Electrician guys (1 Viewer)

Recently had a fence put in.  They did the posts a week ago and finished the fence on Monday.  No electrical problems.  About 5 pm on Tuesday we drilled 3 inches in on a base board in the house.  Tonight around 9pm we noticed power out in a part of kitchen and outside in that part of the house.  Hit all the gfis and breakers.  Nothing happened.  Still didnt work.  Found a electrician to call tomorrow/today.  Go to go to bed and look and everything is working now.

Still seek a professional?  Any reason why this happened.  They problem seemed to correct itself after we did nothing for 2 hours plus.

TIA

Cav

You might need to consult this professional .

DaVinci said:

You might need to consult this professional .

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Ty, hope my house doesn't burn down with that as my last image.

That's what you get for letting post hole diggers piss in your house when you're away...

How hard is it to switch out a Nema 6-20 outlet for a Nema 6-50 outlet?   Is this something an amateur (me) can do, or would you guys recomend having an electrician handle?
 

~ 30 times harder that installing the 6-20

tommyGunZ said:

How hard is it to switch out a Nema 6-20 outlet for a Nema 6-50 outlet?   Is this something an amateur (me) can do, or would you guys recomend having an electrician handle?
 

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I would be hiring an electrician.  I am sure you will probably have to upgrade your gauge of wire and change out your breaker, assuming you plan on utilizing the capability.  . 

jon_mx said:

I would be hiring an electrician.  I am sure you will probably have to upgrade your gauge of wire and change out your breaker, assuming you plan on utilizing the capability.  . 

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Thanks jon.  I'll take your advice on this.....although my instinct is to do the exact opposite.  

Yeah, 220, 221. Whatever it takes.

Found the answer to the OP.   We called in an electrician to check it out.   When they were putting in our kitchen floor years ago they put a nick in a wire and it kept deteriorating.   We got lucky and he was able to replace it easy.

Bump for a question. I have a bedroom light/ceiling fan where the light suddenly stopped working. Tried the obvious of replacing the bulbs, no go. The odd thing, to my uninformed brain, is that the ceiling fan is working fine. If it was an electrical issue to the unit, I'd think it would affect both. 

The switch that controls the light/fan is one with two separate buttons to flip each on and off, along with up/down buttons for each for dimming and fan speed, respectively. There is a little light next to each to show what level of high/low your own. Both are lit up so I would think power is fine there too (very similar to this but add in a series of 5 or so lights on the left side for each). Maybe there's another wire from the on button itself that's not working properly? There is also a standard on/off switch next to the whole thing that turns power on and off. It's flipped on, of course. 

Any ideas as to what could be happening? Or just call an electrician? I know where my limits are when it comes to fixing stuff around the house and it stops before we get to electric. Thanks.  

RUSF18 said:

Bump for a question. I have a bedroom light/ceiling fan where the light suddenly stopped working. Tried the obvious of replacing the bulbs, no go. The odd thing, to my uninformed brain, is that the ceiling fan is working fine. If it was an electrical issue to the unit, I'd think it would affect both. 

The switch that controls the light/fan is one with two separate buttons to flip each on and off, along with up/down buttons for each for dimming and fan speed, respectively. There is a little light next to each to show what level of high/low your own. Both are lit up so I would think power is fine there too (very similar to this but add in a series of 5 or so lights on the left side for each). Maybe there's another wire from the on button itself that's not working properly? There is also a standard on/off switch next to the whole thing that turns power on and off. It's flipped on, of course. 

Any ideas as to what could be happening? Or just call an electrician? I know where my limits are when it comes to fixing stuff around the house and it stops before we get to electric. Thanks.  

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Is there a pull chain that comes down from the light kit? If so, maybe someone accidentally pulled it.

ChiefD said:

Is there a pull chain that comes down from the light kit? If so, maybe someone accidentally pulled it.

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There is. Tried that too (in combination with trying all different things back at the switch).

ChiefD said:

Is there a pull chain that comes down from the light kit? If so, maybe someone accidentally pulled it.

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So turns out, it was the chain, but not in that way. When I looked within the fixture, I realized the chain got wrapped around and pinched. So when I was pulling it from below, even though I got the click, it wasn't moving anything up top. Pulled it from the chain actually connects to the unit and all good. Thanks!

RUSF18 said:

So turns out, it was the chain, but not in that way. When I looked within the fixture, I realized the chain got wrapped around and pinched. So when I was pulling it from below, even though I got the click, it wasn't moving anything up top. Pulled it from the chain actually connects to the unit and all good. Thanks!

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Sweet. A Christmas Miracle! 

Sounds like you hit a wire. Happened to me replacing siding on my house, had to take it down, cut and splice, then rehang.

Side note, I am thinking of becoming an electrician. Just have to find a place where I can take classes.

Question...probably simple solution...

bought a new bathroom vent fan with a built in humidistat.  The humidistat function is presently on a switch, but Id like it to always stay on.  How can i wire the red and black wires for this inside the switch box so its just always on and no need for a switch?

ETA: reading a little online looks like just remove the present switch and attach the two wires attached to it together with a wire nut.  If off base and not that easy, let me know

Does the switch control the fan or just the humidistat? If you rewire it will you still have a way to manually turn the fan on?

offdee said:

Question...probably simple solution...

bought a new bathroom vent fan with a built in humidistat.  The humidistat function is presently on a switch, but Id like it to always stay on.  How can i wire the red and black wires for this inside the switch box so its just always on and no need for a switch?

ETA: reading a little online looks like just remove the present switch and attach the two wires attached to it together with a wire nut.  If off base and not that easy, let me know

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If it runs on 120 then yes, you are correct

Kal El said:

Sounds like you hit a wire. Happened to me replacing siding on my house, had to take it down, cut and splice, then rehang.

Side note, I am thinking of becoming an electrician. Just have to find a place where I can take classes.

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Hope you didn’t bury that splice broski 

offdee said:

Question...probably simple solution...

bought a new bathroom vent fan with a built in humidistat.  The humidistat function is presently on a switch, but Id like it to always stay on.  How can i wire the red and black wires for this inside the switch box so its just always on and no need for a switch?

ETA: reading a little online looks like just remove the present switch and attach the two wires attached to it together with a wire nut.  If off base and not that easy, let me know

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Yup, just bypass the switch 

Cowboysfan8 said:

If it runs on 120 then yes, you are correct

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220, 221, whatever it takes

Buckychudd said:

Yeah, 220, 221. Whatever it takes.

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Buckychudd said:

Yeah, 220, 221. Whatever it takes.

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Want a beer?

Not really an electrician question but as it relates to a light switch, thinking maybe those here can explain something that baffles me. 

I have two bedrooms in my apartment - one has a pretty basic light switch to control a ceiling fan/light. Buttons to turn the light and fan on/off individually, and then smaller up/down type buttons that act as a dimmer and control the fan speed (5 levels for each).

 My other bedroom has a completely different switch for the light/fan but that’s not the problem, the type of switch is. For this, there are separate push buttons for both and in order to dim/change speed you have to push and hold those buttons in, and the light/fan will gradually change. Probably 8 different levels of brightness, 5 fan speeds. 

Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy the #### would anyone every design such a thing? It’s an enormous pain in the ###. Let’s say I want to make it a touch brighter, say from a 5 to a 6 on the brightness scale so I start to hold the button. BUT NO!!! It’s getting darker! Turns out, 6 days or whatever the hell ago my wife actually made it a touch darker so that 5 we were just at followed moving down from 6. So now I’m holding that button to go from 4 to 3 to 2 to 1 to 2 to 3 to 4 to 5 to 6. If I knew that was going to happen I would’ve just left the room instead.

God forbid you ever hold on a bit to long on one of these journeys and you have to start all over again. It’s like Chris Rock’s rotary phone bit in Lethal Weapon 4. 

Ok I’m done ranting... so seriously, is there an actual electrical reason that such a switch exists besides to drive me crazy? Like there’s a certain kind of wiring behind this thing where only this kind of switch will work?

And yes I realize that I probably could have replaced this devil of a switch in the time it took me to type this out.