GFCI does/donts and best practices
Total equipment per service circuit, when is it time to add a circuit
How to calculate total power demands on your tank.


I know some of this is really basic but it would sure help people to have it all in one spot...
 
and more on the basics of of Arc Fault protectors. They are new and, although I think I know how they work, I'm not too sure of general use in fire protection.
 
My 2 cents on the 2 prong and 3 prong. A lot of electronic devices use a 3 prong to filter electronic noise to ground and for any safety reasons. Toasters etc only use 2 prong because they don't need any noise suppression to function well. Just because a device has 3 prongs does not mean it is grounded, I have plenty of instances where the ground wire isn't connected to anything in the device. Industrial power tolls will usually have a 3 prong but if you look @ most business the plugs have the ground on top, the ground prong is to protect if something was to fall on the plug not to arch across the line and neutral or thats what I told at some point why plugs are opposite from commercial to residential areas.
 
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