Electrical advice-30A circuits

Charles Bishop · 2017-01-30T20:43:06+00:00

Howdy, Sis had me look at an electrical problem she had - it turned out to be a loose wire. However, when I was poking around, I discovered a couple of odd things and need to know what to tell her what to do. There are two circuits I discovered that appear to have 120V outlets and switches on a 30A breaker. I didn't know enough to tell her whether this was allowed or not - I really suspect not but wanted to ask here first. My first thought was if there was a problem with, say a drill motor on this circuit, any problem with it wouldn't be enough to trip the breaker. This most likely resulted from the previous owner hiring incompetent workers and they did poor work, just to get electrical power to the shed. I found a power cord used as electrical cable so they didn't have to break into the wall - it ran from an (E) outlet (connected by stripping the wires and connected to the screws on the outlet) along the wall to a multiplug on its end so that power could be had at the other side of the shed. I removed this of course. So, poor work in other places wouldn't surprise me. Then, what should she do? I thought getting the circuits tracked down and then replacing the 30A breaker with two 15's or 20s, depending on the wiring and what's on them. I'd like her to have some idea before she has an electrician come out. Also, for me - I used a voltage tester when looking around - it was the kind that chirps and lights up when it's near wiring that has power. It also chirps and lights up if you stick one end into an outlet. However I found that there could also be transient chirps if I moved it quickly past a piece of metal and when I was close to wiring rather than very close to it. In one case, this made it difficult to tell which outlet or switch had the power. Was I using it correctly? Charles

Jan 30, 2017 81 Replies

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TekkieÃÂ® 9 years ago

James Wilkinson Sword posted for all of us...

What???

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James Wilkinson Sword 9 years ago

On Fri, 03 Feb 2017 21:44:52 -0000, Tekkie=AE wrote= :

te:

watts everywhere though.

No, watt.

-- =

Flanders and Swann on MOT tests: Our car is getting a bit old, it'll have to be tested soon. You know they started these tests for 10-year-old cars, they brought it = down to six, now five, they'll bring it down to three. There's even been some talk of having them tested before they leave the = factories."

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