Recent content by FarmerPete

The new house is out in the country, and while the electric is fairly reliable, being on a well has gotten me looking to hard-wire a generator in one way or another. At my old house, having half of my important circuits on a remote sub panel made feeding my panel legally with the generator...

Bought a new house, so I'm starting from scratch. I'm not a heavy user, just a DIY guy who likes to tinker here and there. My biggest loads will be the occasional power tool/saw, a small 4-5 gallon compressor, and a chest freezer. The new attached garage has two pathetic outlets, neither is...

As long as you turn off circuits before you turn on the generator....

<--- Not an electrician. Why not just run a conduit from your electrical panel to the junction box outside? Why open the walls? That seems like a 10 minute job vs a rip drywall off and try to route conduit inside the wall job. If it's a limitation of the junction box, than just get a bigger...

What you are asking for is making a very simple problem unnecessarily difficult. You have two good options. Option 1) Use a WiFi switch and the app that goes with it to get the results you want. Many of the apps will do local communication (I believe TP-Link is one of them) but will also use...

If you did Option 2, you'd need two of them, one for each leg. I personally like option 1 myself, and most of the solutions I've looked at either involve that or a similar part. You may want to get a slightly larger model in case you want to go with a 8k or larger generator down the road...

I believe you can do this with TP-Link Kasa switches (WiFi). I've never tried it and only have 1 switch, but looking in the software, you can create a smart action to control a group with a switch.

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy that it was such a minor thing. I'm just pissed at myself for not taking the time to look at it in the fall. As you can imagine, we don't use the room much in the winter, but having what I thought was a fairly complex electrical problem hanging over my head for...

So, I figured out the problem, <FacePalm> In the corner of the room, half obscured by some toys was an outlet. That outlet was itself obscured by two of those plastic outlet covers. Under the outlet covers was the familiar GFCI buttons. Click. Fixed. Ugghh. The power was off to that room...

Maybe it's worth mentioning that we've heard scratching in the general area before. Everyone we've called to try and get rid of the pests says they can't deal with chipmunks. I've killed a dozen of them over the last couple years with my "bucket-o-death" (5 gallon bucket filled 1/3rd with...

I've used the plug-in type tester, and it comes back completely dead. No lights. I guess it sounds like I'll need to open up each socket and see what's coming in to them. Maybe then I'll be able to figure out what's going on in the wall/floor. Certainly if I can find where the dead spot is...

So I have an electrical dillema. Power to my 3-seasons room completely died. I get nothing from every switch/plug in the room with my no-contact voltage detector. The feeder wire for the room comes out of my subpanel in my garage, goes into the basement, along the floor, and then ultimately...

I was more interested when they would announce that they were doing the rebate at HD or not. I was thinking I'd just ask them to PM the deal at HD and see if they give me a form to fill out. Worst case is they say no and I wait till HD posts the rebate anyways. Best case is they give me 11%...

I know the past few times Menards has run 11% rebates, HD has matched it with their own unadvertised rebate. Anyone know how long it takes for them to post it? I bought a $350 miter saw on Friday from HD, and I'm thinking I'll be rebuying it in the next day or two. I just want to make sure...

I usually start off by asking, "Do you accept competitor coupons?" When they state yes, I pull out the coupon. I've only tried it a few times, but it's worked. They had to get the MOD to sign off on it. I suppose if they tried to give me a hard time, I would just ask for a compromise 10%...