Square D electrical panel question

[trader_4]

At the rate you're blocking people, pretty soon you'll just be talking to yourself. Which helps explain why you're wrong so often. You just listen to yourself.

[trader_4]

Clare probably knows more about getting shocked from personal experience than anyone else here, given how he's wrong on electrical questions half the time.

[TomR]

Sorry to hear that. Life can be tough sometimes.

[gfretwell]

Yes they should have pulled in a 4 wire feeder and separated the neutral and ground. The issue of how far the SE is running inside the house before it needs protection is really undefined. Inspectors in the same jurisdictions may even disagree. On one extreme some say a few feet, as directly it can be run, using SE cable, is just fine. Others say they want a back to back installation with the wire simply passing through the wall in a short pipe nipple. The most extreme interpretation pretty much wants an outside disconnect no matter what.

This is the code

230.70(A)(1) Readily Accessible Location. The service disconnecting means shall be installed at a readily accessible location either outside of a building or structure or inside nearest the point of entrance of the service conductors.

[clare]

Don't know what code the electrician was going by, so I can't say for sure - but IF the neutral and ground were not bonded together at the outside breaker, the bonded panel definitely meets code and the outside breaker is not considered to be a "service disconnect"

How much cable is there between the outside breaker and the panel???

[Mr Macaw]

Ah, this explains how they happen - warmer air higher up. But what I want to know is, surely if the warm air is moving to the right, then everything will melt soon anyway? And why do they happen in America and not the UK?

[Dean Hoffman]

The freezing rain will often be accompanied by a cold front that bri= ngs =

in snow and much cooler weather. The storm I linked to earlier brought ab= out six or eight inches of snow if I recall correctly. The snow will keep things cooler just because it reflects sunlight. = I =

remember a snow that ended about 50 miles west of me. It was consistently about = =

10=BA F. cooler there until the snow melted.

-- =

Using Opera's mail client:

[clare]

Nothing like here between the lakes in Ontario ----20C last week, it'll be +20 on Thursday, like it was a couple weeks ago. A couple years ago it went from "25 or 26C back down to -15 or so within a week in March.

[Mike Duffy]

According to Yahoo answers:

The greatest temperature change in 24 hours occurred in Loma, MT. on January 15, 1972. The temperature rose exactly 103 degrees, from -54 degrees Fahrenheit to 49 degrees. This is the world record for a 24?hour temperature change.

Other Extreme Temperature Changes

In 24 hours:

100°F, Browing, MT, Jan 23?24, 1916, from 44°F to ?56°F.

In 12 hours:

84°F, Fairfield, MT, Dec 24, 1924, from 63°F at noon to ?21°F at midnight.

In 2 hours:

62°F, Rapid City, SD, Jan 12, 1911, from 49°F at 6 AM to ?13°F at 8 AM

In 27 minutes:

58°F, Spearfish, SD, Jan 22, 1943, from 54°F at 9 AM to ?4°F at 9:27 AM

In 15 minutes:

47°F, Rapid City, SD, Jan 10, 1911, from 55°F at 7 AM to 8°F at 7:15 AM

[clare]

Back in Jan '73 in Banff it was -40F in the morning and +40F by shortly after noon - great Chinook!!

[gfretwell]

You may just not have the right combination of the jet stream, warmer water bodies and cold fronts.. I suspect that wedge of warm air that causes this ice thing in Maryland comes from the Chesapeake bay. The moisture comes in as snow west of DC, east of DC it is sleet and freezing rain. When Southern Md gets it's big snows, the weather is coming up from the south because the jet stream has driven way down, enough to make it cold in Florida and that train comes up the coast like a hurricane overwhelming warmer water in the bay. They might even get thunder with it. I did it for 38 years and I am glad to be out

[Mr Macaw]

A different part of the kitchen / utility room / garage .....

The dryer needs no water supply, so doesn't have to be there. For example I've got the washing machine and dishwasher in the kitchen near the sink, so they take the same water, but there's no room for a dryer aswell. The cooker and fridge are also in the same area for convenience when cooking.

Most dryers have a condenser nowadays, if they don't you can fit one (simply a small tub of water the hot air goes through).

Bad idea, you forget the iron is on!

What is a permanent press clothe?

That's a lot of wiring.

[Mr Macaw]

They just do. They're rated at around a kW. Decent ones more than that. We haven't used pathetic little 350W motors for about 40 years.

I had a shopvac, it was at least a kW.

Not along the edge they don't, and who would have a lump across the middle of their room?

Never heard of a fuse?

Don't people watch where they're going anymore? When did this silly phrase "trip hazard" get invented? If you're going to claim to have evolved to walk on two feet, you need to watch where they go.

Nothing to stop you putting in 240V sockets in your kitchen, then buying a UK kettle from Ebay etc.

Actually, the only program I can remember it on was "Home Improvement", so maybe it was his invention!

[Mr Macaw]

Can't get that to load in Opera or IE.

[Mr Macaw]

Maybe if I shopped somewhere more upmarket, but I buy my clothes form a supermarket. But I've never heard anyone mention "permanent press" to me or that they don't iron. I have heard of the phrase "permanent press", but I thought it was something fancy for a suit.

I don't actually iron myself, I just leave the creases in :-) Sometimes people make comment.

Is there a colour code on the socket so you know which ones to use?

It was pointed out to me by an American in another newsgroup, who claimed that all houses were like that.

It's usually the earth leakage ones that trip.

And the current limiting ones can trip in an office if you have 20 computers connected up. It's impossible to plug them all in at once, due to the inrush current of the power supplies.

Then sell to a less fussy buyer. I never had my house inspected when I moved here. I really don't care for petty rules.

Why worry about the unlikely? Do you also have a nuclear fallout shelter?

Easy enough to detect a leak, by bubbles on some soapy water where you made the joint, or by a smell afterwards. Those new plastic fittings are brilliant, no tools needed, no chance of a leak.

Seriously?!? Between FRIENDS?!?! That's beyond a joke.

You can here, but rentals are required to have a periodical check, can't remember how often. It's just simple tests, for example my neighbour has two rentals and he was told one of the lights wasn't earthed. On the bloody ceiling! Now the story goes it was a light fitting which you couldn't earth, as a lot of it was plastic. But the stupid testing guy insisted he got an earth pass on his equipment. My neighbour rigged up a crocodile clip to earth the part of the lamp he was testing, and the meter said "pass". He got the certificate.

No, your country is worse. You have more lawyers. Unfortunately we are beginning to copy you. The only place worse thn the USA ius Australia. You can be prosecuted for cycling without a helmet, or walking along the wrong side of a country road!

[Mr Macaw]

Putting your electrical panel into a washer while it's live is considered a bad idea.

[gfretwell]

The typical vacuum here is rated at 2HP with some kind of phony rating system but they usually do pull 10a or so. That makes it comparable to what you are talking about. Some actually approach that maximum 1440w that you can legally put on a 15a circuit. Since these things are manufactured for an international market I bet they perform about the same. They do make special cords that are "vacuum rated" and I think that is basically that they use higher temp insulation rating since it is still a pretty small cord. They do run warm to the touch.

I have had a number of shop vacs and, side by side, there are plenty of canister vacs used inside the home that are stronger and blow harder than the 2 shop vacs I have (what I was testing). That is the same thing though, since this is still just an air pump. That shop vac is only special because of the bigger hopper and that some can handle a bit of water.

They do not fuse plugs here, except for cheap asian christmas lights with wire that is less than a mm (20 ga)

This is becoming a nanny state. You can' do anything without bumping into laws about helmets, seat belts, guard rails etc. A damned ladder has to have about 15 labels warning of bad things that happen if you actually climb up it.

Absolutely true. I admit, if I was actually boiling that much water, I would do it. We can buy a duplex outlet that has 240 and 120 in the same device and the 240 side would not even have to be GFCI (RCD). Since it is required to have two 120v circuits serving the counter top it would be trivial to bring that from both sides of the center tap with a neutral and split it right there for your two required 120v circuits. I was impressed by the 240v kettles in New Zealand but once I got home, I realized, we don't drink tea. Coffee makers work fine on 120 and most do not even approach the 1440w available. A drip maker can just "drip" so fast without overloading the filter pan. Even the big commercial units are still 120v and commercial kitchens always have

240 available.

I guess the bottom line is this side of the pond is 120v and it is going to stay that way. We seem to get by.

OK now explain why you drive on the wrong side of the road ;-)

[DerbyDad03]

...snip...

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It's less about overloading the filter pan and more about "contact time".

If the water drips through too fast, the taste will be affected. Unfortunately, with most home drip systems, you are at the mercy of the machine's drip rate.

SWMBO and I bought a $300 Breville unit for each other as a Christmas gift. You can adjust the brew strength by adjusting the contact time. It makes a really great cup of coffee, but it has too many features and too many parts to clean to be convenient for everyday use. We ended up going back to our basic drip machine, sacrificing some flavor for ease of use.

Stolen without permission from:

Brewing Time

The amount of time that the water is in contact with the coffee grounds is another important flavor factor.

In a drip system, the contact time should be approximately 5 minutes. If you are making your coffee using a plunger pot, the contact time should be 2-4 minutes. Espresso has an especially brief brew time -- the coffee is in contact with the water for only 20-30 seconds.

If you're not happy with the taste, it's possible that you're either over- extracting (the brew time is too long) or under-extracting (the brew time is too short). Experiment with the contact time until the taste suits you perfectly.

[gfretwell]

This is probably what they mean

It is a NEMA 5-15p and 6-15p on the same yoke

This is really getting easier for home inspectors and insurance companies since these are public records on the county web site in more places these days.

I noticed the Qiwis are pretty well regulated too, until they aren't. It is always strange what countries think are too dangerous for the populace and what isn't.

[Mr Macaw]

Long links work fine. Some computers f*ck up and wrap them, but you can piece it back together.

Most people in the UK use a kettle and instant powdered coffee. We're too lazy to use a percolator and beans.