My New House & Workshop

[Jim Oaks]

Lowe's /Home Depot sell a concrete repair caulk in a tube that would work well for that.

I bought some of that, but some if the gaps are way to big. Once it's all done I'm thinking I may spray some foam in there to fill most of the void, and then finish it off with hydraulic cement. I've seen it mentioned several times and a few videos talking about using it and how fast it sets up.

 

[Rick W]

Put masking tape on the block wall around the hole, and on either side of that crack, back about 3 or 4 inches from the opening. Then use the expanding foam. If it oozes out of the hole, it will sit on the tape. Once it’s dry/set, you can cut it off the surface with like a kitchen knife, pull the tape, and then you can carefully dig out a little bit of the foam so you can lay the caulk on top of it. Paint the wall and it will disappear.

You don’t have to use rustoleum for this one…

 

[sgtsandman]

Fun Fact; The code now requires the light above the sink to be GFCI protected. Not the one in the ceiling, but the one above the sink. Basically if you can put one hand in the sink, and touch the light fixture with the other hand, it's supposed to be on a ground fault circuit.

Another Fun Fact; You are required now to run a neutral to all switch boxes. So that basically means you need to run the wire with the extra red wire in it.

If it's not going to be inspected, don't worry about it.

I'm a bit confused on the neutral thing. Isn't there already a neutral in 3 wire? Or is this a bonding thing above and beyond the ground being in every box?

 

[sgtsandman]

I bought some of that, but some if the gaps are way to big. Once it's all done I'm thinking I may spray some foam in there to fill most of the void, and then finish it off with hydraulic cement. I've seen it mentioned several times and a few videos talking about using it and how fast it sets up.

They rolls of foam to fill the cracks before you seal it. Or is the cracks too big for that as well? I think it is meant more for filling cracks in driveways, but it might serve the same purpose in a cinder block wall.

 

[franklin2]

I'm a bit confused on the neutral thing. Isn't there already a neutral in 3 wire? Or is this a bonding thing above and beyond the ground being in every box?

The way you used to do it, yes there is a white wire going to the switch. But that was because the romex came with a white wire. You would take a piece of black tape and put it around the white wire, the white wire became a hot wire. Power coming in on the black wire, power leaving the switch going back up to power the light on the white wire. So in the old days, a switch leg had 2 hots and a ground, no neutral. Using the ground as a neutral is a no-no.

I have heard the main reason they made this rule was to accommodate the new fangled automatic light switches. They all have a "brain" or electronics in them to detect motion. To run the brains, it needs 120v power, so you need a neutral to get 120v power from the hot wire and the neutral. So the newer automatic switches need 3 wires, power, neutral, and switch leg to the light.

Yes, they do make 2 wire motion switches. They "stole" some of the 120v power, probably 5v or less, and used this for the brains. This small 5v got it's neutral through leakage through the light fixture. The problem now is, if you use LED lighting, there is not enough leakage through the LED fixture to steal the 5v, so the 2 wire motion switch usually doesn't work with LED lighting.

You can thank the government for some of these new rules.

 

[Jim Oaks]

I retained the wire that ran from a junction box in the shop attic to the switch. I have a wire that comes into the box from the breaker. The black (hot) wire from the breaker goes to the black wire to the switch, when the switch is turned on it continues the electric along the white wire which then feeds the black (hot) wires going to each light. The white wires for the lights are wire nutted together along with the white wire going back to the breaker, and the bare ground wires are all wire nutted together.

I bought these (2) books a few years ago:

The Visual Handbook of Building and Remodeling

Black & Decker - The Complete Guide To Wiring

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And I use them if I'm not sure about something. They have a lot of diagrams for different types of circuits, but I looked at these before wiring up the light switches:

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They also have sections for adding a subpanel that I'll use when I start wiring the subpanel:

 

[Jim Oaks]

Speaking of subpanel, my wiring came today with a free end table.

 

[franklin2]

See how this is your main power where the power comes in from the power company. See that brown jumper on the bottom that is tying the ground and the neutral bars together, making two neutral slash grounding bars all together.

 

[franklin2]

See how this is your subpanel, and those two bars are not connected. The ground and the neutral wires are separate. This is where you usually have to go buy another separate bar, and mount it in the panel, the store carries these extra bars.

 

[Jim Oaks]

See how this is your subpanel, and those two bars are not connected. The ground and the neutral wires are separate. This is where you usually have to go buy another separate bar, and mount it in the panel, the store carries these extra bars.

I bought the extra ground bar when I bought the panel. My only concern is that it's not a 'sub panel' because I wanted / needed a main breaker on it. It came with a big green screw and I'm thinking that besides adding the ground bar I don't install the big green screw. I haven't really looked at it yet. I think the subpanel being used in that video I posted is essentially the same one that I bought.

 

[Curious Hound]

I bought the extra ground bar when I bought the panel. My only concern is that it's not a 'sub panel' because I wanted / needed a main breaker on it. It came with a big green screw and I'm thinking that besides adding the ground bar I don't install the big green screw. I haven't really looked at it yet. I think the subpanel being used in that video I posted is essentially the same one that I bought.

Jim, you are installing a sub-panel. In your instance, you do NOT use the green bonding screw. You DO use a separate connection bar for your grounds.

Grounds and neutrals are only bonded to each other in one place in a service. That is in the mainbreaker panel or the meter can. Your subpanel is a part of your primary service for the entire property. The bonding that is done in the breaker panel or metercan on your house provides the single instance of bonding.

The reason for this is that if the neutral and ground are bonded a second time somewhere else, such as your subpanel, this creates a parallel path for current to flow - some through the neutrals and some through the ground wire. That is not safe because the ground wire is not insulated. The purpose of ground wire is to conduct fault current only. That is, they never carry current unless an appliance shorts to ground or you drop your curling iron in the tub, etc. Those are fault currents. So, by not bonding the neutral to ground at the subpanel, we prevent normal currents from taking a parallel path thtough the ground wire.

Fun, extra info; In commercial and industrial settings, the main ground and nuetral are bonded at the primary srrvice, just like in your home. However, thst is often a higher voltage, like 480volts. When we want lower voltages, like 240, 208 and 120volts, we use a transformer. In a transformer, the "secondary side" or lower voltage side is not electrically connected to the high voltage side. It is only magnetically coupled. So, on the low voltage side of the transformer, we are developing a "new service" at the lower voltage. Therefore, we bond the neutral and ground together on the secondary side of the transformer or at the frist breaker panel served by that transformer. The ground-neutral bond only occurs at the beginning of a new service.

 

[Jim Oaks]

Install the big green screw. Got it.

 

[franklin2]

The electrical profession, HVAC, plumbing, lawyers, etc. all have their own language, I am thinking to confuse people and try to lock them out of doing work in that field.

A "electrical panel", "load center", etc. can be a main service or a subpanel, it just depends on how you set it up. Don't think that I know all the rules, but since your subpanel is out of sight of the main panel, it is good that you have a main breaker on your subpanel. Something about a sub panel's main feed breaker needs to be in sight of the panel, or take 5 moves of the hand to disconnect all power. So if your sub panel is out of sight of the main panel, you can have 5 breakers or less in the sub, or it can have one main or a main disconnect switch feeding the sub.

Someone chime in, like I said I know enough about it to be dangerous, and I actually have a journeyman's electrical license. So I guess I am supposed to know everything but I don't. I work on HVAC, but only have a gas license, not a HVAC license. I work on fire systems, not certified in that at all. I have worked on elevators before, not certified in that either. I do plumbing work, no license there either.

 

[Jim Oaks]

I think basically in this case it's required to have a main shutoff because it's in a separate building from the main breaker. What's shocking (pun intended) is that the building originally had a small poorly wired subpanel connected directly to a meter with no shutoff.

 

[Rick W]

Can’t you put in a double slot breaker like you would use for air conditioning or an oven and feed the panel through that breaker from the side? It looks like another breaker in the panel, but it’s actually the disconnect for the panel. Yes/no?