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I'm putting in a ceiling fan with light kit and I'm having trouble with the switch. It is a single gang box
with the 2-conductor power cable coming in (white/black/ground) and 3-conductor wire leading to the fan (red/black/white/ground).
The switch I have has two toggles stacked on top of one another and fits in single gang box. It has a grounding screw, one
screw on left, and two on right. How do I hook this up so the light is controlled by the top switch and the fan is controlled
by the bottom one?
If you have a duplex single-pole
toggle switch (it sounds like you do), then the LINE connection (incoming power) most likely needs to be attached to the side
with the single screw. On the opposite side, the two screws correspond with the switches (top screw, top switch, etc.). Put
your wire for the light on the top, fan on the bottom. All the white wires should be connected together with a wire nut. Ground
wires should be connected together first and then a pigtail connection would attach to the switch.
On another note,
you might want to forego the duplex toggle and pick up a fan/light switch (usually available from your local hardware store,
or a national chain such as Lowes or Home Depot). This switch fits in a one gang box, and can give you the added benefit of
controlling the fan speed as well as just turning it on and off.
My kitchen tile floor is very warm in some places and cool everywhere else. Could there be something going
on under my floor?
There could be a number of reasons
for this situation. They don't necessarily mean there is an electrical problem. For instance:
- Do you have radiant heat
in your house? This type of heat will cause this effect before the entire floor is up to temperature.
- You may be feeling
the effects of a hot water pipe under the floor that is 'leaking' heat when you are using hot water somewhere else, like a
dishwasher, clothes washer, bathtub, etc.
If you can see the bottom side of the floor (i.e. is it a first floor
area and perhaps you have an unfinished basement?), you might be able to quickly determine the source of the heat.
While we wouldn't rule out an electrical problem, if it was related to one you'd feel the heat in only one location;
you may or may not be tripping a circuit breaker; you might smell smoke; or all of the above.
If you're still unsure,
then it wouldn't hurt to contact a licensed electrician to check it out.
I have a single phase system with a white, black, and yellow wire. How do I tell which is considered L1, L2
and L3?
There is no way to tell based on
the color of the wire, as there is no color requirement for ungrounded conductors in the Code. However, you would not have
three ungrounded conductors (L1, L2, and L3) in a single-phase system.
The Code only specifies the use of green,
white, and orange in most applications, although there are color requirements for isolated power supplies and some heating
cables.
Most electricians follow
a color scheme similar to the one below. However, since this is only a guideline, any color can be used; so it would be wise
to test any wire you need to work with beforehand.
For 120/208 (or 240) volt systems,
commonly used colors are black, red, blue,
and white
For 277/480V, commonly used
colors used are brown, purple, yellow, and gray.
The color orange
is reserved for the conductor of a 3-phase delta system that has the higher voltage to ground.
White is used for grounded
(neutral) conductors and green is used for grounding conductors.
My hair dryer was tripping the 15 amp circuit breaker on a 14 gauge wire to my bathroom
receptacle. The electrician I called simply replaced the 15 amp breaker with a 20 amp one. Is this safe?
Absolutely not.
A 14 gauge wire cannot be protected with a circuit breaker greater than 15 amps. Doing so is
unsafe and can create a fire hazard. You should have a reputable licensed electrician correct this violation as soon as possible.
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