On Mon, 30 Jan 2017 23:14:14 -0000, trader_4 wrote:

On Monday, January 30, 2017 at 6:05:09 PM UTC-5, James Wilkinson Sword wrote:
On Mon, 30 Jan 2017 20:43:06 -0000, Charles Bishop wrote:

Howdy,

Sis had me look at an electrical problem she had - it turned out to be a
loose wire. However, when I was poking around, I discovered a couple of
odd things and need to know what to tell her what to do.

There are two circuits I discovered that appear to have 120V outlets and
switches on a 30A breaker. I didn't know enough to tell her whether this
was allowed or not - I really suspect not but wanted to ask here first.
My first thought was if there was a problem with, say a drill motor on
this circuit, any problem with it wouldn't be enough to trip the breaker.

This most likely resulted from the previous owner hiring incompetent
workers and they did poor work, just to get electrical power to the
shed. I found a power cord used as electrical cable so they didn't have
to break into the wall - it ran from an (E) outlet (connected by
stripping the wires and connected to the screws on the outlet) along the
wall to a multiplug on its end so that power could be had at the other
side of the shed. I removed this of course. So, poor work in other
places wouldn't surprise me.

Then, what should she do? I thought getting the circuits tracked down
and then replacing the 30A breaker with two 15's or 20s, depending on
the wiring and what's on them. I'd like her to have some idea before she
has an electrician come out.

Also, for me - I used a voltage tester when looking around - it was the
kind that chirps and lights up when it's near wiring that has power. It
also chirps and lights up if you stick one end into an outlet.

However I found that there could also be transient chirps if I moved it
quickly past a piece of metal and when I was close to wiring rather than
very close to it. In one case, this made it difficult to tell which
outlet or switch had the power. Was I using it correctly?

Americans make things so complicated. In the UK, we have all our outlets (or half of them, on two circuits) on a 30A breaker. Each appliance has a fuse in the plug, dependant on what that appliance is.


As pointed out previously, it took all the Queens horses and all the
King's men a week to find the fault in Buckingham palace when one
tea pot shorted out. Must be swell screwing around in the dark too,
when all the lights go out because they are on one breaker. Why
are you so backwards and cheap over there?

Doesn't happen, as we have a fuse in every plug, rated lower than the main one. If my kettle shorts out, the fuse in the plug blows and everything else keeps on going.

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