FAQ
A: FAQ is an acronym for "frequently asked questions."
A: In most places, homeowners are allowed to do their own wiring. In some, they're not. Check with your local electrical inspector. Most places won't permit you to do wiring on other's homes for money without a license. Nor are you permitted to do wiring in "commercial" buildings. Multiple dwellings (eg: duplexes)
are usually considered "semi-commercial" or "commercial". However, many jurisdictions will permit you to work on semi-commercial wiring if you're supervised by a licensed electrician - if you can find one willing to supervise.
If you do your own wiring, an important point:
Do it NEAT and WELL! What you really want to aim for is a better job than an electrician will do. After all, it's your own home, and it's you or your family that might get killed if you make a mistake. An electrician has time pressures, has the skills and knows the tricks of the trade to do a fast, safe job.
A: Statistics show that fuse panels have a significantly higher risk of causing a fire than breaker panels. This is usually
due to the fuse being loosely screwed in, or the contacts corroding and heating up over time, or the wrong size fuse
being installed, or the proverbial "replace the fuse with a penny" trick.
Since breakers are more permanently installed, and have better connection mechanisms, the risk of fire is considerably less.
Fuses are prone to explode under extremely high overload. When a fuse explodes, the metallic vapor cloud becomes a conducting path. Result? From complete meltdown of the electrical panel, melted service wiring, through fires in the electrical distribution transformer and having your house burn down. Breakers won't do this.
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A: When you are resetting circuit breakers or changing fuses to often. When you turn on your air conditioner and the lights dim in the room. When your lights flicker or go on and off. When you can smell electricity burning. When you have six electronic devises going into one outlet in back of your electronics center. When you have receptacle outlets overburdened by multi-plug strips. When a three-prong plug needs a two-prong adapter. If you have to run extention cords to plug in electrical devises.
A: If your lights dim when an appliance (fridge, air cond, etc.) comes on, check to see if the lights are on the same circuit with the appliance. Most fixed appliances (fridge, air cond, etc.) should be on a dedicated circuit back to the main panel. These devices draw quite a bit of current in the first second or so when they first start up.
If all the lights in your house are dim all the time or periodically, the problem could be at the local utilities substation, transformer or their service feed coming into your house. This is one of the first thing you might want to have checked.
Your lights could dim if the wiring in your house is not large enough, it will have too much resistance. When a large current is present in the wire, there will be a significant voltage drop, leaving less voltage available to your lights.
If the light in your house dim and also get brighter it could indicate a lot more serious problem, a loose, broken or corroded neutral wire. Electricity is usually delivered to your home via three wires, two hot and one neutral.
If you are burning bulbs to frequently you also might try using lower wattage bulbs. A 40 W bulb has a higher resistance than a 100 W bulb. Both bulbs will have the same voltage, the 100 W bulb must have more current. And that means the 100 W bulb must have a lower resistance. So the filament for the higher resistance 40 W filament must be heavier or have a smaller cross section. There is also a rough service buld that is made with a heavier filament. The best bulb on the market today is the CFL (Compact Fluorescent Lights) (Philips, Sylvania). These bulbs may cost 10 to 15 dollars, but will last about 10,000 hours.
Newer light fixtures require that the temperature rating of the wire feeding these fixtures be at least 90 degrees C. This is the temperature rating for these light fixtures. It's important that the temperature rating for the wiring feeding these fixtures match or exceed the rating for the fixture. If the temperature rating of the wiring is lower than the 90 degrees C. required, the insulation around it becomes brittle and may break away. This allows arcing between bare wires, which causes heat that melts the fixture and could be a fire hazard.