Ceiling light install

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shan2themax said:
While I was trying to shove things in the box, I was wondering who was so small minded that they chose to design the boxes so shallowly..... maybe I am being small minded, idk. But it just seems silly to have such a small area to put multiple stiff wires in.
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I agree. There are deeper boxes and wherever possible, I would install the biggest, deepest box I can. Our current house has 12g wire pretty standard whereas our old house in California has 14g. 12g wire and small boxes is very difficult to work with.

Great job Shan!
 
Quote - I was raised in a house with no grounded fixtures or receptacles

Doesn't not being grounded make it easier for a power surge to fry things like a refrigerator?

Seems like not having a ground is not right
 
Krich said:
Quote - I was raised in a house with no grounded fixtures or receptacles

Doesn't not being grounded make it easier for a power surge to fry things like a refrigerator?

Seems like not having a ground is not right
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No an appliance does not have a surge arrestor that makes use of the ground. A grounded chassis would create a path for an overcurrent trip should a hot wire come in contact with the chassis. I think ground wires in branch circuits came around in the late 40s and code requirement for grounded receptacles in the 70s.
 
I was thinking in terms of a power surge coming thru the wiring, not a live wire coming in contact with the chassis.

If they started requiring houses and appliances to be grounded to be code compliant than points to having a ground is better than not having a ground.

I'm in the planning / learning stages of building a home and one thing I'm going to want to do is use Mission Critical Surge Protection the Entire Circuit of Outlets to protect the whole house

Brick Wall has a nice system at Industrial Surge Protectors | Brick Wall
 
I have never experienced any surge damage.
 
Lots of people have. I've known people that have had their TV or computer fried. Even heard of some losing a refrigerator or freezer all during a storm where a lot of lightening was taking place nearby.

I might even put one of those lightening rod things across my house to deflect and control any lightening strikes that may hit the house.

My grandpa had a very large barn where he kept hay for his cattle and he had one of these lightening bar systems across the top of this barn.

He said lightening hit is a few times but all that power was directed right in to the ground (large copper pole going several feet into the ground) and never actually hit the barn... which would have quickly burned being filled with all that dried grass (Hay)
 
I've prolly just been fortunate but then I haven't heard of any friends having damage either. We used to unplug the TV during storms but now I have too much stuff to unplug. I do have power strip surge protectors on TV and computer but they are prolly 20 years old. They've never tripped. I don't even know if they are supposed to trip if a surge is experienced.
 
I had a surge issue once. My feed coming to the house ran thru a tree and the tree limb came in contact with the power cable and wore thru the insulation and put half the 240v on the ground leg. So in effect there was 240v running to half my house. We were out and my teenage son was home and he called me and said dad when I turn on the lights they get real bright and then explode, he told me smoke was coming out of the TV and the VHS player.



He had no idea how to shut off the breakers nor did I want him touching the panel so I told him don’t touch anything I’m heading home. I was about 10 minutes away came home pulled the main and called the power company. Anything electronic was toast and insurance covered it all. They came out and spliced the entry cable and then put a yellow hard plastic shield around the cable where it was inside the tree.
 
bud16415 said:
I had a surge issue once. My feed coming to the house ran thru a tree and the tree limb came in contact with the power cable and wore thru the insulation and put half the 240v on the ground leg. So in effect there was 240v running to half my house. We were out and my teenage son was home and he called me and said dad when I turn on the lights they get real bright and then explode, he told me smoke was coming out of the TV and the VHS player.



He had no idea how to shut off the breakers nor did I want him touching the panel so I told him don’t touch anything I’m heading home. I was about 10 minutes away came home pulled the main and called the power company. Anything electronic was toast and insurance covered it all. They came out and spliced the entry cable and then put a yellow hard plastic shield around the cable where it was inside the tree.
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Ground rods usually have in excess of 25Ω resistance so wouldn't pop the breaker on the pole and just kept on trucking.
 
Anything electronic was toast...
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A whole house surge suppressor (different from surge protector) would have prevented that by directing the excess current to ground so it has some place to go

This is the concept that the Brickwall technology uses and I had an electrical engineer look at their schematics and he agreed that their surge suppressor technology is superior to surge protectors. (Linki I posted today above at 3:51 PM)

They were able to get a patent for this so it's interesting stuff. A surge protector just has a weak link that is supposed to break the circuit during a power surge... and surge suppressor directs the power surge to ground which prevents your devices from getting fried.

I have been using their portable boxes for years and have not lost any electronics... but your wall plug must be grounded.
 
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The ground was the problem the wall plug ground and neutral became 120V of the opposite polarity. All bets are off.
 
But, having the wall plug grounded is commonly required for code compliance in these modern times right?

I always though having a ground was a requirement.
 
All houses constructed or rewired after the code became effective are required to have grounded outlets. Earlier construction is grandfathered in.

My point was that Brickwall protection would not have helped in a situation where the ground circuit has suddenly become one leg of 240V. Electricity is not seeking a path to ground but will follow all available paths back to the source. Brickwall, Zerosurge and APC seem to have good reviews for surge protectors.
 
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If you contact Brickwall, they will tell you their patented technology actually controls the flow of surges and directs it to ground. This is why their product is a surge suppressor not a surge protector.

I had an electrical engineer look at their stuff and he said they are doing something totally different than all the other companies out there and he like what he saw and thought it to be very effective. When planning the electrical part of the house I'm going to build, I'm planning on using their commercial whole house suppressor system.

All the other companies that make surge protectors which functions on a weak link concept that is supposed to separate during a power surge to kill the circuit which does not always happen resulting in electronics getting fried sometimes
 
Apparently Brickwall, Zerosurge and APC all use clamping and slow release to neutral for surges. APC makes claims of being better but who doesn't? If I were looking for surge protection I would certainly consider these.

Brickwall uses similar technology as Zero Surge. That is, they do not have MOV Protection and they do not provide Common Mode Protection (Line to Ground or Neutral to Ground Protection). We advertise our let through performance to be a Normal Mode (Line to Neutral Protection) Surge at 200 Amps 100 kHz Ring Wave at 6 kV and our let-through voltage is around 40 Volts (this is Clamping Voltage level Minus the Peak of the AC Sine Wave or 210 Volts Clamping Minus 170 Volts Peak which equals 40 Volts). I am sure that Brickwall does not understand Let-Through and looked at our Clamping Voltage. Also, since Brickwall does not protect against Common Mode Surges (the most destructive and the most Common Surges are common mode) they leave the customer's equipment vulnerable to these surges as well as leaves the end user at risk of electric shock during a common mode surge.​
 
Obviously an excerpt from one of Brickwall's competitors

It's very odd that both zero surge and brickwall are manufactured in New Jersey and appear to be the same same technology
The only difference appearts to be the name on the box! funny.gif
 
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Here's a link to another forum where the subject is discussed and argued. A common mode surge is when the surge is present on both line and neutral. One would have to do a bit of research on the contenders for your dollars to decide which is best for you. It seems that Zerosurge is the original patent holder but that doesn't necessarily mean that it is the best option.
https://www.avsforum.com/threads/su...urge-furman-surgex-etc.1146963/#post-16454758
 
Eddie_T said:
All houses constructed or rewired after the code became effective are required to have grounded outlets. Earlier construction is grandfathered in.

My point was that Brickwall protection would not have helped in a situation where the ground circuit has suddenly become one leg of 240V. Electricity is not seeking a path to ground but will follow all available paths back to the source. Brickwall, Zerosurge and APC seem to have good reviews for surge protectors.
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What would have helped me is if I had my power strip plugged into a cheater adapter 2 prong to 3 prong.



I wouldn’t recommend doing that, but in that case it would have worked.



The funny part is several times I was asked to get a ground loop hum out of some AV equipment and sticking a cheater in there worked.
 
Krich said:
If you contact Brickwall, they will tell you their patented technology actually controls the flow of surges and directs it to ground. This is why their product is a surge suppressor not a surge protector.

I had an electrical engineer look at their stuff and he said they are doing something totally different than all the other companies out there and he like what he saw and thought it to be very effective. When planning the electrical part of the house I'm going to build, I'm planning on using their commercial whole house suppressor system.

All the other companies that make surge protectors which functions on a weak link concept that is supposed to separate during a power surge to kill the circuit which does not always happen resulting in electronics getting fried sometimes
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In my case the surge was already directed to ground and was flowing. The problem is the fuses or breakers at the pole are so high rated and as mentioned above the resistance of the ground rod and the short circuit was high enough to limit the current below that threshold.



The same thing happens when someone is say messing around with the main lines before the homes main breaker and they get their screwdriver hot to ground. It will weld itself in place and then become the fuse. Not fun.
 
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