Something to keep in mind is that most homes, if they haven't been constructed within the last 10 years, likely have some non-compliance with the current electrical code. For instance, I needed to install an exterior disconnect which wound up costing me more than a thousand dollars on top of the existing electrical work I needed done. The electrician also needed to replace my existing ground wires because they are supposed to be cables sheathed in green. The electrician also had to disconnect all of the wires from the circuit breaker in order to replace a plastic joint and replace it with a galvanized one.
I understand that these regulations exist in the name of safety, just be aware that any electrical updates to your home will likely involve a lot more work than you initially think. Depending on what you are getting done, the inspector may need to recheck your entire home. And, you're probably going to scoff at a good number of the required changes.
Context Edit: I'm located in Texas, and I ultimately had to have the electrical panel replaced entirely because there was a safety recall associated with it. Even after the replacement was complete the electrician had to come back and redo the wiring connections because the inspector said the PVC joint at the top of the box had to be metal instead.
When I first saw the estimate I made sure to shop around and to get multiple quotes in order to make sure I wasn't being taken advantage of. Thankfully, there were a few things I was able to remain grandfathered in for.
Update: I now know that "fuse box" is not a synonym for "circuit breaker".
> likely have some non-compliance with the current electrical code.
It frustrates me that every year quite a lot of people are killed due to old houses not having whole-building GFCI's.
A GFCI costs only $20 and can be installed inside 10 minutes. So it seems crazy to be letting people die...
Yet typically electrical regs require that if an electrician installs a GFCI, they bring the whole house up to modern standards. Suddenly the $20+10 minute job has turned into a $15k and 3 weeks complete rewire. So most people don't have a key safety device added. And still every year people die from not having one.
Good luck finding an easy-to-install whole house GFCI in the US market.
IMO there should be standardized trip curves so that outlet GFCIs can coordinate with branch breaker GFCIs, which can coordinate with whole-house or other larger GFCIs, etc.
You really don’t want a 5mA GFCI on your house. You do want a 5mA GFCI somewhere involved for a regular outlet, though, especially if it’s anywhere damp or wet.
(And you probably do want a GFCI tripping at a larger leakage current on any outdoor circuit. Leakage on crappy outdoor wiring is very very common and can go undetected for years. And for some reason code allows new outdoor circuits to be run in galvanized steel conduit, and there seems to be little enforcement of the use of appropriate wire nuts and such outdoors. You can buy actual high quality submersible wire nuts, and stainless steel outdoor electrical boxes exist (at absolutely obscene prices), but they’re rare. So even nominally very fancy newish buildings do things like using regular galvanized steel outlet boxes outdoors by the ocean with predictable results.)
(A GFCI outlet does not help at all of your whole outlet box floors. A 100mA GFCI upstream would presumably trip very quickly.)
> Good luck finding an easy-to-install whole house GFCI in the US market.
Not sure I'd want one, to be honest. There are some devices that trip GFCIs and I don't think I'd like my mains to trip that easily. I just use GFCI breakers as necessary. And certain circuits I go with AFCI instead.
IIRC, in the US, code now requires AFCI pretty much everywhere except when GFCI is required.
And AFCI is a bit of a PITA, to the point where electricians advise me against adding anything new to existing circuits in my house (because then the local inspector would require a new AFCI breaker, apparently in other areas the inspectors are less picky and would be satisfied with an AFCI outlet).
Last time I had work done, which was about six months ago, we didn't have to use AFCI for anything other than bedrooms (and maybe others, nothing that applied to the four circuits I was having installed though). Maybe a very recent change?
I agree on them being a PITA sometimes. They're somewhat prone to thinking that electric motors (e.g. fans) are trying to start a fire.
In Germany where I lived for the past decade I have never seen a non-faulty device trip a RCB. The ones that tripped it hat the full 230V on their metal case.
1. Deep freezers are prone (for reasons unclear to me at my level of knowledge) to tripping GFCIs. For this reason they're allowed to be on a non-GFCI outlet in the garage (must be a single outlet receptacle by itself on the circuit).
2. Downstream GFCIs are prone to messing with upstream GFCIs, so you should not put them in series. My RV has it's own power distribution panel with GFCI, so it gets plugged into a dedicated TT-30 RV outlet without GFCI protection.
3. My Tesla doesn't like GFCIs at all. It does a brief ground check before charging and trips the outlet. Known issue, solution is to find an outlet that isn't protected by a GFCI. In a pinch, when I was renting my first Tesla from Turo I stole the freezer outlet in the garage for a few hours at a time to charge the car. When I bought my own Tesla, I put in level 2 of course, problem solved.
I'm all for GFCIs on individual circuits, that makes total sense. Just not on the mains.
1. Deep freezers are prone (for reasons unclear to me at my level of knowledge) to tripping GFCIs. For this reason they're allowed to be on a non-GFCI outlet in the garage (must be a single outlet receptacle by itself on the circuit)
Guess when the compressor kicks on you get sharp current spikes in units that do nothing to prevent that from hitting the grid.
> 2. Downstream GFCIs are prone to messing with upstream GFCIs, so you should not put them in series. My RV has it's own power distribution panel with GFCI, so it gets plugged into a dedicated TT-30 RV outlet without GFCI protection.
I don't know if this is an english word, but in German this known under the term selectivity. You cannot just put any RCD behind any RCD, you must select them specifically to have the downstream one trip first (otherwise, what is the use of having two in a row)?
3. My Tesla doesn't like GFCIs at all. It does a brief ground check before charging and trips the outlet. Known issue, solution is to find an outlet that isn't protected by a GFCI. In a pinch, when I was renting my first Tesla from Turo I stole the freezer outlet in the garage for a few hours at a time to charge the car. When I bought my own Tesla, I put in level 2 of course, problem solved.
Might be an issue with the wiring or the connector (some current is flowing where it should not flow), but it could also just be a broken GFCI.
selectivity is an English word. I usually hear it in the context of describing the bandwidth of a radio receiver system (how well the receiver can select signals of interest and reject others)
Now i'm a little confused, I think i have a global one of these in my house. I don't think there is a power point that isn't protected by one of these earth leakage type devices (I think they are called different things in Australia). They have been standard for a long, long time.
My Vitamix blender keeps tripping the GFCI breaker. (My panel was upgraded a few years back.)
My kitchen's circuits are to code (as far as I know). I've asked Vitamix themselves and on various forums (eg r/homeimprovement) about how to fix this. No joy so far.
There are device testers where you can check if the PE resistance and isolation resistance of your mixer are within spec. If not, it is a broken device.
The grid, wiring, connectors etc can also be tested.
In Germany any company is required to have external contracters carry out these tests every 24 months due to work safety laws, this test is called DGUV and I think there is an ISO equivalent. If you ever have an electrician over that is worth their money they should be able to carry out those tests.
My brand new Samsung fridge has tripped the upstream GFCI since day 1. Called an electrician, and he just moved it off the upstream circuit and called it a day
Filter caps in SMPSs can cause enough fault current to flow to trip your RCD if you have enough of them. The same with MOVs for surge protection that comes standard in many devices now (they are also capacitors when below the threshold voltage). With so many devices using SMPSs and having built in surge protection, the only sensible way forward is having RCBOs instead of MCBs on individual circuits. AFAIK, this is already becoming standard in some countries.
Ive never even heard of a 5mA GFCI. In Sweden afaik 30mA is the standard, and I assume much less likely to be tripped up by tiny faults.
Also, a GFCI install here is a simple and cheap affair. Does not require checking everything else or inspection or upgrading of fuse boxes or consumer unit.
There is a good chance that smoke detectors peep if random small fires break out in your house regularily.
There is also a good reason why you would like to know.
A tripping RCD is annoying, but not as annoying as dying from electrical shock and hurt all the way till you are dead because, guess what, you don't have a device that switches off the circuit if current flows where it should not.
Ah, and it could also kill your friend and make you liable for life. It could start a fire and ruin your whole existance. But yeah duh, so annoying.
Seriously, get an RCD. If it trips find out which part of your house sinks current into the environment in potential "he was killed in his sleep"-fashion.
Where I live RCDs are mandatory in every electrical installation.
Some old houses have exposed wiring in damp places, so there really is electricity leaking all the time. Theres probably some wire with paper insulation touching a plant root under the house, slowly steaming away.
OP is correct that in this case a GFCI would trip all the time.
But on the other hand, GFCI leaks are fairly easy to track down and fix, especially with the right equipment.
Old wiring with exposed conductors (!?!?!?) is a five-alarm fire situation (maybe even literally) and needs to be fixed, it's not a casual 'lol silly house' situation.
I had a GFCI installed in my 1930s built house the other week
The circuit repeatedly tripped, so the electrician uninstalled it. To install the GFCI he would need to spend 1-2 days splitting circuits to find the leak(s) so instead of ~$40 + 1 hours labour it's potentially thousands of dollars
Instead of spending thousands of dollars to fix the wiring, another option would be to spend hundreds of dollars installing GFCI outlets at every outlet instead of protecting the whole circuit with a GFCI breaker (or upstream GFCI outlet)
But if I had wiring that was leaking enough current to trip a GFCI, I'd rather find the fault in the wiring.
When I rewired an old house, the livingroom circuit kept tripping the GFCI breaker. It took a while to find, but apparently at a junction box, the bedroom circuit was connected to the livingroom neutral, so that neutral was connected to 2 circuits and was potentially overloaded.
Yep, that means somewhere there is current flowing through some pipe, some wall, something. And that is bad. 30mA is not much of a threshold, but it has been chosen because currents above that (or currents that flow longer than the 0,03s it should take maximum to trip an RCD will kill people. Not to speak of fire hazards.
So, somewhere you have a thing, that could kill you, a firend, a loved one or whomever. And you decide to ignore it because money. Where I live, if something would happen this could land you in prison.
I mean...this doesn't seem to apply to the GP, but you do understand that there are many, many people in the US for whom the amount of money needed to install that whole-house GFCI would be fine...but the amount needed to track down the faulty wire and fix it to make the house genuinely safe would bankrupt them?
Just FYI I am a certified electrical engineer and I do risk assessment as well, all the time. Certain things are "taking a risk" as in "there is sharp knife in the kitchen", others are just plain stupid like "one of the door knobs in this house is a knife".
So the results of my risk assessment might just look a little different, because I am more familiar with the matter and the potential consequences than you might be.
That might still be worth tracing, you may have a fire risk or a risk of electrocution on your hand there. It really shouldn't happen. Those things are typically 30 or 50 mA and that's a lot of heat (12W worth) at 240V.
so....you just left a significant phase to ground fault in your house wiring? That you live in? That seems like monumentally bad decision making if so.
Standard breakers only interrupt the hot side. Old wiring is full of shared neutral ghosts. It's not great but it isn't as dangerous as randomly dissipating the current throughout the house.
You need a AFCI in most places now. In the 2020 edition of the NEC®, Section 210.12 requires that for dwelling units, all 120-volt, single-phase, 15- and 20-ampere branch circuits supplying outlets or devices installed in dwelling unit kitchens, family rooms, dining rooms, living rooms, parlors, libraries, dens, bedrooms, sunrooms, recreation rooms, closets, hallways, laundry areas, or similar rooms or areas shall be protected by AFCIs.
The latest National Electrical Code requires both AFCI and GFCI protection only in kitchens and laundry rooms, but if you're already doing AFCI, why not do it all everywhere as it is clearly to be required at some point
Main downside is they are expensive. I've recently installed a new 24-slot subpanel and I'm using them everywhere required. At $50 a pop, that's a quick $1200.
See, this is the part I hate. I bet someone patented the design, then the NEC made it mandatory, and now they just rake in the money on something that likely costs <$10 to make. If something is legally mandatory, it should not be patented.
Some countries you have a single one for the whole building, rather than one per circuit.
That dramatically lowers the cost.
The only real downside is that if you accidentally put your finger in the toaster, rather than just the power to your kitchen cutting off, the power to the whole house cuts off. I think thats a fine tradeoff to save $1200.
The bigger downside is nuisance tripping because the breaker doesn't like electrical noise emitted by some device or another in your house. I don't have any AFCIs but I've heard it's pretty common.
You'd rather have one circuit go out instead of the whole house, and if all you have is the one AFCI breaker you're going to have a much harder time identifying what device(s) is the culprit.
I've mostly used them on new circuits, but have put them on a few of my older circuits too. For my small sample size, I've yet to have one nuisance trip.
Yeah I've replaced all of the breakers (to living areas) in my 90s home with AFCI ones. Haven't had any nuisance trips. If I had "nuisance trips" I'd be more worried about my wiring than about my breakers...
I guess you don't know if it's faulty until you try to use it. Manufacturing defects are a thing, but kind of a once every 30 years type thing, so maybe not a big deal to worry about. The reason you install circuit breakers and AFCIs is to avoid a fire in these cases; rare, but worthwhile to avoid.
Of course I should not be plugging in faulty devices. But sometimes appliances that were fine before break down, perhaps some insulation broke down or just the ravages of time.
I would absolutely like that to be safe. And like I said, if it's immediately life-saving, then I don't mind the power to the whole house being cut. But if it's "just" a bad appliance, then, well, I do find it a bit annoying that it reset all my electronics, and I would have preferred it if only that specific outlet was effected.
Also because plugging in faulty devices into outlets is something that ought to be safe. Because with probability 1 it will happen in every house. If the way the house is wired makes the only safe action to shut everything off that's the problem and shitty wiring.
Exactly: it's just like computer OSes. You should be able to run a faulty program that divides by zero or dereferences a null pointer without the whole computer crashing. The computer should flag the error, tell you what went wrong and why, and let you continue with your work and the other stuff going on in other windows.
real downside: many things work poorly on gfci stuff. E.g. A miter saw or welder. I had AFCI/GFCI breakers in my garage per code, but essentially no power tools work with those kinds of circuits.
GFCIs have a simple and well defined function. What is the current through one lead? What is the current through the other lead? Do they differ by more than x amount? If so, trip.
AFCIs are a whole different thing - the plug is trying to predict when arcing is happening somewhere downstream of it and it has very little in the way of 'processing' power to do it, so generally there is a classical filter that is designed to detect the characteristic harmonics of the current waveform that are inherent to an arcing condition. When you experience a sharp upward or downward step in power draw you introduce harmonics, when you have capacitive coupling between SMPS you introduce harmonics, motors often introduce harmonics, etc.
There's like a zillion things that can create AFCI trip conditions and cause spurious trips and frustration for users, and there's very few documented cases of them doing the thing they're supposed to do. I think it's a case of someone being well intentioned but releasing regulatory guidance to use a product that isn't quite there in terms of technology maturity.
Agreed on AFCI circuit breakers! They are now mandatory for all 15-20 amp light and plug circuits on new construction where I live - although breakers for large appliances do not require them. But I have several portable tools (eg a carpet cleaner) which will make an AFCI breaker trip every time. AFCI circuit breakers seem to be more fragile (read the box: much smaller range of acceptable heat and limited number of duty cycles) - I apparently killed one just by tripping it repeatedly. And while a regular 15 amp breaker is a few bucks, the CAFCI breaker I'm supposed to use is $45...
They highlight bad appliance design especially hard, while also being somewhat difficult to pinpoint due to the design of many electrical systems.
Arc detection is also basically somewhat complex RF processing, so there are multiple approaches to it and implementations vary.
Plus (detected) arcs are common with for example brushed motors.
Maybe there's something else the person you replied to would like to highlight, but I wouldn't call them a money grab, just made difficult due to some past choices.
AFCI's are of dubious effectiveness at their purpose (preventing fires). They're kinda snake oil because each manufacturer won't tell you under what exact conditions they'll trip. Somehow the law in the USA now requires them on every circuit, although they aren't used at all in Europe (which has a higher voltage yet far fewer electrical deaths).
FWIW, Google says 540 electrical deaths per year in Europe vs. 200 per year in the USA. Whether that's from lower voltage or more GFCI is anyone's guess.
According to the CPSC, who analyzed some 10s of thousands of fires, something like 50% of them were caused by wire arcing that could be prevented with AFCI breakers. This is the exact reason why the NFPA is moving the NEC towards eventually requiring AFCI on every circuit in the house.
Not an electrician, but an observer of tradespeople at r/electricians.
There are definitely bad feelings about these AFCI breakers. The feeling is that the code mandate for AFCI got out front of the reliability of actually-produced AFCI's, and actually-in-use products like blenders that may have small "arcing". This results in expensive call-backs from unhappy customers who are getting nuisance trips.
I recently installed some new circuits and was able to find them, but strangely it was $20 or more per circuit cheaper to get an AFCI/GFCI outlet and a regular breaker instead of combo breakers.
Is there a site that show what states have adopted what version? looking at my states webpage the official adopted code for my state is NFPA 70 - National Electrical Code, 2008 Edition.
Brushed motors in particular are largely indistinguishable from an arc fault. Lots of home motors (in vacuum cleaners, fans, blenders, food processors, garbage disposals, blah blah blah) use them.
They only need to be installed in specific places... But they ought to be installed for the whole house.
You do want your refrigerator on one. What when your mom is putting a metal saucepan into the fridge of leftovers, knocks and smashes the lamp inside, and the AC lamp power supply kills her though the metal saucepan?
What when a baby puts a fork into an electrical outlet in the living room?
What when floodwater comes in and kills everyone on the ground floor of your house while you are frantically wading in the water trying to move furniture upstairs?
There are plenty of times you want a whole house GFCI.
> You do want your refrigerator on one. What when your mom is putting a metal saucepan into the fridge of leftovers, knocks and smashes the lamp inside, and the AC lamp power supply kills her though the metal saucepan?
Your fridge scenario is.. fantasy. What is the path to ground? There isn’t one.. you can hold onto a live phase conductor all day and not get shocked if the circuit isn’t completed.
Refrigerator only needs a GFI if it is within a certain distance of a sink.
> What when a baby puts a fork into an electrical outlet in the living room?
The NEC requires tamper-resistant receptacles in all dwelling units.
Also re: flooding and GFIs, all basement receptacles need GFI protection due to flood risk.
> Refrigerator only needs a GFI if it is within a certain distance of a sink.
Not anymore. NEC 2023 requires GFCI for every 120 or 240V outlets in the kitchen, regardless of their location or proximity to the sink. This was a big change.
European GFCI's are 30mA, and don't false trip. US GFCI's are 5mA, and frequenty false trip.
lots of info here[1]
TL;DR: The US regulations prevent small electrical faults into things like swimming pools from causing people to drown. The european regulations will stop you getting killed by electricity directly, but won't stop you drowning if you happen to be in a pool while touching some wiring.
This thread is really baffling to this Dutchman. All houses have a house-wide residual-current device here; it is not a topic for debate at all. And indeed, these don't false trip.
US electrical wiring always weirds me out. Cables run through walls without pulling them through hard plastic conduits and sockets that look like something designed seventy years ago. It's probably a matter of perspective, but it seems like such a completely different approach.
Those hard plastic conduit are not providing much in the way of mechanical protection. wires in studs works pretty well, really.
Whole-house GFCI is a good thing, but we should be careful to consider what you get for that. In order for GFCIs to coordinate the whole-house device is going to trip at a relatively high current. This is definitely on the edge of what will disrupt the heart of a person. American GFCIs are often at the device level on the outlet, so they are more error prone in terms of spurious trips but they are also much, much safer because they are substantially more sensitive.
If the system voltage is between 150 V and 300 V, then either double insulation or a separate safety ground with the same gauge wire as the hot conductor is required; the purpose of the safety ground is to keep the equipment case or cabinet from reaching 150 V in case of a fault.
In this case a Class C GFCI may be used to provide fibrillation protection, let-go-protection is optional.
A Class C GFCI is 20mA trip current.
This will not spuriously trip your freezer. If you're having issues with this it's because you're designing your power distribution system incorrectly.
GFCIs also have a lifespan. Ideally they’ll be easily replaced at the breaker panel, but most of the time they are put on outlets. Those outlets could be in a difficult to reach location. They are about twice the cost of a regular outlet/breaker. AFCIs seem to be about three to four times.
My mom doesn’t live with me (the bulb inside the fridge is LED anyway), I don’t have a baby (babies don’t carry metal forks), and I live on the second floor (but the power would be out long before the first floor floods).
I agree that over-zealous GFCI is annoying. BUT, as a new parent, I can assure you that babies will manifest dangerous objects and do dangerous things.
I have twice lost a fridge full of food due to spurious GFCI trips, once when I was a recent graduate and it was a painful experience financially.
I now make sure my fridge/freezer is NOT on a GFCI. I'll take my chances of getting a 120VAC shock from my fridge [which is attention-getting, but very unlikely to be injurious].
Check out the YoLink temperature sensors on Amazon. They are amazing for monitoring our secondary freezer. All their sensors have been great. Temp for fridge/freezers, leak detectors, temp+humidity for basement, they have a motion sensor that is a magnet you can place in the back of your mailbox if you want to know when mail is delivered. Their door sensor can be installed on overhead garage doors by a magnet and a velcro strip for the part that goes on the wall. They also have a 1/4 mile range and the sensor can be inside your fridge/freezer and still connect. App is great, no monthly fee, you get notifications on your phone you can also get a small number of SMS messages for free. All notifications/limits are configurable.
Also funny how fridges are required to have their own circuit, but newer fridges are increasingly vfd/inverter drive, and don’t have surge power draws anymore. They use a few hundred watts continuously and that’s it.
I’d be more quickly to find out my fridge died if the lights in the kitchen stopped working.
Not sure why fridges don’t just have a battery-powered alarm that goes off when the temperature gets too high for too long.
I have a lot of power surges in my area. Recently, the old power shut off, then power back on in 3 seconds thing happened - and the surge was enough to pop my fridge motors and cause a $900 repair.
I upgraded them to not only a surge protector, but this little neat shut off device. It's a device that goes between the fridge and the wall outlet, and basically if for any reason this device loses power - it shuts off the power to the powered device for a minimum of 3 minutes. This way the power can blink 100 times in 3 minutes, and my fridge won't have to eat 100 surges. It will just happily sit off for 3 minutes, and then come back on.
What kind of fridge do you have that draws several hundred watts continuously? I haven’t tested my fridge, but I have a very large chest freezer that never draws more than ~35W. Surely a fridge can’t be 10x worse than that.
I seriously doubt that your freezer max draw is 35W. An Energy Star freezer can only average ~25W across the entire year. I doubt that the peak is less than 1.4x the average draw.
A fridge max power draw is usually during the defrost cycle. My defrost heater measures a bit over 500W.
You’re probably right, but I did watch my freezer plugged into a kill-a-watt for a while, and even when the compressor first kicked on, I never saw anything higher than 35W. Maybe the kill-a-watt is inaccurate, or maybe it doesn’t update fast enough, I’m not sure. Another factor, too: it doesn’t have any sort of auto defrost.
Different models and different designs and everything, but just as another data point, I recall my chest freezer pulling 300W+ when the compressor kicks on, and likely higher transient spikes, as it kept burning out the fuse on my 500W transformer, and I had to switch to a 1kW one.
A shock on 120VAC can absolutely kill. It’s not the volts which kill you, it’s the amps, and it’s specifically why GFCI trip at somewhere between 5mA and 30mA (depending) — it’s because those are not levels as likely to cause fibrillation.
> In the U.K., you just can’t have plugs in bathrooms (aside from the shaver plug),
Disclaimer: I'm not an electrician
My understanding is that is not entirely technically correct.
You can have standard sockets in bathrooms in the UK.
But, and it's a big BUT, 99.999% of bathrooms in the UK are not big enough to be able to place the socket 3m away from the relevant wet "zone" (shower and/or bath and/or sink, IIRC).
However, IIRC, shaver sockets are OK, as are spurs. Irrespective of bathroom size.
You’re correct, bathrooms in UK are zoned and most houses aren’t big enough to meet the distance requirements from the “wet zones” to accommodate a regular socket/outlet.
Shaver sockets are typically going to have ingress protection.
My understanding is a GFCI is an American term for an RCD or an RCBO?
My (UK) fridge is on a standard 30A breaker which itself comes off a single 80A/30mA RCD which was presumably part of the regs at one point. It's never tripped. All the RCBOs I've seen are 30mA too.
(I have some sockets on a 10A breaker downstream of this which have tripped - the house needs a total rewire, total bunch of bodge jobs from the previous owner, including a 13A socket in the bathroom)
Does a GFCI typically have a lower trip that 30mA?
It's funny, In was doing a huge renovation once and during the work my refrigerator had to be plugged into another outlet that happened to be GFCI. We had to be very mindful about making sure power was flowing. Sometimes, certain combinations of things being on at the same time would trip it. It was an old house with only 100A service and who knows what with the wiring.
America has 110 V which is more of a nuisance than a threat when it’s dry. Our GFCIs are specifically for wet applications (like bathrooms) and so are much more sensitive than European GFCIs.
Because they trip much more easily, and they are sinply not needed all the time. Plugging a motorized refrigerator full of perishable food to a GFCI receptacle is a bad idea.
I used to work on residential construction jobsites and the only power on-site would be a pair of GFCI duplex receptacles in the basement beside the panel. Tripping the actual overload breaker was rare (and usually only happened when multiple people were running off a single extension cord), but the damn GFCI breakers on the receptacles themselves tripped all the time, particularly when the table saw was running at full tilt for 20 minutes straight. They're just too sensitive for certain applications. Now, you can buy combined overload/GFCI circuit breakers for in the panel, but they're ridiculously overpriced so no one uses them, and they're probably just as sensitive.
There is no way a pro can install a GFCI for less than $150 in the ideal case where everything else is up to code. Anything non ideal adds cost. While there isn't much labor, you also have to count the time to get from the last job to yours, and other overhead.
While potentially true, this does not speak to the biggest part of their statement, which was that a predicted small cost project becomes an enormous cost project so regularly to the point that the smaller cost projects are altogether ignored, to the detriment of all.
$150, $1000, all of these are smaller than $15,000. One is a surprise laptop breaking and needing replace. The other is a surprise car purchase and cash purchase.
I'm guessing he was talking about DIY. It's not really that hard, I did it in the 3 circuits in my garage. I'm no pro, although I'm fairly knowledgeable in electronics and electricity.
If you have one guy spending 10 mins in every house on a street, he can probably fit GFCI's to 40 houses in a day. But that's only possible if it's a government/power company scheme. Installation could be even quicker and cheaper if it's installed internal to the electricity meter by the power company, and then you don't even need the homeowner home to do it.
Power companies have an incentive to add GFCI's, because ground leakage costs them real money, and those power flows are only 50% measured by the power meter (depending on the meter design). A 100 milliamp leak at 230 volts costs ~$30/yr or so.
I hate the damn things. If a breaker pops, it's easy. You have a box, maybe two if you live in a really huge house. Go there, look for the switch that's not quite lined up, toggle switch, done.
GFCI, you gotta figure out which one popped. If the wiring's not great, it may well be in a totally different room from the outlet that stopped working. On top of it, they seem to outright fail (get stuck in a broken state, start tripping under even very light load, simply stop working at all) much faster than breaker-box switches (I'm... actually not sure I've ever seen one of those fail? I've had several GFCI outlets fail, across multiple houses).
I get why they're good to have, but they're really annoying. And expensive.
> If a breaker pops, it's easy. You have a box, maybe two if you live in a really huge house. Go there, look for the switch that's not quite lined up, toggle switch, done.
FWIW, you can have the same thing with GFCIs. I recently wired my garage for woodworking and installed all GFCI breakers in the breaker box, so a GFCI trip is just like a regular breaker trip (not that either of those has happened with the new circuits). The GFCI breakers cost about $50/ea [1] and protect the whole circuit.
> GFCI, you gotta figure out which one popped. If the wiring's not great, it may well be in a totally different room from the outlet that stopped working.
I once couldn't operate my garage door for a few days. There were no tripped breakers in the box. Eventually, it dawned on me that the circuit was labeled "GFCI" so maybe I should go check the GFCIs in the house, and I found that the GFCI in the upstairs bathroom had tripped. The upstairs GFCI is nowhere near the garage (and in the opposite direction from the breaker box). Since then, I've talked to several people in the area whose houses are wired the same way. I guess GFCIs must have been really expensive in the 80s, when these houses were built.
The moral of this story is that GFCI breakers can save a lot of headache. (Plus, those GFCI outlets are kinda ugly IMO).
Ground fault interrupters are life savers. The minor overhead of figuring out the cause is well worth the price of admission: without them you might not be around to figure anything out.
In the UK, where ground fault interrupters can be part of the sockets it can be hassle, but then again that is strictly optional: in most other countries the ground fault interrupters are always integrated into the circuit breaker at the distribution panel. The upside of that it is that it also protects the wiring.
Wow ok, I've never seen that in the wild. RCDs are required on all circuits including lighting in the current regs (i.e. old installations can not have them and be compliant, but they have been required and socket circuits for a long time; bathroom & outdoor lighting for less; all lighting more recently). Maybe these sockets are for when you have no more room in the panel and don't want to replace it, but need it upgraded due to other work or to pass an EICR to let the property? Not sure.
The university halls that I lived in had those RCD sockets installed. The halls dated back to the early 60s - the sockets + Ethernet were installed in perimeter trunking. I suspect it was the cheapest option available to the university to modernise the electrical infrastructure inside the halls.
It's weird on imported goods here in the UK too. Macs are infamous for the fuzzy feeling of the double not-quite-insulated chassis. My Marantz amplifier (not US made but also sold there) that arrived today is the same. Weird looking plug too, like they had to go out of their way to source a dummy Earth to Earthless kettle lead and the result is bizarre and cheap looking but it's all they could get, because it's a weird requirement.
Grounded outlets became code for kitchens and baths in 1961, although it wasn't that uncommon to see in '50s new construction. 1971 code started requiring them throughout the house.
What are you talking about? GFCIs are integrated into the outlet. Did you mean something about chaining GFCI plug wiring? If it's even possible, such a wiring configuration seems like an obvious building code safety violation.
Edit 1: If you're in Europe, my apologies - I have no experience with the wiring outside of the US. It sounds genuinely annoying and a bad user experience indeed.
Circuit breaker versus GFCI outlets (which also have breakers). I find the former far more convenient—I know they don't serve the same purpose, but the way one interacts with them is similar, except that the GFCIs are scattered all over the place and may require moving things to find.
> If it's even possible, such a wiring configuration seems like an obvious building code safety violation.
Norm in every house I've lived in in the US (except one so old it had knob-and-tube wiring... hahaha) is one GFCI for a set of outlets. Like, if you have a long vanity in a largish bathroom, you might end up with two or three outlets, one GFCI, the others following after it so they trip it, too. The only times I've seen a single one used with nothing hanging off it is when it's the only outlet in the room, or for under-sink outlets for dishwashers and disposals to plug into. This can turn into a real mess if anyone got "creative" with wiring at any point. We've had a garage GFCI kill a couple outlets in the house proper (in a nearby laundry room, not super distant), plus an outdoor outlet probably 30 feet away, all of which were evidently attached to it.
Every GFCI outlet has a line side and a load side designed specifically for protecting additional downstream outlets. it's perfectly safe and legal (and a great way to protect multiple outlets, especially in older houses with ungrounded outlets).
What OP is saying is that one of those downstream outlets can trip the GFCI and if you don't know which GFCI it tripped, then you have to go looking.
Right, that. And it's not like they're intolerable or anything, but they do represent a pretty high percentage of the time I spend messing with my house's electrical system. It's probably light bulbs (I swear, all but the crazy-expensive LED bulbs are blatantly lying about their lifespan, like by a literal order of magnitude) then GFCI stuff after that.
If single phase you'll notice sometimes it has a little extra ground wire connected (now mostly obsolete), for 3 phase it doesn't, in both cases it will say so on the outside (typically: the test current, and usually there is a test button which makes them easy to identify, this test button forces a small leak causing the circuit to become unbalanced resulting in a trip (if it doesn't trip when the test button is pressed the breaker is considered faulty and should be replaced).
For instance, here is an 'Eaton' 3 phase breaker with integrated ground fault protection circuitry:
Note the little yellow 'test' button. That's a 30 mA fault current device, you can have higher permissible fault currents for certain gear that tends to be a bit more leaky which would otherwise cause nuisance trips. These little things are quite the work of art inside, if you ever have a faulty one I would encourage you to pick it apart to see what makes it tick.
Circuit breakers trip when there's too much current going through the circuit (enough to melt the wiring for example), and so protect from short-circuits: hot and neutral touching each other, or a short in equipment.
GFCIs protect against current leaking to ground, by detecting if the current flowing on a hot and neutral leg are different. If they're different, the current must be going somewhere else: to ground, through you, etc. The GFCI breakers do this in the breaker, the outlets do it at the outlet. As someone else mentioned, you can also have other non-GFCI outlets chained to a GFCI outlet, so that upstream outlet is the one that pops if there's a fault.
TL;DR they detect and protect against different fault conditions.
4 people per week in the USA [1]. GFCI devices would prevent almost all of those. There are a very small number of ways to electrocute yourself even with a GFCI installed, but you are unlikely to find one of those unless you have electrical expertise and are suicidal.
There are a few things that aren't practical to protect with a GFCI, such as high voltage grid power transmission cables. But people killed by those I wouldn't think are included in deaths 'at home'.
It frustrates me that every year quite a lot of people are killed due to old houses not having whole-building GFCI's
A whole building GFCI sounds like a bad idea, throwing the entire house into darkness as well as cutting off the refrigerator and HVAC because a contractor plugged in a damp power tool in an outside outlet sounds like a bad idea. Worse if you were out of town when it happened.
There are many ordinary motors that will leak just a bit to ground, enough to trip the GFCI, but no hazard exists — this would mean disabling the whole building, computers, refrigeration, water pumping, etc. just turning on that device. I've actually got one in a treadmill, and also a wood router tool - they trip the garage GFCI every time. At first I was concerned and "what's wrong with these things?". but as far as I could read, there is no issue, just an issue with certain types of motors that is no hazard, but a basic incompatibility.
And yes, being able to kill the entire power to the house merely by plugging a device into one of the outside outlets would be an insane vulnerability, not just by the contractor's accident you mentioned, but also by deliberate action - great way to start a burglary or home invasion, don't even need to find a wire to cut.
> Even after the replacement was complete the electrician had to come back and redo the wiring connections because the inspector said the PVC joint at the top of the box had to be metal instead.
Right. There must be a reliable metallic path to ground.
This is a big problem with PVC pipe retrofits. In older houses, plumbing and conduit are metal and good grounds, and grounding to plumbing used to be permitted. Once PVC pipe came in, you have to assume that no pipe is grounded, and you need extra ground wires and stakes. This can happen due to a plumbing repair. Otherwise, a short to "ground" can energize the structure's entire water system.
In the original article, if your house doesn't have three-prong outlets, it's time for an full upgrade. You're at least half a century behind.
As for training new electricians, "In the past, Reyes recruited workers out of high school and trained them. But he’s reluctant to do it again. It costs his technicians time, it costs him money, and there’s no guarantee that the people he invests in will stick around because the job market is so competitive." Well, welcome to the free market. Maybe you have to pay more.
There are International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers apprenticeship programs not mentioned in the article. Here's Local 6, San Francisco.[1] They require high school graduation, a grade of C or better in algebra and trigonometry, and drug testing to become an apprentice. The apprenticeship is three years.
"Grid Alternatives partners with local organizations, like Homeboy Industries, a gang-intervention program, to introduce former inmates as well as other underrepresented people, to careers in solar. Those admitted to Grid’s training receive “wraparound supportive services” that address barriers they might have to participating, such as helping them get driver’s licenses, open bank accounts, or, for those formerly incarcerated, find attorneys." That may be starting too far down the food chain.
"But this past year, Laney’s program almost fell apart after one of its teachers, Forough Hashemi, announced she would be retiring at the end of the spring 2022 semester. Hashemi had been teaching six classes each semester, essentially holding the program together".
Laney College seems rather disorganized. Their web site says "Fall Classes Start August 24, 2020 – Enroll Now!". If their idea of recruiting is "we sent some letters and nobody responded", that's the college's problem.
> ... and grounding to plumbing used to be permitted
Do you have a citation for this?
I was under the impression that using plumbing as equipment ground was never allowed, but that conductive plumbing has required to be bonded to ground for some time. I was further under the impression that by code, plumbing repairs couldn't leave behind unbonded sections of conductive plumbing.
> ... and grounding to plumbing used to be permitted
>
> Do you have a citation for this?
You could look it up yourself. It's not hard.
Here's a guide to the 1981 National Electrical Code.
See page 297. section 250-23, grounding for alternating current systems:
"grounding electrode conductor ... which runs to building steel and/or water pipe or driven ground rod".
Page 299, "water pipe and/or other suitable electrode" as grounding point for neutral.
Page 365, section 250-81 goes into water pipes as ground in more detail. It usually can't be the only ground. That's in 250-81(a). But back then, there was an assumption that water pipes were a path to ground.
By 2011, use of a water pipe as ground was more restricted. It's still allowed, but you have to attach directly to the metal pipe where it comes out of the ground. See[2], page 238, section 250-51, "Grounding electrodes". (You're allowed 5 feet of pipe from building entrance). Also see 250-53(D)(2), where the risk of future replacement of a metal water pipe with plastic is discussed. Water pipes are now valid grounds only if they meet the general ground rod criterion - six feet of conductor buried in earth. (3m for pipes.) You can see the general progression from "pipes are grounds" to "only grounding rods driven in the ground can be trusted." Which is reasonable enough, given that most new pipe is plastic. At this point, grounding pipes is more about preventing them from becoming energized if something shorts to a pipe. Just as all electrical boxes must be grounded.
I assisted with a few residential electrical-service upgrades last year (in California). ...If the plumbing pipe could be used as one of two paths to ground (i.e. conductive all the way), it was. Otherwise two grounding stakes were installed instead of one.
> by code, plumbing repairs couldn't leave behind unbonded sections of conductive plumbing
I assume that's correct, but I think shady / lazy / amateur contractors can assume the inspector won't check work in the crawl space.
Today it's more like you're bonding the plumbing to ground than assuming it is ground. That way, if something shorts to a pipe, you trip a breaker rather than energizing the water system.
That McDonalds had a big "now hiring" sign out front, advertising $21 an hour. Hm. Not sure if the extra thirty cents would be worth tying yourself to construction's boom and bust cycle.
I agree on the boom bust cycle, but if you're working the chain, once you become a certified electrician it is totally worth getting additional training on non residential things too. I don't know the lingo, but my general understanding from what my friends who are actually electricians tell me, is once you're licensed, its worth going the extra mile and piling on the extra certifications as insulation against market swings.
So for instance, one of the folks I know can do residential but also spent a year in the midwest learning how to wire up windmills. I guess that paid off in the last cycle when they had to pivot back and forth on jobs.
I just hate physical labor as a job, personally, but he makes almost as good of money as I do now, but my back will last past 50.
So I took quick look into what it would actually take to upgrade the main circuit breaker in the house assuming a 100A to 200A upgrade is needed to accommodate both an EV and a heat pump. I thought it was $5000 or so.
As it turns out, $5000 is for pole mounted service. It's range is actually around $15,000 to $25,000 for underground service, as it requires digging the line from the street to the house. Unknown how much cost there if too many houses here need to upgrade as well which would necessitate upgrading transformers feeding this area (most houses here are 100A AFAIK).
This is only true in high cost states.
In most states, it's 10-15 a ft plus some minimum cost that is like 1500 bucks for trenching setup. Maybe 15-20 in the worst case.
To redo my service to single phase 800 amps, which required a new transformer on a pole, new commercial panel, 100 feet of large underground drop (parallel MCM 600), etc, georgia power + electrician total cost was 10k.
If i had wanted to drag 3 phase power to my shop, which was a mile away, they would charge 10 bucks a foot, total cost 55k.
(I convert the large single phase instead with a digital 3-phase converter)
PGE/California electricians is particularly horrible about costing - i've seen combined costs (IE between PGE + electrician) of like 15k for panel upgrades that require 10 feet of trenching
EV or not EV, I really think you want 200A service? It has been the standard for quite a few years, and I cannot imagine only having 100A service in a proper house (would be fine for an apartment or whatnot). Now I am higher electric usage than most, but I hit over 100A several times a day (but have never hit 200A and flipped my breaker).
The actually switching out your circuit breaker from 100A to 200A is cheap (2-3k?). Almost all of the cost is for the utility to run you a bigger line, and they can pretty much charge you anything they want (what is your alternative if you don't like the price?)
Electrical code has completely unreasonable and unrealistic demand factors associated with appliances. Basically "1" for just about everything, as well as 3 watts per square foot of floor area. If you sum all of these things up, I'm well above the 200 amp service delivered to my home.
Reality? I had a peak draw of 23 amps from the grid in the last year. Luckily the NEC has an escape valve for folks who can prove that.
AC and Hot Tub full blast would almost never happen, Hot Tub is more a winter thing.
But A full EV charge can be 6-7 hours, so could easily be all evening. A hot tub could easily be an hour of overlap in there. So someone turns on the Oven? Would def pop 100.
240V circuits are simply both legs of the 120V split phase connected together, so the amperage is measured at 120V. The circuit breakers for 120V and 240V circuits are the same, except 240V circuits use two breakers with the handles tied together[1]. Electric resistive heaters like ovens and clothes dryers are always perfectly efficient, so I'm not sure how you even thought it would be possible to have an inefficient heater.
[1]: The 120V rails in the middle of the breaker panel alternate between each split phase, so if you connect a circuit to any two adjacent breakers you will get 240V. A 120V circuit is connected to neutral and a single breaker.
As well as using a heat pump, a more efficient dryer can be better-insulated, or make better use of the heat produced in drying clothes, however that might be done.
> Do Americans quote large appliance current at 220V or 110V equivalent?
Fist, North America is a 120/240V system, not 110/220. For the life of me i will never understand the confusion over why some people, including North Americans keep referencing 110 volts?
The code is clear, 120 Volts +- 5 to 10 percent?
Perhaps because the "allowed range" is 110 to 125?
If i measure my house right now, it is 121 volts and this is pretty typical.
Your dryer example seems like it is running on gas?
In North America, electric dryers use anywhere from 1800 to 5000 watts.
AC depends on the home size, the location, etc. Mine has a 60A 240V breaker but again the "code" states you can only have an 80% "continuous load" on a circuit so technically this circuit can not pull 14,400 continuous watts.
One thing Europeans dont grasp is the difference in house sizes vs north ameria and so naturally our appliances are larger and more power hungry.
What may take a European washer 2 loads, most north american washer/dryers will do in one. So the "power usage by load" is the same?
Using a device like a range's maximum power draw is dishonest. If a north american range is twice the size of what is available in EU, but not all the elements are in use at once... does that mean something?
(110V: I'm just copying/misremembering, I don't live there. There are places in the Caribbean that do use 110V.)
> Your dryer example seems like it is running on gas?
This is part of my horror. You can't imagine that an electric drier might only use 600W? Try [1]. From the EU site of all rated driers [2] (click "Models distribution") 23% of driers on sale are this efficient. A further 44% with A++ rating are around 900W. (Note the measurement is of the energy needed to dry a load of clothes to the required standard, the maximum power draw is related but not a criteria.) The worst one is still only 2300W!
From a 2013 news article "Europe's Clothes Dryers Consume Half As Much Energy As America's" [3]:
> The study, which was funded by the Super Efficient Dryer Initiative (SEDI), concluded that Europe's heat pump dryers can dry the same amount of clothes as North American conventional dryers using only about half as much energy. The catch is that European heat pump dryers also took about twice as long to dry a load of laundry as North American conventional dryers.
I'll add that American driers appear to be cheaper to buy.
> house sizes ... naturally our appliances are larger and more power hungry
That explains the AC -- though I can still criticise the waste of energy heating/cooling two, three or four times as much space per person -- but it doesn't explain the drier. Do you wear twice as many clothes as I do?
Almost all big appliances are 220.
Fridges are 110, but the big guys
* EV Charging
* Electric or Induction Oven
* Electric Dryer
* AC
* Electric Water Heater
are all doing to be 220. The amps will vary, and most will not peg the required wire 100%, but may for example do a big pulse to startup (ACs are famous for this).
>It has been the standard for quite a few years, and I cannot imagine only having 100A service in a proper house
100A service is fairly normal here for smaller homes. As heating here is primarily done by natural gas furnaces rather then electrical heating. Which make sense; gas is way cheaper to heat with here then electricity. And it saves a dollar for the developer.
I don't know about larger homes though; I'd imagine that they'd have 200A circuits but it wouldn't surprise me if they didn't unless the builder specifically requested it.
I think my house has 2x200A. It was zoned multi family but the previous owners had a separate service for an electric car, and there’s still bits of electronics in the attic from where they tried to do crypto mining.
I’m sure their equipment overheated. The roof is not insulated and the attic fan is pushing against a louver that’s the wrong design. It gets hot up there without any equipment.
Yah in most cases 2x200 is the step up from 200. The reason being is your wire that runs your 200A service isn't big enough to carry 400A, so you would need to tear it out. Why tear it out a perfectly good wire when you can just run another?
My house is a really big house built in the 50s. It was initially 2x100A service as I don't think 200A service at home was really a thing. It had 2 meters and everything. Sometime in the 80s they tore out the feed from the pole and put in a proper single 200A line, and just left the second meter as defunct.
When I got the exterior siding of my home replaced, we also wanted to have our electrical meter box replaced because it was falling off the side of the house.
The work we originally thought was needed was just a new meter box. Turned out we needed a new wire run from the meter all the way to our water line, a new pipe for the underground wiring, two additional grounding wires.
The utility said it wasnt their problem as the meter itself is their property but the housing, the way it attaches to the house, and the connection to the transformer was our responsibility to pay for.
Nearly $2000 to get a simple meter box replacement. Edit: Because this work was to be done in tandem with the siding replacement to avoid expensive rework, we didn't have much of an option in shopping around as most electricians did not want to deal with coordination with the utility around disconnect and inspection.
> Nearly $2000 to get a simple meter box replacement.
If it’s so simple, why didn’t you do it and save $2,000? Part of that price is uncertainty due to scheduling/coordinating with the siding contractor and utility.
Everything after the meter, including grounding conductors, are premises wiring aka your responsibility.
Having your electrical service properly grounded sure beats being electrocuted.
I manage electricians, and my jobs get charged $110/hr for a journeyman in a service van.
Because while it is simple, the power is out while I do it. When it is just a single circuit no problem, but if I'm missing one part that means several more hours while I track it down (home depot might or might not have it). A real electrician will have the parts on the van, or at least know where to get the missing one. Not to mention there is probably power to the box, while I can work on live circuits I prefer not to. (or if there is no power, that means there is no power for days because I work on weekends, then the inspector comes on Monday, and only after that does the power company reconnect).
There are some jobs that I can do, but I hire someone else to do anyway.
The work was complete within 4 hours, coordination was easy with the siding contractors as I managed it. Called them up and they were here in 20 minutes to put the J-Block in right after the electrical guys removed the old meter box.
Getting the work done properly was important to me. After the replacement, the random occasional 2-3 second power outages went away and it looks great.
My point was mostly to concur with parent that often you do incur unexpected work when updating legacy electrical, and that adds a bit of cost. To a homeowner, a box swap seems simple but can wind up costing thousands more than you expect.
Most residential wiring really is as simple as it appears at first glance.
The problem is that there are a few cases where it isn't, and the issue is being able to know when that's true. This is where the skills and experience come into play.
In case I need to cite some authority, I've been wiring my own homes (with permits) for > 25 years, and was licensed by New Mexico to install my own 6.7kW solar array a couple of years ago. I'm not an electrician, however.
Concur. I have an electrical engineering degree, and a copy of the NEC. However, in many situations I end up deciding that it will take me so long to figure out the correct interpretation of the code for my situation that I may as well pay someone who takes one look and says "ok this needs to be done like that...".
Most jurisdictions in the US allow homeowners to self-perform electrical work. Electrical inspectors tend to be a lot more picky and thorough with homeowner performed work since homeowners are notoriously bad electricians.
I did all the wiring in my basement (except connecting to the panel), and the inspector did a cursory inspection, both rough-in and final. He looked at maybe two of the outlets (none of the lighting fixtures), and then on final just used a receptacle checker. Now as a DIYer with OCD and a fear of burning down my house, I had tried to be VERY careful, but it was the first electrical work I had done. Either I'm an electrical prodigy or he was lackadaisical.
Most of the mistakes homeowners make when doing electrical work are related to NM cable strapping (not enough straps typically), pigtails that are too short, junction boxes that arent properly secured, and inaccessible junction boxes.
He probably just checked to make sure you strapped the NM cable within 8-12” of the box (depending on if you have cable clamps or not) and then a strap every 54”. If you get the small details right they won’t be so harsh while inspecting.
If you are careful and follow the rules, it’s pretty straightforward to wire branch circuits in a house. Grounding and bonding a service entrance panelboard to ground rods/natural gas piping/water piping is not as straightforward as it seems.
You don't say where you are, but that certainly hasn't been my experience. Where I am, in Oregon, USA:
* I own a house that was built in the early 20th century. As was typical of the time, the house has a small number of fused circuits, which do not have a ground wire, and where the wire gauge is thinner than would be required for a modern circuit of the same capacity. Just the same, it's perfectly legal to:
* Add new outlets to existing circuits without changing the fuse to match the wire gauge of the circuit or adding a ground wire. It has to either be a NEMA 1-15R receptacle (no ground plug) or a GFCI receptacle with a label that says there's no equipment ground.
* Replace the fuse boxes with modern breaker boxes without re-wiring the house to have grounded outlets. The only limitation is that the new breakers would have to be smaller than the existing fuses so that the wire gauge meets current code for the breaker size.
* I have a 1998 house which has several pairs of circus on opposite phases which share a neutral wire. This is legal still, but requires that the circuits are connected to dual-throw breakers, so that it's not possible to have one circuit hot with the other dead. But this house doesn't use dual-throw breakers like it should. As far as I know, that wasn't even code when the house was built. But electricians can still add new circuits without fixing that.
* Some years ago I was remodeling a 1956 house. Initially, the inspector asserted that we would need to replace a staircase whose width and pitch did not meet current code. But he was mistaken. Even though we replaced the stair treads, because we didn't make any changes to the structure of the staircase, the head county building inspector agreed that we didn't need to bring it to current code.
Multi-wire branch circuits (your second point) will likely always be legal, because they're fundamentally safe from an engineering point of view.
Requiring common-disconnect (but not common-trip) breakers I think was a requirement since before 1998, but because it only needs common-disconnect, a listed handle-tie between the two breakers will suffice. (In other words, this should be a quite inexpensive situation to remedy. $8 for 3 of them at Home Depot for one particular common panel: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Square-D-QO-Circuit-Breaker-Hand...)
Yes, I agree with both points. When done right, they're slightly safer and more energy efficient, because there's less current flowing on the full length of the neutral line. I've even seen installs where the inspector was okay with a handle-tie made with a scrap of copper wire, although I'm not convinced that was actually code.
The handle-tie would get you common-trip too, wouldn't it?
No. Over-current trips do not flip the breaker to the off position. Instead, it trips internally and the handle moves ever-so-slightly and becomes “rattle-y” for lack of a more precise term.
If you have a breaker in your hand (now or at a home center), you can slap it briskly against your thigh and it will “trip” allowing you to see how the handle will look when tripped. To a cursory glance, it will appear on (but you will notice the handle can be moved about 1/8" more than normal).
That small movement is not enough to induce a trip or disconnect on the handle-tied breaker. (The requirement is only "Each multiwire branch circuit shall be provided with a means that will simultaneously disconnect all ungrounded conductors at the point where the branch circuit
originates." That's to allow for safe servicing.)
I feel like some of this should be "grand-fathered" in. Perhaps you were a victim of an upsell. Any electricians that can verify?
For example, I needed a new fence. I got a few quotes and most were DRASTICALLY high priced as they wanted to move my fence to comply with current code. An older, more experienced worker had no problems with permits and said I was grand-fathered in because it was already existing. I even self-checked with the city. He was right.
I made sure to shop around and even asked my neighbors who had the same houseplan about the electrical work they had to get done in the past. The previous owners had neglected to replace some components that had been recalled decades ago, so that obligation ultimately fell to me.
I did manage to get a few things grandfathered in, like being able to keep a three pronged outlet for the dryer. But ultimately I made peace with the fact that the house's electrical system was in a neglected state and the fixes simply had to be made.
Sometimes it'll be at home owners discretion. For example, I have a Pushmatic panel. The thing sucks. So even if it's grandfathered when I have other work done, I'm still getting rid of it ASAP.
Most things are grandfathered in. In my experience, sometimes even if it's not something your inspector should technically let pass, they will if it's existing construction and things were made no worse than before.
And even if you're touching that part of the system, you can usually replace like-for-like without bringing it all up to current code, even if the current condition is non-compliant, you can generally put it back to the same level of non-compliance, even if it's with entirely new parts. (I'm not arguing that that's a good idea to elect as a property owner, but rather that NEC does not require "you touch it, you have to fully modernize it". This will likely invite an argument with the AHJ's inspector, if the work is subject to inspection.)
Where do you live? In a lot of municipalities any out-of-code work can remain unless they are actively touching that part of the system. For instance, if you had ungrounded outlets in your house, but were just getting a drop for a ceiling fan you wouldn't have to install grounds as part of that work. So they must have been having to touch all those components anyway.
Almost for sure that's what happened to the OP as he was having an external disconnect, so the entire panel got depowered + likely big lines were run for whatever he needed the disconnect for. There's sometime exceptions for Solar now that don't require full upgrades, but some cities don't give a fuck.
The US is way worst about this than most other places though. Here they inspect your insulator, lead-in wires, meter, and distribution panel and then ask what if any problems you are having (they is the power company) every four years. Mostly the electrician/contractor does the work and there's no inspection of that.
Most of the time the main box is good enough. Fuses are still legal. There are a few boxes that are safety hazards, but if you have one you should replace it even if not planning any other work (some circuit breakers don't trip when overloaded!).
Hello, Federal Pioneer 15A Stab-Lok blue breakers (old style, without the holes) here. I can personally confirm their potential for not tripping when overloaded, along with the smouldering outcome...
In most countries, I don't think you're required to update your home every time the electrical code gets a change. However, many electricians will try to sell you on this unnecessary work.
You are normally required to update anything an electrician touches or could impact.
So if you are having a new socket added in your kitchen, then all the other sockets in the kitchen on the same circuit will need updating, and the breaker for the kitchen.
But you probably won't have to have your living room rewired.
I’m having a new service entry cable, meter box, and main breaker panel put in next week. By its nature that should impact every single circuit in my house. But my electrician isn’t touching anything besides what I listed above, and I know that there are multiple other things around the house not up to current code.
You may live in a place where the law doesn't require that. Or you may have found an electrician willing to turn a blind eye to that stuff. Or you might be about to get a far larger bill than expected when the electrician 'discovers' that midway through the job, and now isn't legally allowed to put it back as he found it.
I’m in NY, US and and the proper permit was pulled for the job, as well as hiring an independent inspector to check the work when finished. My particular electrician has been doing business for ~30 years so I doubt he’s risking violations over things like that, plus he would have to be colluding with the inspector. He already did an inspection of the work needed and planned it, it would be impossible for him to suddenly notice other things that need to be done.
The price I’m paying for this job lines right up with the national job average pricing you can find online. If it was common to require doing all of that extra code updating I would think the average price should be much higher.
Maybe I’m wrong but my thought is that it isn’t so black+white and some electricians may push upsells harder than other more honest ones.
would you mind sharing a link to that resource. Is there a union rate webpage or something of the like where you can dial in your region and type of work etc like an online calculator or is there just some table printed somewhere online?
You have an electrician and AHJ that understands the NEC correctly. In this case, there are explicit exceptions written in code (210.12(B)), but that's an exception to a new part of code. In the general case, replacing like-for-like is permitted, so long as the original met code at the time of installation.
And every time I see a video online of a dance floor or stadium collapsing or people getting electrocuted by accidentally touching ungrounded electrical devices I'm reminded why. That's not to say those things don't happen here, just at a lower frequency. Safety standards are written in blood after all.
Structure collapses are extremely rare, which is why they are always news. I am not unhappy with the state of regulation when it comes to building structures that have the potential to kill hundreds or thousands of people at a time.
However I think many locations in the US way overdo regulation when it comes to residential building codes. When you buy a house, you get a professional inspection. If it comes up dangerous, then you are armed with the knowledge to make a risk decision that’s right for you.
I don’t need spacecraft level engineering on my car; similarly i don’t need skyscraper level engineering on my house.
Presumably you pull out a report and do a rundown of all the not to spec electrical work before any guests enter the house? Or are you making the safety call for them too?
The general rule in most places is that any circuits that aren't modified as part of the new work don't need to be brought up to modern code. The main service panel is the main thing that ends up needing to be upgraded incidentally, since all circuits depend on it, and that can easily be more expensive than the actual work being done. But that only needs to be done once, and many old houses will want it upgraded anyway to allow for more circuits to be added than the box was originally designed to accommodate.
However, I think the 10 years is a bit pessimistic. At least in the US, the code hasn't changed that much in the last 20-30 years, and many of the changes are at the periphery where they are easy to modify like GFCIs, and tamper resistant outlets, etc, so I wouldn't be afraid of making modifications to existing circuits for houses in that range. Older than that you start running into (AA-1350) aluminum wiring (35 years or older) or two-conductor wiring (65 years or older), and you'll want to take the policy of not touching those old circuits unless you plan on completely replacing them.
Generally (in the USA) if you touch something in your home, you need to bring it up to code. You touch a wall, well now you need to make sure that wall has a socket in it, for example.
Doing an addition? Well, now you need to ensure the entire house has fire/C02 detectors wired together with it.
> Generally (in the USA) if you touch something in your home, you need to bring it up to code. You touch a wall, well now you need to make sure that wall has a socket in it, for example.
Sorry, is there a requirement that every single wall should have a socket? ...that's what extension cords are for.
Yes, there are also requirements for example that kitchens have an outlet every N feet (I forget the exact number) in order that the short cords supplied on toasters, kettles etc can reach every part of the counter surface without an extension.
I said addition, not finishing a basement. But if your basement had a wall that wasn't up to code and it was part of your finishing, you'd have to bring that wall up.
> shop around and to get multiple quotes in order to make sure I wasn't being taken advantage of
But you were taken advantage of. It's just that with the level of collusion in North America regarding electrical work and plumbing you are not going to be able to avoid it. I've seen the weirdest requirements which only a particular person with a particular license was able to perform and doing it yourself would be an automatic fail on an inspection even though the work was identical. I've also had some of these people make outright dangerous suggestions because they knew how to read their rule book but they didn't actually understand enough of what caused the rules to be written in that particular way to see when an exception to those rules needed to be made (case in point: someone wanted me to ground a 60' windmill tower at the house instead of at the base of the tower, which in case of a lightning strike would lead the lightning into the house).
Really, don't get me started, I've seen way to much of this to have anything but really bad memories of electrical inspectors, I'm sure there are good ones but I just haven't seen any. What I have seen is a bunch of little people with a lot of power to inflate costs resulting in no change or improvement.
How much code compliance you need to do depends on the work being done and your local inspector.
I replaced a panel that was rusted out (there was literally a hole rusted through in the back due to water intrusion in the wall) in a house that was built in the 1940's, re-wired with circuit breakers sometime in the 80's.
The electrician said I didn't need to replace any breakers, just the panel. I asked the local inspector if I had to put AFCI's and GFCI's everywhere required by modern code, he confirmed that it was highly recommended, but not strictly required for existing circuits, only for new circuits. I also didn't need to install a cutoff before the panel.
Since I was buying new breakers anyway, I ended up putting AFCI/GFCI's as required by code.
> The electrician also needed to replace my existing ground wires because they are supposed to be cables sheathed in green.
Where was that? In my (medium-aged) American house and in some newish romex cable I bought last year, the ground wires are all bare copper cables, no green sheathing at all. I've had electrical work done in the last couple weeks, and no one even mentioned them.
IIRC (not an electricial) bare copper and green-sheathed wires are both acceptable for ground wires.
> ...likely have some non-compliance with the current electrical code.
When I build my own residence from scratch, I'm going for a more industrial loft aesthetic vibe where all utilities are run outside the walls where they are easily accessible to frequently modify them as I please. I want to be able to frequently update to code without making a giant, expensive mess, followed by a validation inspection from a licensed electrician. How we build residences today is not compatible with my desires for a sustainable, durable, maintenance- and repair-friendly implementation.
The rules around this are fairly complex and there are individual state and even county- and city-level compliance codes, so I can only be fairly hand-wavy in a general sense.
For commercial or industrial work above a certain scale and complexity, you probably won't even be able to find a licensed electrician to validate work done by non-licensed personnel for sign off to send up to an inspector. I wouldn't consider a 1MW+ (or anything starting off with a 480V three-phase service) data center appropriate to install with non-licensed staff. There are gray areas the smaller and more residential scale you get. I've seen some pretty awful work funded by apartment complex flippers using non-licensed personnel, for example.
Once you are talking about common residential (anything less than 300A, where the average US house is usually around 100-200A, dual single-phase 110V service) though, it depends more upon finding a licensed electrician who agrees to a proposal to validate your work. This is not very popular because it is considered like a mechanic called in to inspect a shade tree mechanic's work or your relatives you only see around Christmas time proposing to pay you to inspect their attempt to clean up after a ransomware attack. But it does happen.
Assuming you can find and convince such a licensed electrician, you can do practically anything in such a residential context. It's a lot of work, and if you're a decent software engineer you aren't really saving much money. It would be the sort of thing to do if sloppy electrician work that doesn't meet the standards of r/wireporn or r/cableporn for example just drives you bonkers, and you happen to really like nerding out over strictly interpreting the intricacies of NFPA 70, National Electrical Code (NEC) with others, and you simply like having the satisfaction of knowing your electrical subsystem that well. If you squint hard enough, the NEC almost takes on a life of its own like source code, which appeals to a lot of technical types, so it isn't hard to find engineers and technicians of different stripes in aerospace, mechanical, civil, etc. doing this kind of DIY.
Code compliance inspections are required, but unless you are lighting up new service for example, enforcement varies pretty dramatically between locales. Again, I've seen some pretty shady disasters waiting to happen from flippers, but the city is none the wiser because no permits were pulled.
Not just electrical -- pretty much any system or major structure in your house. We had to have a few minor repairs done to our roof, but due to newly passed regulations (and a 45° roof pitch), the roofers needed to also install roof anchor points (beefy D-rings basically) for their safety before they did anything else. Anecdata, sure, but plumbing, sewer, foundations all have similar stories.
> I understand that these regulations exist in the name of safety, just be aware that any electrical updates to your home will likely involve a lot more work than you initially think.
If it's been without issue for decades it likely will remain so if left as is. Once someone modifies it the risk of fire, electrocution, etc increases dramatically. That's why it needs to be brought into compliance as a general rule.
I had electricians install a new panel and they had lots to say about the new regs. GFCI has been replaced with AFCI, and from what I can tell, it's not that much more protection, but it is a LOT more finicky and will trip for unnecessary reasons.
I kind of wonder if some of these safety devices will get people killed because they will fall tromping down to the basement or garage to muck with their panels.
Required to sheath ground in green? What on earth for? That makes ground less effective since you want any incidental contact with ground to ground the object touching it.
They aren't just about electrical safety directly, but also about not potentially confusing people in the future.
If the cable was black, then someone may not have known that it was an earth cable, and might have cut it, which would leave your electrical installation unsafe.
Thats the reasoning why using the wrong color for a wire can make it illegal.
The part of the wire that is connected to the grounding object has no sheathing, but the length of the cable is insulated. The old cable was the same way. The coating was black and looked identical to the other wires running through the wall. I assume the justification for the code is that it makes the ground wire visually distinct.
Bare ground is allowed in lots of cases.
The requirement is that insulated ground wires must be primarily green (IE green with yellow stripe is okay), but this is actually not new.
They must be > 6 awg to pull black and use green tape on the ends.
See 250.119.
This has been the case for a very long time though, at least since 2007 NEC.
I don't have handy copies around for before then.
The article is touching on the important issue of homes but is missing three very important related issues.
1) The network that delivers power to the home. It's not able to handle everyone electrifying everything. If you electrify everything (electric stove, electric car, air conditioner/heater) you are going to be hard pressed in many locales to be covered by at home solar.
2) Electricity generation. We need a lot more.
3) Dealing with problems in regions. Like power outages in areas that deal with lots of snow and freezing. How do people have heat to survive? How do things work so that we don't have destruction to homes from frozen pipes? Stuff like that.
There is mooooore than enough spare grid capacity to deliver the electricity to electrify homes.
We size the grid for peak capacity, not for average capacity, which means that there's a very low overall usage amount. And the big drivers of additional electricity, heating and transportation, are easily shiftable to non-peak times.
And as we have smarter devices, and more time of use billing, load shifting will be easy.
That said, having lots more battery storage inside buildings may be a great way to help shift peaks, and be far cheaper than upgrading lots of connections everywhere.
> There is mooooore than enough spare grid capacity to deliver the electricity to electrify homes.
I'm going to disagree with this for three reasons.
1) We have places that have brown outs today. The grid isn't able to deliver. In other areas people have setups where power companies can cut (for periods of time) power to their air conditioner and that is used. There have been other areas where cables have run into issues with so much electricity going over it. The grid today runs into problems with the existing demands on it.
2) I've talked with people in some locales that only have 60A drops to their home. The local home and their local grid needs to be updated before everything can go electric.
3) When you read articles that say the grid can handle it they cover how the grid needs to be updated to handle all the things being electrified. So, they say the grid we have today can't cover it. Here's an example [1]. If it could handle it now there wouldn't be a need to it to be updated.
The current problem is caused by growth and air conditioning demand. Slowing down the transition to EV's and electrify everything won't fix current problems nor will they significantly exacerbate the problems.
You are confusing the grid with generation capacity. They are different. Generation capacity is where we have more need. For the most part the wires have enough capacity - though even then there are places that need upgrades.
I have a few reasons to believe the wires we have today aren't enough
1) I was recently talking with someone who lives in a community where homes have 60A service. The homes and last mile in places like that can't handle the draw people will need to electrify everything. 60A isn't enough.
2) Where I live there has been work to upgrade the wiring because it's not enough. It's not done yet and other communities I've been to have not been upgraded, yet. There are still areas where the current traveling through the lines today causes enough sag that I wait for something to break when things are at their peak.
3) Publications and communications from some power companies cover the need to upgrade the grid. Are they lying?
Not at all. Grid is not ready for this it need significant capital upgrades.
Yes its designed for peak load but the load profile is changing significantly. And no you absolutely cant just load shift away heating and transportation of residential homes. That isn't cost free and we don't even have the projects in place to manage that yet.
Transportation is literally already battery, it is trivial to load shift charging, and in fact standard practice for anybody with electric transportation already!
Heating is similarly trivial to load shift; heat or cool a little extra before the peak, stop during the peak, and then pick up afterwards. This goes for both space and water heating.
Do you have any evidence about what upgrades are needed? I have a feeling that since you are so wrong about load shifting, that your intuitions about the grid may not be completely ok mark either. The grid upgrades I know about are for long distance transmission, not anything for distribution at the residential level, as we are discussing here.
What are you talking about? Transportation is not anywhere near electric at this point. Once you aggregate all that demand for all vehicles in california charging its significant amount of power and the cost of Lion batteries to manage that “load shifting” is excessive if put behind the meter.
You have grossly oversimplified of the problem set with little regard for how people, utilities, policy development and the real world actually work.
1) Places today have rolling brown outs at times in the year. Some power companies have seasons where they ask customers to limit their electricity use. Even peak load today can be a problem and the electrification of all the things means peak load will increase.
2) Articles that dig into this call out how the power grid will need to change to support the growth in consumption. When it's covered and experts speak they highlight the need for change to meet demand.
Those rolling brownouts happen in the summer when AC demand is high and the grid is barely capable of meeting peak demand. Vehicles do not need to charge at that time (when most people are at work or staying home) and could even provide some power to homes during that time. Most electric vehicles are charged at night (when rates are lower).
Of course utilities would love to have people pay more maintenance, because they already have to do it and their profits are capped. But they have already built to peak demand and the only driver now for that peak is rising summer temperatures... because electric vehicles need not be charged then, and they are computer controlled so they know when to charge.
In some localities residential solar is changing the exact time of peak load and often reducing daily peak load. The best argument is that electric vehicles require improvements to the utility writing is that electricity even more important so reliability of the network is more critical. But, well cell phones are pretty important.
I think the difference is since you do this at scale it puts a lot more pressure on the grid. EV adoption is still quite low relative to the fleet.
Yes heat load and AC are drivers for california grid and similar climate grids.
I would wager that if the north east went electric heating and EV they would have significant problems in the winter. Grid reliability would be even more important given that transportation and home heating are tied to it.
Those load profiles in aggregate would most certainly but pressure on the system both in transmission of electricity and production of energy.
Average CA car drives ~12kmi/year (above average).
That's less than 40miles/day and at ~250Wh/mi about 10kWh per electric vehicle day or 1kW for 10 hours for $1.50 at nighttime rates.
Typical air conditioning load is 30-50kWh per day residential customer during the summer.
There are ~2.5 registered vehicles per household (including commercial).
Charge at night and you'll use less than AC in the day.
Sure the north east will need more power and efficiency improvements while solar is less effective, but I expect them to have slower adoption as well. Residential solar added 5GW of typical spring day capacity while utilities added 7GW over the last 10 years. In another 10 years that will swamp daytime usage (except for winter) and utilities will be begging people to charge during the day.
Dunno, in most of those cases it seems to be direct effect of companies saving on infrastructure maintenance and then shifting the problems on customers.
I'd imagine if a given line can sustain peak heat AC usage it would also just be fine with flatter profile of heating the property.
> I'd imagine if a given line can sustain peak heat AC usage it would also just be fine with flatter profile of heating the property.
We aren't talking about heat and AC. We also need to cover EVs, electric tools (like chainsaws), electric heat, electric stoves, and other things. There is a push to electrify all the things.
The amount of electricity shifting all gas powered tools like chainsaws and lawn mowers to electricity is less than a drop in the bucket compared to the other needs. Changing all my tools from gas to battery increased my electric bill in the peak growing season by like 2.5kWh/month, compared to a usual usage of ~2,000kWh/mo. Its also a pretty easy to time shift demand and doesn't need that 2.5kWh in an instant, that was over a whole month!
Now your nit picking on one thing on the list. EVs, home heat/AC, and stoves are all substantial (depending on how much you use the stove). When looked at on a macro scale there is an impact.
> When looked at on a macro scale there is an impact.
At a macro level, for the chainsaws and tools that's as if each household left a single 4W LED lightbulb turned on all the time. If that's enough to have to seriously re-think the grid we're already massively doomed. I better go and talk to the power company to get approval before I plug in another lamp at home!
If you don't want someone nitpicking the equivalent of a 4W lightbulb on your list, don't include the equivalent of a 4W lightbulb on your list. It doesn't belong on a list comparing it with things like adding heat pumps, EVs, all electric home appliances like electric ranges and what not. All of those use literally hundreds of times more electricity, some during times which are hard to load shift or spread the load out over several hours.
Even then, when well time-shifted and people aren't excessive in their load, adding an EV to a household's energy usage really doesn't rock the boat nearly as much as you'd think.
The average car puts what, 14,000mi on it a year? Lots of EVs can get ~3.5mi/kWh, so that's 4,000kWh an average car would put on the grid over a year. So ~333kWh/mo. For a home using ~2,000kWh/mo before an EV, that's adding ~17% to their energy usage which can often easily be shifted and spread out to what is usually the lowest demand part of the day (late, late evening/early early morning). Its not like its doubling their usage to add an EV.
A large chunk of the time when my EV charges the wholesale electricity rates in my area are negative. Often during the way off-peak hours the grid is nowhere near max utilization. True, this varies from location to location, but no grid is operating at like 95% generating and delivery capacity all the time.
I do agree there will be some big changes that'll need to happen with electrification. Some places will have bigger changes than others, such as places that didn't even have AC before moving to heat pumps. But when it comes to places that already had to deal with a good amount of AC usage, switching from some other form of heating to heat pumps isn't really changing the peak usage that much. Its just keeping that high usage year round versus only in the summer.
But honestly if everyone on my street added an EV to their home the power company would not need to make a single change. The grid is already planned to handle all these homes with their AC running in the peak summer days while running an electric stove and the rest of their home appliances on normal schedules during waking hours, having a 28A or 32A circuit running at the coolest hours of the day when everyone is sleeping (practically nobody is doing laundry at 3am while running the oven and stove) isn't going to upend the grid. I realize not everyone on the planet lives on my street, but my street isn't some fanciful magical place that exists only in dreams.
As a further example to this, my EV is currently charging and will finish soon. The current wholesale market rate for electricity in my area is -$1.40/MWh. There's so much spare capacity at the moment they're more than giving it away. We could have many thousands of cars charging right now and it wouldn't make a difference on the grid tonight.
I don't know where you live but in my state (TN) most of the residential heating is electric already in my area. If the gas was turned off, the local coop wouldn't have any issues whatsoever meeting the demand.
A recent cold snap left East coast with rolling black outs across a number of states.
This is not California where you put on a warm jacket.
You heat the home, find shelter somewhere or die.
I kept getting notes to hold off on using appliances for a few days. Can imagine that if our areas heat was electric that would have collapsed the grid.
I'm not familiar with your utility's challenges with delivering electricity, but it is a very solvable problem to greatly improve reliability.
Vermont's Green Mountain Power does great work, perhaps you can fire you utility commission and get one that will reign in your utility's incompetence.
I live in NH and my town was part of it ... a 70mph single gust of wind at the boundary of a storm came through and knocked down around 60 or so trees in our 4,000 person community. Many, many pathways were simultaneously interrupted.
It is incredible that the power company got power restored in a 36 hour window, when half of it was Christmas Eve.
"rolling blackout" is a very specific term used when grids are overloaded (usually when not enough generation is happening), which means that the operator is intentionally cutting power to some areas to save on energy. The areas keep changing (such that each area is out of power for just a few hours at a time), hence the name "rolling".
The OP said that the eastern storm is proof the grid is not resilient enough because of rolling blackouts, which I find hard to believe without some more sources/reasoning.
I am not sure why you're attacking me, instead of what I'm saying, but you can't use "rolling blackout" as a description for "some power lines were downed by the wind". Rolling blackouts are bad, but they are initiated by the power companies when the grid is under stress from an imbalance between production and consumption. Lines affected by trees and other natural elements have nothing to do with that, and these natural occurrences won't change if we switch to 100% electric or not.
In my town the temperature dropped to like 15 degrees on Christmas Eve and due to demand one of the substations exploded. There were about 10,000 people without power from 10am to 10pm on Christmas Eve. That additionally caused a lot of commercial buildings to have pipes burst which depressurized the water system. That caused main underground water lines to collapse and around 5k people had no water for 3 days. Similar events happened in a few other areas as well.
Just have a wood stove or fireplace for emergencies? Harder in cities but anywhere with detached homes, this doesn't seem like a difficult problem to solve.
A wood stove isn't a trivial thing to maintain or install. Sure we could require everyone to add one but that's a huge expense for a lot of people. After they have one, you need to manage your firewood which involves having enough for your needs delivered ahead of when you need it, you need to store it somewhere it will stay dry, you need to educate people on how to properly use the wood stove, etc. and that's not even considering the insurance implications and the guarantee that there will be a lot more housefires. Propane heat would be simpler but still costly to install.
President is currently trying to ban gas stoves.
Also I imagine save the tree groups would lose their minds on burning wood in more areas of the country.
Air quality folks probably wouldn’t be happy either.
A wood stove is an excellent piece of infrastructure to protect a house that can freeze solid if the electricity goes out.
When we lose power, we can't even flush the toilets because we have an electric well pump. (We should get a generator, perhaps). But I can always go outside and find some wood and keep the house from freezing and bursting. (I guess it also requires me to be here, to be transparent)
"Just"? We have a wood stove. We primarily heat with it. It's awesome, and I don't want anybody to think otherwise with what I'm about to say.
It'll keep the place above 50F/10C starting from 62F/16C unattended for (generously) 8 hours. Less if it's cold. Is this primarily because the house is a log cabin with 50 year-old windows? Yeah, but lots of other houses are poorly insulated too. Once it hits 50F, a direct vent propane furnace kicks on to maintain that temperature.
When you are around, it requires a certain amount of active participation that a regular furnace does not. Is it burdensome? No, but it behooves you to have a look and act every time you walk by if action is needed.
It heats one room well, and the rest of the first floor poorly. We've added a 200mm case fan to circulate some air from the living room (where the stove is) to the kitchen. The kitchen will be a reasonable temperature several hours after the living room nonetheless. This is a roughly 600sf/60sm first floor. The second floor stays decidedly brisk, which is fine because we like sleeping with it cold. Obviously the circulation fan isn't running when the power is out.
It takes up a bunch of space. Wood stoves require clearances for safety: You don't want to light the wall on fire because the stove is too close. And probably also a non-flammable hearth for many applications.
The chimney needs an annual cleaning. You could argue that a rarely used chimney doesn't need to be cleaned of creosote on an annual basis, but the chimney sweep is also doing inspection of everything and making sure e.g. the cap is still attached and doing its job of keeping the birds out. I would not be excited by the idea of a whole subdivision worth of suburbanites lighting their wood stoves simultaneously for the first time in 5 years at some remove from their last chimney inspection.
The exhaust is likely dirtier than a modern gas furnace. Especially while you're getting it going or have it damped down. There are EPA standards, sure, but there are a lot of old stoves out there that don't comply.
Wood. We burn a couple cords annually, typically 2-ish. That's on the low side, in part because our wood stove is a little undersized (we didn't buy it), and you'd be hard-pressed to burn more in it if you tried. If you're only using your stove for an emergency, you surely don't need that much, but remember, we're really only heating 1200sf. Most houses in the US are somewhat larger to obscenely larger. A quarter of a cord isn't likely to last long in a cold snap with the power out. How much wood are we asking people to keep around for a (hopefully) once every five year occurence. Plus kindling. Plus tinder. Plus matches.
A wood stove is like any other mechanical system. It works best when it's well-maintained and the user is well-practiced. It takes up an immense amount of space inside and out that's hard to justify paying for if you aren't using regularly, and it does an inferior job of heating a typical-size US house at best.
Fireplaces, dare I say, are worse in literally every respect.
We did not lose power the weekend before Christmas; we got nailed the weekend before. It was lovely; it was like a vacation put a stockpot on top to melt snow for water (the well pump doesn't run when the power is out).
On the other hand, I missed my nephew's birthday because one of us had to keep the house warm. I also ate box mac n'cheese for a couple of meals. A wood stove that isn't specifically designed for cooking doesn't cook, and an electric stove isn't worth a shit when the power is out. Fortunately, we're hikers and have a backpacking stove. Unfortunately, it doesn't lend itself to particularly fancy cooking unless you've planned very specifically to cook on it.
>We size the grid for peak capacity, not for average capacity, which means that there's a very low overall usage amount. And the big drivers of additional electricity, heating and transportation, are easily shiftable to non-peak times.
How's heating "shifttable" ? None of the usual systems to heat house does it (inertia is not the same)
One of the biggest current methods of "demand response" is shifting HVAC loads from large commercial buildings: pre-heating or pre-cooling by a few degrees, and then lessening the HVAC activity during the peak time. This can be done at the residential level with devices like a Nest thermostat, and be overridable by the customer if they don't want to save the $0.25 or whatever.
Water heating is even easier to implement this way, but requires smarter water heaters.
Yes we will need more electrical generation. I have zero interst in solar panels on my house. I don't live in an area where they would be particularly useful; moreover, I don't want to own them, or to be responsible for maintaining them; I don't want large batteries in my house, or to be responsible for maintaining those. I don't want transfer switches or the responsibility of maintaining those. I want to pay the electric utility to deliver electricity to my house. Everything about generating it, transmitting it, storing it, I want to be their responsibility.
The ability for power companies to deliver on this reliably is decreasing as our society grows increasingly low-trust. This is why you may want to take control of your own destiny and secure your own source of power.
Last I heard (a friend is a retired Electrical Engineer, with solar panels), there is a massive cost & complexity gap between "have solar panels on the roof of house" and "control your own destiny" (meaning you're able to run your house off-grid via solar panels).
The former only needs (relatively) simple/stupid/cheap power & control electronics. Mimic the frequency & phase of the incoming AC from the utility, and let the panels run at 100%, 24x7, regardless of in-home power usage. Any solar_output > local_usage excess gets shoved back at the utility, any solar_output < local_usage shortage gets drawn from the utility, and dealing with that unpredictable yo-yo is 100% their problem and expense.
The latter - even with no batteries - requires a bunch of complex control electronics - because solar panels do not magically put out 120VAC at 60Hz, for any load short of their maximum current power output.
I’m not sure I agree with this. While off grid integration isn’t seamless, I find that it’s much easier to understand, equipment is plentiful and cheaper than a grid tie system.
Smaller scale off grid systems can also be done with no installation/permitting costs if you set it up as a solar “ups” and put your critical loads on it. (Though I would at least have an electrician setup a critical loads panel and have your off grid inverter power that. )
It’s insane radicals that try and shut everything down that are causing people to have to become more self-reliant.
Most people I know have trouble remembering to change the oil in their car. Being in charge of electrical generation and giant batteries is not a good idea for many.
I could see not wanting to deal with solar panels, but for example does a Powerwall require much maintenance? It isn’t like lead acid where you have to top them off occasionally or whatever.
And if you live somewhere with, like, reasonably first-world-ish infrastructure you only get an occasional blackout, which should only last like a day or so. Size a battery for a normal day of use or a couple days of rationed use, and then never have a power outage again.
I think the article does a disservice to its thesis by focusing on California. Half the country lives in places where subzero temperatures are an issue. Not to mention, the rest of the country doesn't have the sunlight hours to make solar as viable, let alone the disposable wealth to upgrade their homes. Electric cars are still a long way from viability in most places, though it may not seem that way in California.
Nearly every state in the us has very viable solar. The blockers are not economic, but regulatory from the utility and utility commission side.
There are small solar arrays all over farms in Minnesota, for example.
Solar is super cheap, and only getting cheaper. Cheap enough that one can start to size your array for the seasonal minimum. And as storage gets super cheap this decade, solar plus storage are a "baseload" combo.
I'll believe this when I see successful startup utilities cropping up all over for the low capital investment of buying a field and filling it with solar panels. Hell, I'd settle for seeing the existing utility companies doing this en masse.
The barrier to this isn't economics, it's the regulatory process for utilities, which are often regulated to be monopolies.
And for that matter, this sort of building of solar projects by small players has been going on for years, very successfully, under a PPA model.
In places where it's allowed for startups to build new generation resources and get compensated on the market, such as Texas' ERCOT, solar is a dominant force. The challenge is not the tech, the challenge is that too many people are doing it, draining the supply chain:
These are good points, but I would add that there are not qualified installers of solar in most areas. I'm not sure if you'd chalk that up to regulation or economics, but it's probably a little bit of both.
> country doesn't have the sunlight hours to make solar as viable
California somehow gets more sunlight than the rest of the US? If I recall for physics, the amount of light depends on the latitude, not what state you're in.
> If you electrify everything (electric stove, electric car, air conditioner/heater) you are going to be hard pressed in many locales to be covered by at home solar.
That's exactly backwards, though. The problem[1] with ad-hoc local solar installations is that they're undersubscribed, and end up pumping juice back into the grid at inconvenient times where it can't be used. Being able to use that power locally is the goal, not something to be solved.
[1] From the perspective of resource management. If you want to install solar as part of a prepper/off-grid effort you have a lot more design work to do and are absolutely going to have to inefficiently overprovision.
My village (UK) copes easily with everyone at home with the ovens on full cooking Christmas dinner and putting the kettle on after a football match, so clearly plenty of spare peak capacity (the grid has to match supply of course)
The average car in the UK does about 7,000 miles a year, in the US about 12,000. That's 230 miles a week in the US, needing about 76kWh of power. That's an average 450W draw. Homes used to use more than that keeping the lights on.
No doubt about electric generation, we need far more. Not hard, not expensive either. Generating it at a constant rate is a different thing, but with 200 million mobile batteries connected to the grid that's a fair amount of power shifting that's available.
For your power outage problems, I had one last night. They turned the power off because a vehicle crashed into the overhead lines. With no power my oil boiler doesn't work, so it's rather moot. Do US home typically have heating that can work without any electricity? Do they generate their own electricity to run pumps etc?
There is a push to move to electric heat generation in homes in some areas. If electricity goes out you loose heat. In many areas you can have weeks (even months) where the temperature is below freezing. Loose heat to your home and your pipes can freeze. When this happens they burst causing damage to the home.
There are very few houses that have a heating system that works without electric. There are blowers/fans that turn on when when the furnace turns on. Most of the time the thermostat itself needs mains power to function (the thermostat gets power from the furnace, but ultimate it comes from the mains feed). It isn't even possible to have a modern 90+ efficiency furnace without mains as the exhaust is not hot enough to let convection take care of the exhaust.
A gas furnace doesn't need much power though. A heat pump needs a lot of power, and resistance heating is worse.
Are you trying to say that the risk to lose electricity is bigger than the risk to lose the other heat sources? Wouldn't houses at risk have some sort of contingency measures in place such as insulated pipes, alternative heat sources,..?
> Are you trying to say that the risk to lose electricity is bigger than the risk to lose the other heat sources?
From my personal experiences, yes. Gas pipelines are practically always buried, electricity lines are often overhead and subject to storm damage. There have been dozens of times in my life where electricity is out but natural gas infrastructure is still available.
I wonder what causes this, the gas infrastructure needs electricity for the compressors too but maybe they have auxiliary power at each pump station? Some pressure reduction is probably acceptable too so there might be "automatic" redundancy.
> Are you trying to say that the risk to lose electricity is bigger than the risk to lose the other heat sources?
In many places electricity is transitioned via above ground lines. Natural gas is via buried pipes. The above ground lines have far more issues due to natural events (like storms or tree branches falling).
In addition to this, electricity already hit peak loads in some areas due to other things drawing on it.
Electricity is more likely to have outages than natural gas.
Pipes don't freeze immediately. A semi-decently insulated house will loose less than 10 degrees per day, so it would take a few days before pipes start freezing.
Cool! Most of the houses in areas of the US where pipes freeze are quite old, many have effectively no insulation (the one I currently rent has no insulation at all). If heat goes out, it'll reach outside temperature within a day. People here in Buffalo recently died because a blizzard took out electricity, homes lost heat, and they froze (mostly when they tried to get to the "warming shelter" locations and were trapped, but trapped in a car without heat vs trapped in a house without heat is freezing all the same).
yeah, but those houses aren't the ones that are getting electric heat. that's almost all only new construction. (and if you are in a house like this you'll gain a lot more by replacing the windows than the heat)
> According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the mean annual wage for an electrician in the U.S. is about $63,000 compared with an average of $58,000 for all occupations.
They go on to point out it's higher in the Bay, and there's a wide range with many making more, but that's the mean so that means many are also
making less. As explained earlier in the piece those high-paying union jobs are not the ones where this new residential retrofit demand is being generated. $5,000 above the average wage is a joke for a regulated, skilled trade. This will have to change.
It's complicated and depends on the state. AFAIK California doesn't require an electrician license to be an electrician, so salaries are actually not that great compared to other parts of the country (Bay Area possibly excluded). Oregon does require a license, and there is a wide range of salary depending on which part of the State you're in, but at the lowest a journeyman (comparable to junior dev fresh out of college) will be making ~$60,000/yr in the lower-cost parts of the state. In the Portland area, you'd be making more than $60k even as an electrician apprentice.
Anecdotally, my dad is an electrician and makes roughly what I made as a senior developer except he's way more in-demand and can make a decent living in any city in Oregon (or Maine because they have a cross-licensing scheme with Oregon). I live a couple houses down from an electrician in a LCOL part of the state, and his house is nicer and larger than mine!
I would have gone into the field, but the waitlist for apprenticeships was hundreds of people long during the Great Recession, and it's going to be difficult to start a new career at the bottom for me at this point.
Even in the Bay Area, the pay is not all that great compared to other trades and other professions.
The adoption of EVs, which are very common around here, has been very good for the owners of the companies that install them -- but the workers get paid the same hourly whether they are installing EV chargers or boring old normal stuff.
I was an electrician in the US Navy but couldn't get an electricians job out of the Navy without starting over. We could help this shortage if we did more to qualify military electricians as civilian electricians when they leave the military.
We are thinking of switching some gas appliances to electric in our old farmhouse but we probably need to rework our electrical panel completely to add high amperage services for an induction range (my wife won't accept an ordinary electric range) and an electric water heater.
Fortunately our son is in training as a handyman and that means we can get him working on projects of all kinds around the farm. Of all the trades, electricity is the one that I know enough about to supervise somebody. (e.g. I am baffled by plumbing)
If you need to upgrade your service entrance, if it's within your means, go to 400A to future proof (EVs, HVAC and hot water heat pumps, induction stove, and other large loads all add up, along with colocated generation of some sort). Depending on your authority having jurisdiction (AHJ) and utility, they may require a licensed electrician to replace the raceway or similar entrance to the meter. 200A is satisfactory if greater amperage isn't available (US centric advice). Think of this as the residential version of "dig once" [1].
EDIT: Yes, you may not need 400A immediately, but if you're doing an upgrade, the cost delta between the conductors for 200A vs 400A is not substantial except for very long runs. Also, some utilities will cover the cost of a service upgrade to the meter; from the meter onward into the home is your cost. Balance cost with future needs, future labor costs, etc. Very similar to dropping a whole bunch of cheap fiber in a trench just in case you need it in the future.
I usually recommend people combine this work with a solar PV install, to capture the 30% federal tax credit towards the work (if you can justify the upgrade as necessary, which you can if your current service is less than 200A), as it has no limit on the amount you can capture as part of the install (versus the previous tax credit for electrical upgrade costs for installing an EV charging station).
I always forget the size difference between US and UK homes (I assume toomuchtodo is speaking from a US perspective). Here, in my three-bedroom UK house I'm on a 60A service fuse and considering updating to 100A in the future (amusingly, as part of a solar PV / electric vehicle charger install).
I've never heard of a UK house having a larger than 100A service (although I imagine they exist here and there - it's certainly not common).
I'd never heard of a 400 A service until just this discussion (it's common to have 100 A - 200 A), but it's important to keep in mind the voltage differences and that effect on total power:
UK: 100 A x 230 V = 23,00 W
US: 200 A x 120 V = 24,00 W
Edit: I am wrong in my understanding of US power distribution. It's 200 A per leg, which the US has two of. But it seems like the UK may or may not have 380 3 Phase, so the numbers are weird there too. Wrong all around!
Services to the US are at 240V though they just utilize a center tap transformer to allow two different 120v legs. So that 200 amp service is 200 amps at 240V so approximately 48kW. Largely US homes have bigger feeds in because the US has significantly larger homes on average and the prevalence of AC and other higher power usage devices in US homes.
> but it's important to keep in mind the voltage differences and that effect on total power:
> UK: 100 A x 230 V = 23,00 W
> US: 200 A x 120 V = 24,00 W
That's incorrect. The service drop in the US is 220V. It gets stepped down at the main load center to 120V for most of the regular circuits. So it's more like 48000W service in US houses.
Only small correction to that is that load center doesn't step down voltage. The center tapped transformer at the street steps down the voltage to 240V, but then that center tap on the transformer becomes your neutral so you end up with two legs that are 120V from ground/neutral and 240V from leg to leg in your load center.
240V. Since we're throwing around numbers, let's be accurate. This is a pet peeve of mine. We've been standardized at 240V since 1967, and it was higher than 220V years before that.
Thanks for the correction about the actual voltage today.
However, it seems like 220V was the standard before that [1], which is why it's still common parlance, referring to the "higher" voltage. Certainly I've heard many people in the trades still refer to it with the older term, even if the circuit is actually 240V.
The voltage started at 220 way before the 60s, and then increased incrementally over the years, until standardizing at 240V. I don't know when the first bump past 220 happened exactly, and it may not have been simultaneous in all areas. I gather the reason for the standardization was to stop the creep and pick a voltage to stick with for everyone.
So that 380V would be for 3 phase to a home which is not always the case. There are plenty of homes in Europe that only have single phase to the house which is at 230V.
So how would you run an instant water heater or electric induction stove then? Every apartment and house I've ever lived in had 380V three-phase right to the kitchen, to the bathroom, and to basement rooms (e.g. for prosumer workshop tools).
We don't run an instant water heater. It's all gas or electric boilers.
For the stove I wired one phase to all the burners and the oven. It had one, two or three phase options. They're on a separate circuit with a 16 amp fuse. It's 2200W I believe. The breaker has never tripped.
400V is just not very common for residential in the Eastern Europe, maybe in your country you have instant electric heaters and other powerful appliances. My dad has recently upgraded his house to 400V 3 phase though, although he didn't need it but it's nice to have.
> So how would you run an instant water heater or electric induction stove then? Every apartment and house I've ever lived in had 380V three-phase right to the kitchen,
I run an induction stove on 220V single phase every day here in the US.
It's not about having 400 amps per se but about sizing the wire you put in the ground. Maybe you'll have a 200a main breaker and you'll only ever use 200 amps, etc. - but the hard part was digging and future you or other future yous will be happy that the wire was upsized when it was put in.
Same with conduit. Same with number of conduits.
I can't tell you how many times I have been very pleased with myself that I threw in that extra 3/4 conduit line when we dug that one trench that one time ...
I'm not sure where in EU you live, but every instant water heater, stove, and many semi-professional workshop devices require 380V. At least in Germany, 380V is standard for such devices and available in every household.
I think you might almost understand how it feels when someone makes gross generalizations across the entire US :).
One thing I keep learning about the EU is ... do not generalize using Germany as the baseline. There are many areas where Germany is the odd one out, not the standard.
Services to the US are at 240V they just utilize a center tap transformer to allow two different 120v legs. So that 200 amp service is 200 amps at 240V so approximately 48kW.
UK homes run on 230 volts, so each amp is worth double what US amps are worth (running on 115 volts in the US) edit: 115 volts per leg, and US has 2 legs, so it comes out in the wash, surprisingly. UK homes have tiny little service amps!
No. US homes run on 240V, not 120, and not 115 * 2. We provide a center-tap neutral so you can split the single phase 240V if you desire. And we do exactly that for many smaller circuits, including the majority of wall sockets.
> if it's within your means, go to 400A to future proof (EVs, HVAC and hot water heat pumps, induction stove, and other large loads all add up, along with colocated generation of some sort
I have all of these on 200A with amps to spare. But I have a small house. I suppose if I had multiple EVs, dryers, or heat pumps, or 3000sqft it would be a different story.
Again, see above - it's not about 400 amps per se ... it's about putting in bigger wire because we can't predict the future.
It's spending a small additional amount now (on wire) to avoid an enormous expense (trench digging) in the future.
Oh, and you know that 3" conduit required for the 400amp ? Make it 4".
Oh, and you know that trench you just dug ? Throw in double 1.5" and double 3/4 conduits right in there with it.
Oh and you know that first two feet of dirt you filled in ? Now throw two more 3/4 conduits on top of that because you never know when a common carrier on that same pole will have fiber up on it ...
The future could also look like large batteries on-site that charge slowly, and then provide power at high amperage when needed, like slowly compressing a spring, then suddenly releasing it.
This is already what Electrify America and Freewire (https://freewiretech.com/) are doing with EV Fast chargers when the electric utility can't provide a higher power connection in a reasonable time-frame. As battery prices drop, that could be a viable way to power heavy home appliances.
This is double-great advice. It's completely obvious once mentioned but not something that may have occurred of the top of ones head. Thank-you for posting.
It's strange because 400a service will probably NOT ever be needed, but the cost difference from 100-200 and 100-400 is basically nothing.
You can also get a separate meter installed instead or alongside, this can be useful it the property could be dual purpose (think: duplex, house + machine shop, etc). This can increase costs because of double baseline but it can also reduce costs because of double "low tier" - depends on the market.
Good advice. I just did the 400 amp upgrade. Our 3200 sq ft house was still on 150 amp service from the 1980s, and going to 200 amps just didn’t seem to add much capacity relative to the cost. Was about $12K to go to 400 amps with two 200 amp panels.
> She's right. Induction has the speed and response of a gas cooktop with the precision a resistance electric cooktop.
This, and also easier cleanability than either of them (basically it doesn't need more cleaning than the rest of your kitchen counter) and much safer (won't heat anything non-metallic that you leave on top, won't heat the surface of the stovetop itself except indirectly via heat transmission from the pots/pans, and will automatically turn off if it doesn't detect a metallic item).
I have one and there's no way in hell I'd go back to an ordinary electric range as long as I can afford not to.
I've been looking at them, but almost all have unusable touch controls. (My background is human machine interaction - I've never seen an acceptable stove, but induction stoves are all really bad). Since I've have to replace all my cookware as well I'm not in any hurry.
Functionally, the touch controls make the whole thing much easier to clean, but I agree they are harder to use.
As with the touchscreens in cars, I'm sure it's also about marketing a sleeker product and lowering the bill of materials and labor - hence cost of manufacturing.
Just wait a little longer and a manufacturer will start offering physical dials on an induction stove as a high-end feature, but also realize that it will still be control by wire like a computer input device, not a mechanically coupled control like a (dumb) dimmer switch - since it would be ultimately controlling the inductor in the stovetop via software.
I've got an electric radiant cooktop. It has a number of those features such as easy to clean (just a flat glass panel) and won't heat without detecting a pan and will turn off the element if the pan is removed for more than a couple of seconds. It does get hot itself instead of just heating the pan, but when cooking I don't know that would make much of a difference. You've still got a very hot pan sitting on the cooktop imparting a lot of heat for probably a while.
Don't get me wrong there's other pros/cons to induction but you don't need to get induction to have those benefits.
The fact that induction cooktops don't get hot themselves make them even easier to clean. I had a flat glass electric cooktop as well in the past, it was of course much easier to clean than older ones with protruding stoves, but still, some liquids and sauces got stuck to it due to being hot and I had to scrub with a scouring pad or, in the worst case, use a scraper blade. This doesn't happen with induction so 99% of the time, cleaning the induction cooktop just boils down to wiping with a wet microfiber cloth. The scouring pad is seldom needed and I think I've used the scraper once or twice in eight years of having induction. On the other hand, the fact that the surface is less hot also means that you have to wait less to clean it.
I had no idea that some non-induction cooktops could also detect pans, though. In my mind that feature has always been linked to induction. Good to know it's not necessarily like that.
Precision makes no sense for a pan and is something a person who doesn't actually cook would care about. Your pans change temperature when cold food is put into them. Anyone who cooks knows that you are changing the temperature on your cooking surface constantly in many applications and it's based on the visual and audio queues your food give you. At no point have I thought "OK, I need to be at 400 degrees and in 1 minute I will adjust down to 300 degrees.". I don't care about precision like I would when doing sous-vide cooking or baking, for example - both of which are great uses for electric fuel sources.
The problem with induction is the thing it's good at (heating water quickly) isn't a useful feature. A gas flame is a 3D cooking surface and this is important as I want heat applied to the sides of pans in many instances. Also, copper and aluminium cookware don't work on them and they are superior materials for cooking with in many instances.
> Precision makes no sense for a pan and is something a person who doesn't actually cook would care about. Your pans change temperature when cold food is put into them. Anyone who cooks knows that you are changing the temperature on your cooking surface constantly in many applications and it's based on the visual and audio queues your food give you.
I know exactly what to expect when I set my induction stove to 8 (out of 10) and let my daily-use pan heat for 1 minute. That's the setting at which I can temper oil with dry spices without burning them.
This isn't a function of the induction element, but rather the digital controls. Naturally I adjust the setting once the cold food goes in the pan, but having a calibrated starting point for my cooking flow is pretty useful, and I cook for my family daily.
> The problem with induction is the thing it's good at (heating water quickly) isn't a useful feature.
An induction stove can heat anything quickly, not just water. And importantly it can rapidly change temperature, unlike a resistance electric stove.
> Also, copper and aluminium cookware don't work on them and they are superior materials for cooking with in many instances.
However, I've never seen a recipe that called for a copper or aluminum pan specifically. The benefit of copper is supposed to be precision temperature control, but as you said, precise temperatures don't matter for day to day cooking.
> I know exactly what to expect when I set my induction stove to 8 (out of 10) and let my daily-use pan heat for 1 minute. That's the setting at which I can temper oil with dry spices without burning them.
Same, I just turn a knob and it outputs the same BTUs every time - it isn't random.
>An induction stove can heat anything quickly, not just water. And importantly it can rapidly change temperature, unlike a resistance electric stove.
Again, I'm generally not too concerned about speed here. But yes, I'm very much concerned with changing temperatures quickly which involve not only the heat source but just as importantly, the cookware which leads me to....
> You can just use one of these:...The benefit of copper is supposed to be precision temperature control, but as you said, precise temperatures don't matter for day to day cooking.
Copper is a superior material because it changes temperature extremely quickly because it is such a great conductor - it's not about precision (except with candy making where induction could be great) rather than reactivity. When I turn the gas up the pan reacts to that change immediately and when I turn the gas down it reacts immediately to that. Unlike a material like cast iron which can store a lot of energy, it doesn't react to changes in input quickly so is not suitable for many things - you can't finesse a cast iron pan very easily. Seriously, get a nice gas range and a high end copper pan and cook with it - you'll be amazed. It's why so many chefs insist on the combination of gas and copper.
And no, I'm not buying one of those useless disks to make a copper pan work in induction. It kills the entire point of a copper pan and just gives you a cool, high-end look without the actual functionality. I'd feel like a complete fool because I would be.
I'm happy induction exists for people that want it or believe gas will harm them. But it's not for everyone and there's extremely good reasons many people want to cook over open flame. When I'm not using gas to cook you'll find me outside burning wood fires to cook with.
> Seriously, get a nice gas range and a high end copper pan and cook with it - you'll be amazed.
I cooked on gas for 25 years, including with all sorts of pots/pans. It was great and I preferred it greatly to resistance electric stoves. And then I switched to induction and couldn't be happier with both the cooking performance and the indoor air quality improvement. You (and many others) aren't concerned with or don't believe in the air quality problems of burning gas in a house. To each their own!
For my part, I tell everyone I know to maximize ventilation if they are cooking indoors with gas, and to try an induction stove to see if it works for them.
> When I'm not using gas to cook you'll find me outside burning wood fires to cook with.
That has nothing to do with the discussion about induction, but thanks for sharing, because I also love cooking over burning wood! We're more alike than you think!
I think that’s the problem. There’s unelected officials suggesting they’re going to just ban them based on a biased (and very faulty - it isn’t quality science) study funded by activists groups. I’ve used induction and it’s ok but it doesn’t feel right to be, I can’t use materials I prefer, and I can’t do things like hold a pan a bit higher for a second, flambé, etc. I love induction for deep frying though. It’s much safer!
I have a 1300 cfm exhaust with a makeup air system so I’m not concerned.
> Of all the trades, electricity is the one that I know enough about to supervise somebody. (e.g. I am baffled by plumbing)
Curiously, we’re in opposite situations. I have a (very) basic understanding of electricity, just enough to change power outlets and the like. But in general I’m baffled by it because it’s a bunch of dangerous stuff I can’t see with values I don’t fully understand¹.
Plumbing, on the other hand, is water inside tubes controlled mechanically. Taking things apart reveals the simplicity of the system. After doing a fix I can feel confident in the safety and reliability of the work even before opening on the main valve again².
¹ If anyone has recommendations on a trustworthy course / YouTube playlist which teaches enough basics to understand electrical wiring in residential homes, I’m interested.
² I’m not doing super complex jobs, but in my own home it’s been years since I’ve needed to call a plumber.
I received a PhD in physics so I got a solid dose of electricity and electronics.
I did help teach an autotutorial class in physics for premeds which got me to do a little more with fluid mechanics than most people but the trouble I have with plumbing is finding documentation for the details.
For instance when it comes to sealing PVC pipes I have seen instructions that tell you to "refer to the documentation from the pipe manufacturer" which is not at all straightforward for pipes that have been there 20+ years.
There are a lot of laws and regulations about electrical installations.
In many regions, doing it legally requires lots of courses and certificates. When you have invested all the time and money into getting said certificates, which is sometimes multiple years full time, you typically want to become a full time electrician to pay back the time+money investment.
That means that 'I just do electrics on the side' is becoming a thing of the past - at least in places with strict certification requirements.
Obviously in most parts of the world, there is no electrical police who will raid your home and look for evidence of wiring done without the correct certifications.
Therefore, lots of people DIY stuff illegally...
If you choose this route, understand that:
* The main cause of injury/death caused by electrics is fires. Fires are normally caused by improper fuses (a fuse/breaker should always be the lowest rating of any device/cable/connector downstream of it, unless that device has its own fuse), or badly made joints. Do joints properly with wago blocks or by tightening screw terminals very tight.
* The 'obvious' risk from electrics of electrocution is reduced to almost zero by installing a whole-house RCD/GFCI device. I wouldn't want to live in a house without one. And turn the power off before doing electrical work.
Are you sure that's "illegal" or just "illegal to take money for it" ? Here (Poland) you can do it just fine on your own stuff as long as you don't pretend to be electrician and sell your service, with caveats (only touching anything after power company stuff IIRC)
In much of the US, you are allowed to do any work that you want to on your own property, though if a professional would be required to get permits and inspections to do the same work then you usually still have to get those permits/inspections.
In most cases you use solid wire. In case you use stranded you should crimp the ends anyway, and crimping does exactly opposite, crushes wires so tightly they form practically solid metal.
Strands only break when wire moves and that would be the fault of bad stress relief, not "screwing it too hard"
I have seen lots of near-fires/melted things from under-tightening, but I have never seen a single near-fire from overtightening. I suspect it's a myth - I don't think you could overtighten any connector sufficiently to make it be a fire risk without the screw shearing first.
I'd be interested to see tests demonstrating otherwise though.
Obviously if you are doing it to the standards, you crimp the wire first and use a torque screwdriver to tighten to the exact correct torque.
> I have seen lots of near-fires/melted things from under-tightening, but I have never seen a single near-fire from overtightening.
That depends what you see as near-fire ;) I recently helped out a friend whose lights had issues after she installed a more powerful fixture, turns out that the person installing it overtorqued the wire in the switch so much it nearly sheared off probably already during installation, and came completely apart when I took the switch out of the wall.
There's a startup that is adding a battery to induction appliances, in part so that you can run off of a standard outlet: https://www.channingcopper.com
It's only in pre-orders, however. Edit: Looks like first round of pre-orders were limited to Bay Area and now there's a wait list for next round.
It's interesting that I've found the people who are comfortable with plumbing are very wary of electrical, and vice-versa.
Look for a "smart heat pump" water heater and you can probably get away without actually upgrading service unless you want to - 100 amp service can support a stove and water heater especially if the water heater is "smart" enough to not run when the stove is running.
You can also find a friendly electrician to "check off" on your wiring after you do most of the grunt work, this works well for areas that require permits even for homeowner-done work.
I was thinking more on the DIY side; I'm entirely comfortable with electrical, but I worry I wouldn't "do" plumbing right (soldering copper, mainly; I have no issue with PEX); a friend of mine is the opposite.
I believe the answer is that induction is more efficient at getting heat into your food.
With electric, it heats up a coil that heats up your pan (and the air around it) that heats your food.
With induction, it skips the coil and simply heats the pan. The pans are specially designed to contain a heating coil in them which implicitly is closer to your food.
It also means the work surface tends to cool quickly (or never get hot in the first place), making it safer.
>The pans are specially designed to contain a heating coil in them which implicitly is closer to your food.
Just to note, you don’t need special pans to use an inductive stove. Any magnetic cookware will do, which includes cast iron and most stainless steel. As an intuitive rule of thumb, if a magnet will stick to the bottom, then it’s compatible.
Induction compatible cookware doesn't have a heating coil. They just need ferrous metal in them. They can be clad in aluminum, with a ferrous core etc. A cast iron pan works fine, and most stainless steel cookware is fine. It's just the cheap teflon stuff that's out of luck.
Copper and aluminum can be used as a cladding around the ferrous metal core just fine. I guess you could do the same with some of the ceramics/stoneware as well.
Induction ranges are more efficient, so to heat at the same rate as an ordinary electric range, use less energy. But many people want an induction range that is more powerful than a typical electric range.
Yeah an induction range most likely wouldn't require any more power than a resistive range. The only caveat to that is that higher end ranges might have higher power draws due to having more burners and such and induction ranges tend to be the higher end. That being said it looks like most ranges require a 40 amp circuit now, while code now requires wiring a new range outlet for 50 amps even if you put a 40 amp breaker on it.
As an aside, for those watching from home - you can put LARGER connections downstream of smaller ones (50 amp outlet on a 40 amp breaker) because the worst case is your breaker will flip.
You can put SMALLER outlets on a larger breaker (40 amp outlet on a 50 amp breaker) because the outlet is SUPPOSED to keep you from overloading it (and the outlet will actually be rated for more than the "plug size")
The DANGER you must avoid is having a 50 amp outlet on a 50 amp breaker but only having wiring between them that can support 40 amps - and the amount of amperage a wire can support DROPS over longer distances. So it's best to size everything correctly from the beginning.
Standard non-metallic 8 gauge wire is only allowed to handle 40 amps. If you want to put 50 amps to the outlet you need more expensive wire (most likely 6 gauge, but there are other forms of 8 gauge that are approved for 50 amps). Since most stoves only need 40 amps electricians will run non-metallic 8 gauge by default and put a 40 amp breaker on it - then since there isn't such a thing as a 40 amp outlet they have a 50 amp outlet on the other end.
Yeah the main relationship that matters is the breaker to wire.
There is a fun semi related thing. Can you put 15 amp outlets on a 20 amp circuit? The answer is yes you can, but only if there is at least two receptacles, and a standard duplex outlet counts at two receptacles.
Which is another reason you don't want to oversize a breaker; you can have ten, twenty two-receptacle outlets on a single circuit, and if lots of stuff was plugged in you could easily draw tens or hundreds of amps, which would melt normal Romex pretty quickly.
This is an exception to the electric code, not the rule.
Almost every outlet must be paired with the appropriate wire size and breaker. A 30A outlet must be backed with a 30A breaker (no exceptions!) and wire must be at least capable of carrying 30 amps. There's also restrictions on wire size based on the outlet/breaker, since certain breakers/outlets cannot handle certain wire sizes. For instance, NEMA 5-15 outlets generally can't support wire sizes above 12 gauge, so you're limited to 12 or 14 gauge only.
Electric water heaters don’t need to draw a ton of amps. 4500 Watt, 240V 50 gallon ones are common, which is under 20 amps. Induction stoves peak at twice that.
I'm curious if there is some productivity-improving tech for electricians waiting to be invented. The following will be super North-America-centric, but:
Right now you have to fasten a box to the wall structure, cut the wire so that about 8" can make its way into the box, strip the outer insulation and insert it into the box, strip at least some of the individual conductors, and then splice (by twisting and using wire nuts, or less commonly using a press-fit dingus) the ones that need to be spliced.
You then repeat that for every outlet (which in electrician-speak includes lamps and such) on the circuit. Then repeat that for every circuit. You are now ready for your "rough" electrical inspection (the one before the in-wall wiring is covered).
Then before the final inspection you have to individually connect each conductor to (usually) a screw on the actual device before cramming^H^H^H^H^H^H carefully folding the wire back into the box and screwing the device in place, followed by screwing the cover in place.
Repeat for every outlet in the unit and you are ready for your final inspection.
What I'm picturing is a special box that can insulation-displacement-crimp right onto the wire (probably with some giant pliers. On the inside it has some sockets that the eventual device plugs straight into, possibly with a sort of optional middleware layer that can reconfigure the connections for less common hookups.
So you crimp all the boxes to the wire and fasten them to the wall structure and you're ready for the rough inspection.
Then after the walls are covered you plug in the devices directly for all of the common configurations (e.g. just a receptacle in a string of receptacles) and fiddle with some kind of middle layer for the oddball configurations (e.g. a duplex receptacle where one of them is switched).
As an alternative to the "middleware" maybe there are a collection of different boxes that are pre-configured for the circuit arrangement in question (not unlike plumbing components are today).
There have been attempts to use modular electrical systems, but consumers want choice and flexibility and governments at least in the US want those inspection $$$$s.
So, essentially "power over thicknet ethernet". Nobody liked that tech. "Worked in the lab, and whenever it breaks we can blame the user for improper abuse" was such a fiasco it resulted in the world being re-networked in twisted pair, which ironically is installed very much like legacy power outlets...
Also the only way to replace the outlet would seem to be to rip out the entire wall and splice in new cables like a complete do-over which seems a bit extreme although profitable, or do a high resistance fire causing re-crimp. This is "OK" for receptacles that last the life of the house, if the life of the house is short enough, but wall switches would be essentially unreplacable.
One idea that might save money is giving up on copper switched wall switches. Feed the wall switch 12 volts and let them speak zwave to control things.
What I'm proposing is that the electrical box (the blue plastic thing that's essentially non-removable in current practice) would have the vampire connection to one or more cables passing into/through it, and the actual device (outlet, switch, light fixture) would plug into some conductors at the back of the box. So you could replace outlets more easily than you can today.
The boxes would come in a few varieties based on the number of cables that could pass into/through them. Again I'm picturing some kind of intermediate layer between the box and the device that could accommodate less-common connection arrangements, but maybe you lose a bit of flexibility in the name of progress.
The connections wouldn't have to be 100% reliable, but at least as reliable than hand-twisted wires and wire nuts (also AFCI breakers could eliminate a lot of the fire risk).
You might be in for a difficult discovery about how unreliable consumer-grade connectors have always been across all the history of EE-land, compared to professionally installed (or even amateur installed) wire nuts.
(edited, not to say its impossible; perhaps your innovation would in itself be the world first reliable connector...)
You need to invent it, and make it cost effective. While there is a lot of labor, I'm not sure if you can actually invent something better that is also safe and will last for decades. I welcome you to figure it out though.
Implementing this would cost a lot more and would need uptake from all of the hardware manufacturers plus building code changes. The productivity improving tech you're looking for is called an apprentice though opinions differ on how much time they save/waste.
I mean apprentices are great, but we just got done reading an article about how there's a shortage of workers in the field.
You can either train more workers to do it the old way or invent new ways that require fewer workers (or less highly-skilled ones).
Kind of how PEX plumbing (whatever its drawbacks) has made it much simpler to plumb a house than it was when soldering copper fittings onto copper pipes was the norm (let alone threaded connections shudder).
Or even something as simple as studs that come pre-drilled at outlet and switch height (they already come pre-cut to slightly less than 8 feet to be the right height when installed between top and bottom plates).
What purpose would this serve? A drill and drill bit is a very common, quick, and easy to use tool. If you were screwing a box to a stud, I do not think you even need a pre drilled hole. You can just use any wood screw.
Also, outlet/switch boxes get nailed to the studs during construction, and modifications to those boxes are fastened to the drywall, in my experience.
insulation-displacement-crimps are not a good idea for the relatively high amounts of power coming through household wiring. Not much contact area, lots of potential for high resistance and heat and oxidation at the contact point. I wouldn't trust them.
Maybe insulation displacement isn't exactly the way to go, but some kind of machine that quickly secures a connection onto a cable, either inline or at the end. And then create modular electrical boxes that those connections can connect to (probably somewhat permanently).
It could even start out as basically a fancy wire stripper and a box with push-in connections that switches/outlets subsequently plug into.
Unrelated, but sharing just in case: I don't have electricity training, but last month I replaced my electric panel (upgrading to 30 circuits, keeping 100 amps) and it was easy: turn off every breaker (hiding face behind metal panel as is good safety strategy), turn off main, disconnect the meter, touch all dangling hot wires to ground (just in case, unsure if there's weird residual charge from something). Except for applying Noalox, everything is just routine - strip a bit of the wire, screw it into circuit breaker, pop it in. Make sure the panel is grounded to outside (as before), and it's done. Feels like a very easy task for most people - provided that the old wiring didn't have errors.
Your willingness to repeatedly follow a process without deviation puts you into a much smaller group than the general population.
Yes, the average person can do it, but many won't. And it will be innocent bystanders or firefighters or whatever that pay the ultimate price, not the sloppy guy or gal that saved a few dollars by doing it themselves.
I wish that our building codes and permitting system had provisions for "competent amateurs", but how on earth would you do that?
> I wish that our building codes and permitting system had provisions for "competent amateurs", but how on earth would you do that?
What does this mean? Any “amateur” is allowed to do the work anytime they want (on their own home), and anyone can apply for a permit. They just have to pass the same inspection as everyone else. I do not see why the code (rules) would be different though, the principles of electricity and safety do not change.
> Any “amateur” is allowed to do the work anytime they want (on their own home)
This is not true across all US states, let alone other countries.
I currently live in a jurisdiction that does allow home owners to do their own electrical work, but they have to pass a (demanding) exam before being licensed to do so. In my previous home state, home owners were not allowed - even if you did the work, a licensed electrician had to be "seen to be responsible".
Interesting, I have not come across a US state that does not allow a homeowner to do it themselves, assuming they follow the same permitting and inspection requirements.
Which states do not allow DIY electrical? A quick search is not coming up with any examples.
It's not decided at the state level, at least not always. In Pennsylvania, Lower Merion Township will not permit homeowners do perform their own electrical or plumbing work.
To be fair, a lot of "professionals" aren't super competent, even to the point of reading the manuals of things they're installing, and it's difficult to find people whose work isn't sloppy and half-assed. In these cases the only advantage hiring a contractor brings is their liability if something goes wrong, and their ability to deliver a whole crew on short notice.
This!
I‘ve build a wooden holiday house and we‘ve installed all cables and lamps and plugs and at the end the electrician just verified and approved before connecting the main line.
That's not a consideration here. They were just replacing a smaller 100A panel with a larger one. with more circuit spots. That is always allowed.
As long as you you use a panel that accepts the same type of breakers, you can also re-use the existing breakers, unless code require upgrading to AFCI breakers. Otherwise you swap them for new breakers of the same rating. (Assuming the US: There are some inspectors who would ok a panel swap that reused the existing breakers without requiring upgrades, but technically upgrading is supposed to be required, unless your state amended out the AFCI requirements in the state version of the code). Note: technically many breakers can fit in competitor panels, but they are not legal. They were not designed nor tested to trip at proper ratings in those panels, and using them violate the labeling of the panel.
Now obviously the reason for upgrading the panel is to add more circuits, and it is possible that these additional circuits if added would need more power than the 100A service can provide. To technically comply with code, you need to follow the rules to calculate the expected loading of existing circuits plus planned new circuits.
The last sentence you wrote is the killer. You are technically correct that changing the number of circuits in the panel is not itself disallowed. But .... you would also be hard pressed to get an AHJ to pass a number-of-circuits upgrade without knowing how many circuits you are planning on adding, and doing the feed sizing calculation to make sure you don't have to upgrade the incoming feed to support it.
The panel and the breakers in it are different things. If you get the right size breakers, that's fine, and even a good idea (breakers go bad over time from what I know. Maybe due to number of trips?).
Putting in a new panel can get you more space, or just update to a currently maintained standard for breakers so you can find and put new ones in.
I didn't touch the wiring; just made sure to use the same exact amperage (though I bought all new breakers just in case, and upgraded one to an AFCI - Michigan doesn't require AFCI on everything as the rest of the country seems to mandate). I checked the wire with wire gauge with my wire strippers to make sure 15amp wire is never behind a 20amp breaker.
Sorry, I mis-read your original post. I read it as "upgrading to 30-amp circuits" rather than what it actually says, "upgrading to 30 circuits." My mistake. (In retrospect I should have realized that 30-amp circuits were unrealistic.)
Even with the same size breakers you have to be careful. Many circuits in the US are wired using a shared neutral. These circuits must not share the same phase and when rewiring an entire panel this seems like it'd be an easy mistake to make.
Multiwire branch circuits must be wired with tied breakers. If the person rewiring doesn't understand that this must be duplicated in the new panel, they definitely has no business upgrading their own panel.
This doesn't appear to have been the case until 2008, at least with multiwire branch circuits that supply separate outlets. Many if not most 100A panels with multiwire branch circuits will have been wired with breakers without ties.
I'll take your word for it, but I thought that at least as far back as 2002 it was required that the breaker for a MWBC trip both sides if one trips.
I really don't like MWBCs myself, if I would've known the electrician for my house was going to utilize a bunch of them, I'd have happily paid him not to do that.
Call the electric company and they will send someone out to break the seal. After verifying you have the correct permits. If they trust you they will sometimes tell you to break the seal and call them when done.
Last time I had an electrician who was going to be doing work requiring disconnecting the meter - so I called, and it seemed like the easiest thing was for us to just cut the seal and someday later the electric company would come by to replace it.
I live in a small town in Michigan; the amount of fuss probably depends on location & density.
I think it’s more than just electricians that we need. We need additional training for electricians so they understand how some of the newer technologies work. I bought a high end LED light fixture that had a more modern dimmer that ensures the LEDs won’t flicker when dimmed. The dimmer wiring was completely different but well defined and standardized. I had a hard time finding an electrician that understood how to wire the fixture.
I drew a schematic for them and I found out of 5 electricians only 1 could read the schematic.
I think the solution here is standardization - if you don't force a company to abide by some standard then they'll all create their own. We have the same issue with software - many programmers describe their job as creating the interface for different existing things. I think the issue here is that this isn't really the job of an electrician - they make sure the wiring in your house is safe but it's someone else's job to make sure their device complies with those expectations and is easy to plug-and-play with. Otherwise they'd need to train technicians to do the installation and most people don't want that
I thought I wanted to be an electrician growing up in the 80's, but my parents steered me away from it into the then-booming programming field. It does seem like programmers are doing a lot better than electricians these days.
Financially, yes. Physically? I’d bet good money most electricians are in much better physical shape. Pulling wire, climbing ladders, using hand tools… it’s more physically demanding than people think. (My cousin is a journeyman electrician and I helped him wire the new house I built).
well no duh that's why I go to the gym every morning. Looked at the average salary these peeps are making. Most ppl on here are making double plus some in my area as developers.
Those average salaries aren't very representative. Especially in major cities. We'll see how long those inflated developer salaries last as the layoffs pick up and AI replaces a lot of functions.
Are there visas available for those in blue collar trades like this? I’m wondering if they’re also protected from immigration related market forces on wages
Electrical wiring practices differ from country to country. Anyone coming in on a visa would need some retraining if only to learn the local regulations.
You can sling Javascript the same way in Chennai or in Cleveland, but I wouldn't want a UK electrician wiring my house in California.
Probably not, but the main issue would be that overseas certifications aren't valid. I'm sure it would be quicker to recertify / learn the local regulations than to start from scratch, but it's not free.
Where there's a will there a way. In business will is proportional to remuneration. Skilled labor is not cheap and it's even more expensive in high cost of living areas. Commercial jobs pay more than residential. The impact of COVID-19 is driving up labor rates.
I considered beginning an electrician apprenticeship because I just can't sit in a cubicle 40 hours a week anymore. I'm still young enough that the physical aspects aren't an issue, but the overall working conditions, pay and benefits sound terrible.
I think I'd rather just learn to repair electronics.
Where are you from that have apprenticeship?
I am from Switzerland and this is a common career choice with 16 to do 4 years and be a certified technicians.
But as others have mentioned in other comments: Working for a company taking a big cut to install cables at peoples home with all the weirdness (smelly place, not at home, unfriendly, wrong description/tool) is not for me. I would suggest going straight with the goal to create a company asap and build an empire.
Biggest downside is the field environments you can find yourself in. Depending on your industry you can be in some horribly smelly/disgusting facilities or dangling off catwalk way above ground trying to adjust calibration on some silly sensor. There's good ones though too.
I'm a Software Eng in the industry so I don't ever really have much for field duty, but I work with several coworkers who are able to get their hands dirty when we're doing a site install: wiring panels, tracing faults, installing/adjusting sensors.
But talking about pay scale is a bit iffy based on where you're at now. I don't make FAANG wages doing what I do, but I do make somewhere in the 80th+ percentile for my geographical location (Saskatchewan) so its all relative
I sort of went the other way. I started out as an Electrician, and over ~20 years have moved into Data Science (with many steps along the way).
I can't speak for the US, but for Australia, there are many hybrid roles. A few examples of systems include:
* Home Automation
* Industrial Systems (designing & programing factory control systems)
* Building Systems (designing and programing large building HAVC/Access Control systems)
My experiance has been that people who understand and design both physical and software systems can find well paying work. That said, the career path often convoluted and personal relationships with the right people are critical.
My 2 cents: My home has a buried power cable from the late 60's. It's size can only handle up to 100 amps, my original main breaker was only 75 amp, we upgraded.(In my state all new houses have to have at least a 200 amp main.)
The electrical trade is very rewarding, but very dangerous. You typically have to rely on co-workers to be responsible and safe, if they are distracted, life changing and/or ending results can occur.
Before considering an electrical career, attend an arc-flash class to get an idea about what your are signing up for.
If you are a detail person, it's a great trade. If you like working in all sorts of environments both in and outdoors, it's a great trade. It will take a long term toll on your body because of the mechanics of the jobs.
Barring Chicago style tactics. I doubt it wagos, pvc conduit, armor clad instead of EMT and preterminated outlets already save so much time.
The article leads with a house that needed updated electric in the 1990s most likely and as is typical in high priced markets updates were deferred due to the cost of living.
Even given most peoples illiteracy with regard to electricity people to get annoyed with not enough outlets, wanting an outdoor light or outlet or installing a window air conditions which again 30 years ago could have required a new 240V circuit. Doing those updates would likely have required updates to what could be a 60A panel.
Thank you for sharing this. Our local utility has a great scholarship/training program for underserved populations to become lineworkers. I'll share this with them in the hopes that they vastly expand it.
Saul Griffith's books and lecture all predict the more than 25.000 electricians that are needed in the US and 40.000 electricians the EU needs in the next 10 years to install the transition to 100% electrical for all homes and business. That is how we going to solve the climate crises.
If we have near 2 percent unemployment it almost begs the question that do we need more people to seek employment ? And I don’t mean large layoffs or pushing people to go into trades school or disregarding going to college. It seems like all of these articles are saying we need more X people doing Y but doesn’t look at the whole picture that either people don’t want to do it because of risk but instead just are doing another job.
1. “We need a lot more ______ look at how much they get paid!”
2. Rush to re-train
3. Now ______ is paid way less
There’s a name for this, something something market. Just make sure markets are fair, workers are protected, re-training is easy and this problem won’t keep repeating. But instead the focus is always on “learn to code/do wiring” whatever.
It sounds like it was just a COVID-related delay during the height of the pandemic.
I also own a home in Berkeley and had no trouble getting 2 quotes for a panel replacement, and work started less than a week after the first phone call. It cost $12k for the new 200 amp panel and 4 new outlets.
Now, landscape contractors, that’s been a harder nut to crack.
That is pretty brutal on the cost. We live north of Boston is a decently high cost of living area but nowhere near California. I got the our main panel upgraded from 100 amp to 200 amp, the mast and meter socket replaced, and 4 new outlets in the basement for $2400 in 2021.
Wow! Yeah, skilled trades are not cheap in the sf area. Also, restaurants and houses. Groceries used to be far more expensive than the rest of the country but my recent visits to family in the Midwest have me thinking they have almost caught up on that one.
I also grew up in the Midwest and was just visiting home over Christmas. Groceries and other commodities seem to be similar prices, but everything else felt so cheap.
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I understand that these regulations exist in the name of safety, just be aware that any electrical updates to your home will likely involve a lot more work than you initially think. Depending on what you are getting done, the inspector may need to recheck your entire home. And, you're probably going to scoff at a good number of the required changes.
Context Edit: I'm located in Texas, and I ultimately had to have the electrical panel replaced entirely because there was a safety recall associated with it. Even after the replacement was complete the electrician had to come back and redo the wiring connections because the inspector said the PVC joint at the top of the box had to be metal instead.
When I first saw the estimate I made sure to shop around and to get multiple quotes in order to make sure I wasn't being taken advantage of. Thankfully, there were a few things I was able to remain grandfathered in for.
Update: I now know that "fuse box" is not a synonym for "circuit breaker".