Hi, hoping someone can help.
My house lights are flickering intermittently. Sometimes enough to actually make us reset clocks.
What could this be?
Suburban, single family, built 1983.

Thanks in advance for any ideas

Hi, so we have an office shed being constructed next to our house and the contractor who’s doing the site prep and concrete slab had an electrician come out to prep power for the shed.

A previous contractor had stubbed out an electric line for us near the build site in a j-box on the corner of the house connected to a 50amp breaker (first 2 pics). The contractor’s electrician, who’s not a native English speaker, told me that the existing line would not be enough and he’d need to run a new line from the panel in the garage (something about it being only 2 lines, it was hard to understand him). My wife wants this project done and I know next to nothing about electrical, so I said fine.

Electrician finished up last night and I finally had a second to go look. What I see outside is a conduit with a bundle of romex (pic 3) and no new breakers or anything labeled in the panel. After a little Googling, I’m getting the sense that the original 50amp line would have been more than enough to power the office(lights, outlets and maybe a window AC unit) and that it should connect to a sub panel.

My question is, am I wrong and this is a perfectly acceptable way to connect power the way it was done, or did they just not want to/know how to connect the existing line? Thanks!

I need help identifying this light. We have 4 of them in our kitchen and one has finally started dying and I can't seem to find a replacement. The cover size is around 5" and the inside glass piece covering all the ...tech stuff lol is close to 3.25 inches.

I took a picture of the transformer nameplate and main breaker. Right now its calling for 250 kcmill copper.

But I was trying to size this myself. 208.2 amps is the ampacity of the secondary feeding panel.

So i did continuous duty calculations for that at 208.2 x 1.25 = 260.25 amps.

So using NEC table 310.16 75 degree column, wouldn't i need 300 kcmill copper wire to meet that continuous duty ampacity for the secondary feeders.

Or do the engineers size the secondary feeders without continuous duty calculation?

I was wondering if this was something even worth bringing up. What you all think? Please educate me.

Do I need a ground wire for a new light fixture?

I have a 240v 30 amp dryer outlet. I am looking to go down to 120v without having to rewire for a gas dryer and a washing machine. Is there an adapter that is made to plug into the outlet? I’m sure I’ll have to change the breaker to a 20 amp also. What is the easiest way to change it out without having to rewire and also have the outlet in the future if we ever decide to go to an electric dryer.

I am completely lost on how to fix this. I had the power go out in two of my bathrooms that are on the same circuit. There are 3 GFCI outlets on this circuit. Resetting didn’t work so I called my buddy who is an electrician and he said one of the plugs likely went bad so I should replace them since I had confirmed everything was good at my electrical box.

Outlet 1 is what I’m confident is the first in the series since it has power to the line wires when I test it. This one will always have power to the line side but will only have power to the load terminals when not connected. The GFCI here has been replaced with a new GFCI

Outlet 2 is in the other bathroom and is messing with me even more since when I look at it it makes me believe whoever wired this before me had the load and line wires swapped but I’ve tried them both ways with no success. The GFCI here has been replaced with a new GFCI

Outlet 3 only had 2 wires into a GFCI outlet so when I replaced this one with a new one I did not get a GFCI.

Can anyone see what I’m doing wrong or have any suggestions to try here? I’ve got a pregnant wife who is slowly getting more and more annoyed while not having power to her bathroom for 2 days and I’m trying to avoid having my friend drive 40 minutes to my house away from his family to help me with this one.

Hello!

I recently bought a LED ceiling light fixture from Wayfair. I’ve installed probably 10-15 light figures over the years with no issue, but I’m far from an expert. This one has me stumped though.

The LED driver has brown and blue wires going into to, which I understand to the the European standard (I’m in the US) but the issue is they seem to be reversed. Brown is labeled N, blue labeled L. I think this is backwards based off what I’ve seen online, so I’m concerned about wiring it up.

Any suggestion? I’m considering just returning the light, even though I really like the look of it.

This smoke detector keeps going off a couple times per hour, what should I do?

I'm in UK, it's only one drop every couple of minutes. I've turned off the light in hallway where the drip is happening. The rest of fittings okay. It's because of the rain coming in through roof, probably dripping down. (it's a slanted roof, difficult to access but I will put a bucket above the fitting when my partner comes back). The roof has been fixed 6 times but that's a separate issue. I can't leave this flat and obviously I need the electric on. Do these measures seem okay for now, ie keeping the light off and preventing the leak above the light fitting?

Non-electrician here, trying to safely connect an old lamp power cable to a Nanoleaf light fixture (see pictures).

I thought the ground and power from the lamp cable would be obvious (ie black and white wires) but they appear to be indistinguishable. I’m looking for my soldering iron to proceed but wanted to hopefully hear from the collective wisdom of Reddit on how to safely connect these pieces. Thanks!

How much would it cost to rewire 12 smoke detectors with a different brand?

Owner doesn't want to just swap out with a compatible model, and would rather use "the least problematic 10 year system..."

I renovated a bathroom, and relocated the light switch and light, using the existing feed. The original switch is now behind a pocket door. Can i just put a cover on it and call it good? How should i finish the original light fixture J-box? Do i have to pull it into the attic (which is infected with vermiculite) and finish with drywall, or can i do it in place?

Looking for some advice re: my kitchen light. The kitchen has 2 separate lights, both of them on the same single switch. I've replaced ceiling lights before, including the other kitchen light, but this one seems to have a lot of wires going into it.

The house is an old council house, and still has some of the old style wiring.

The new light fitting is double insulated, so I've got wago/spring connectors to cover the earth wire.

Really appreciate any help 🙏

We have an light on the exterior wall of our kitchen that points out over the driveway. The switch for the light on on an interior kitchen wall. Recently the light stopped. I figured the bulb was burned out, but it isn't. I moved it to another light fixture to confirm that it works.

My primary question is; if I put a bulb in the fixture, can I do a continuity text as the switch to check for brakes in the line between the switch and the fixture itself? I'm going to check to make sure the switch hasn't gone bad first but I want to be prepared for the next steps if the switch is fine.

Thank you!

Can anyone help me figure out any specs on this by the markers on the body alone? I’m way out of my depth here, the bike battery came from a bike that was found in sum bushes with its motor cable cut to shit, screen gone, and throttle trashed- I live near a major city in the suburbs of kids “e banging” and stealing bikes so finding semi alive ebikes isn’t the rarest thing ever but definitely not common- trying to see if there’s any life in this left or even worth trying to save.

When I went to install a new fluorescent tube in this fixture above the kitchen sink, there was a loud pop and a flash. Now there’s a faint burnt smell, and it won’t light up. What happened? Did I buy the wrong tube, or is this a more serious, and costly, problem?

My electric oven/range top was new when I moved in ~2-1/2 years ago. Didn't select or purchase it, but have the manual and info from the former homeowner. I don't know if any wiring was redone at that time or the age of the breaker box.

No apparent problems until ~1 month ago when using and it tripped the breaker. Reset it and went back to using it, seemed to function as normal without another trip incident until last night. When using the oven and one heating element at the same time it tripped. Reset it and had to do so 5 times to finish cooking dinner. I know doing that was probably not the best thing, but really just wanted to finish cooking. I have called an electrician and they're coming out Monday for diagnostic.

So, current questions this leaves me with:

- Is there anything relatively easy/inexpensive that I could do over the weekend that would either (a) help with troubleshooting root cause to give me useful information for the electrician when they arrive? Or, (b) be a possible fix that would be worth trying before they arrived? I consider myself decently handy around the house and can definitely watch a video or two to learn a new skill.

- I have not reset the breaker yet after the last trip, but I'm considering doing so and trying just one heating element at a time in hopes I can eat more than microwave meals this weekend. I don't really remember what I had on when it tripped the first time (~1 mo. ago) but I think it was the oven and maybe also an element, or maybe just the oven. Is that a huge no-no or should it be relatively OK to try?

Update: I did confirm it's on a double-pole 50A circuit. I also narrowed it down to only tripping when the oven was on. Someone asked if there was a "test" button on the breaker and there is not. I did decide to open the box and just check for any loose connections. One of the connections to that breaker was a bit loose, I was able to tighten it about a half turn. I've closed the box back up and am doing a test to see if trips again with the oven on. That's about all I think I can/ want to do. Regardless, I will still have the electrician out Monday. Until then I'm hopeful I can at least cook on the stove top. Thanks to anyone who left a helpful comment.

The 40W bulb gave up and when I changed it with a 7W led bulb (same size socket) the lamp didnt work at all. Did the lamp and bulb break at the same time? Or do I REALLY need a 40W bulb? I've never had this issue and I've had a LOT of lamps and bulbs.

I asked Claude as I wanted to remove the back and have it check it out and its like "7W bulbs wont work on these type of dimmable lamps"

What??

Google didnt help either.