Recent content by Innovate1

Sounds like you have it pretty well covered. A temp controlled station is needed to work on circuit boards and as you have read too much heat will burn the board and may lift the copper from the board. I would strip back the wire until I saw bright copper strands and then "tin" the wire with...

The current arrangement has a 4 x 4 post. Fastened to double 2 x 10 above. I haven't had any crazy parties with packed deck but it has been fine for 20 years and is still solid. It supports one corner of a 42" x 42" landing and one corner of a similar size upper stair - 1/4 of the total load...

I'm coming around to the idea of an extra post to the patio. It isn't really needed but easier to go with that. The contractors said they would core drill the slab and then flair the hole for a bigger base. But they said it wouldn't be completely covered by the 6 x 6 post. A 6" hole does...

Just my opinion but trapping moisture between the steel and vapor barrier seems like a concern. In any case and especially if you heat it you need to seal it somehow. The panel overlaps are pretty tight but the outside edge in J channel is not - need to seal that somehow - I used quite a few...

Did you have a home inspection? They are usually big on writing up electrical things - if so I'm surprised they didn't flag the extension cord connection. In my experience they are sometimes overly aggressive flagging things that are allowed like double taps on breakers that may be rated for...

Me too. They said they don't want to wait for the power company to come out but they would likely have been there already. Or maybe it's that they aren't living there yet so might not be there when the POCO came by.

For testing you could switch on the indoor blower with the fan on switch on the thermostat rather than running the whole AC system. Probably the easiest thing to turn on and off and run at full, steady load. A plug in heater or blow dryer could be useful for testing too. I would be a careful...

To the original question - the double bonded neutral isn't correct but isn't going to cause the increased brightness. That is something else.

Blower motors are typically 1/3 - 1 Hp in traditional HVAC residential setups. The larger ones are up to about 12A. If the loose neutral is at the weatherhead it would affect every circuit.

AC runs internal air handler which is often 120V. That could cause lights on other phase to get brighter. I don't see any other way for some circuits increase in voltage other than a bad neutral connection somewhere.

Have had bad connection on the neutral at the weatherhead on a previous house. When load was placed on one phase the voltage on the other phase 120V loads would go up and lights would brighten. That issue shouldn't do much if only a 240V load but with AC you have both - the outdoor unit is 240...

The local, small city within the metro area, is still on the 2012 building code. But I suspect the surrounding ones are more current, at least some of them. I knew we lagged some but saw surprised to see it that old. I also see on the cities web site that they now have some online permit...

I think burning is a reasonable plan for the ones that are already stumps. Would take quite a bit of digging and no plans to build anything there. They still have a few shoots coming out so aren't completely dead.

Yes. One corner of the landing is supported by this post from above. Double 2 x 10 above and that ends in a double 2 x 10 joist at the top of the upper stairs. I ran the numbers and it's well within allowable loads for 10 psf dead load and 60 psf live load. Deterioration over time might be a...

Have an existing deck and looking at replacing it. It's about 20 years old. All the treads are 42" wide but the way the railings are done the upper width, railing to railing is about 36 and the lower section is about 30. The reason is the railing for the top section on one side is not on the...