John Kogel

Definitely not. The current will flow on the conductor only. If the conductor or termination/connection were compromised then it may try and find another path to flow back to it's source. The only time there will be voltage present on a neutral is again, if the neutral is open and there is a live load on the circuit. Mr. Petey, you are saying that AC behaves differently in a panel box than it does in a radio or an appliance? You are an electrician so I will bow to your advanced training. I think we are just miscommunicating. []

Tim, if you Google 3-way switch wiring you will see diagrams of the many different ways your lights may be wired. If you are able to wire the box for the fan to be on a separate switch, you will have to give up the 3-way switching. A lot of the new fans have remote controls. So it might be possible to wire the fan so that it is always on, and then control it with the remote. I say might because as you said we don't know where power comes in on your circuit.

Ummm, no. Neutrals carry current, not voltage. A bare ground touching a neutral in a panel will NOT throw sparks. Unless of course the neutral is disconnected, then grounding it will only show a load arc if the circuit is on and under a load. Oops. My clutch was slipping there. []But when the neutral is loaded, that current would be shared with any ground wires touching it, no?

Just don't lead off with your left foot. [] Leftys have to be tough to survive.

The white wire is a neutral. It carries voltage, on a 120 volt circuit, for example, 120 volts. It should be insulated until it reaches the terminal to prevent arcing in the panel. A bare grounding wire, grounded with no voltage, will short the bare neutral and there will be sparks flying in your panel. Also you should not have Copper and Al in the same lug. Also you should not have multiple wires of different gauges in the same lug.

As Jim said, it should be enclosed in flexible conduit. If so, the conduit is clamped to the grinder and attached at the wall, so it is providing protection and support.

I think you are seeing the bonding strap which is required to prevent stray voltages from shocking people. The jumper is there to bond the two lengths of pipe. If you call it bonding, it becomes clear, the grounding is provided by another conductor coming from a rod or a connection to the foundation.

I get a kick out of the 'NoArk' label. 'Ya mean Noah never built that boat?' [] I think they are down low so street musicians can tap them for their amplifiers. []

It sounds like the breaker did what it is designed to do. I would recommend replacing the $20 GFCI simply because it may have a fault that led to the demise of your tool, and because it probably should have tripped immediately, IMO. Yes, what Jim said, a resistor has fried in the test button circuit. It was supposed to be rated for 5 Watts but cheap components fail. Pop it open and check it out. I am finding so many GFCI's that stays energized after tripping. I can't believe they are all wired wrong, so now I'm thinking maybe there is an internal fault that happens to them. Then there is the dubious value of paying someone to correct wiring on an old device. Replace it with a correctly wired new unit.

There are wood insulations that are perfectly safe. He could take some out and try to burn it.

The secret plan was that one depth charge would shake all the breakers out of the Rusky sub panel and the good guys would win. []

Well, it's no longer a Soviet submarine. It's a floating museum in San Diego. I was there last fall and had some time to kill, so I toured some of the boats. I believe that is a Canadian Federal Pioneer.That is the popular colour for late 60's and younger FP breaker panels. It looks like the other j-boxes came from the same supplier. Can we call that a Sub panel? []

Thanks, men. Wax logs are a real possible.

The pictures show a blackened masonry chimney with a glossy coating of creosote. There is a small step crack in the mortar. The woodstove is a Vermont Castings airtight fireplace, which is the type that can operate with the doors open. I suspect there has been a chimney fire, but the owner uses those chimney-cleaning presto logs to burn the soot out of the flue. Could the soot and glaze be caused by those chimney cleaner logs? Click to Enlarge 80.51 KB Click to Enlarge 92.01 KB Click to Enlarge 45.02 KB

Something is seriously wrong with the drainage for the vent to be blowing bubbles like that. The washer is pumping soapy water into the drainstack faster than it can get away, IMO.

They send scouts to browse the building permit files for goofy roof designs. [] Seriously, I imagine the wood-destroying fungi give off odors that flying termites can smell. You will sometimes see small clusters of wings beside a hole on the side of a log or a house. They land, shed their wings and move in. I saw this not long ago on a wood deck with no flashing at the ledger board. Ledger board nailed to OSB sheathing. Below the deck, OSB is covered with mats of white fungus. Little wings on the deck. I tell the client, young guy, he will need to strip off some wood and fix this. Realtor rolls his eyes and vows to never refer another job my way. So it goes. []

Pacific dampwood termites Area of Distribution: The Pacific dampwood termite is the largest and most significant dampwood termite in the United States. They have been found up to 6,000 feet above sea level, but more commonly in the cool and humid coastal areas. Identification of Swarmers and Soldiers: Swarming may occur throughout the year, but most often from August through October. Swarming usually will occur on warm humid evenings just before sunset. The reproductives are strongly attracted to light. Swarmers are up to 1" in length and are light to medium brown with dark brown wings. Soldiers have a large head armed with long black toothed mandibles. The anterior portion is black generally shading to a dark reddish-brown in the posterior position. The abdomen and thorax are a light caramel color, the abdomen varying according to the stomach contents at the time. The largest termites in the United States, soldiers may be very large, reaching 5/8 to 3/4". Identification of Timber Damage: The tunnels vary greatly in size and shape and in sound timber may favour the softer springwood. Faecal pellets are found throughout the tunnels, and are hard small, oval and about 1/25 ? long. The color of the pellets may vary according to the type of wood being consumed. Biology and Habits: This species will attack wood of all types throughout its range. Timbers in contact with the soil or structures built near or over water are common targets. This species is known to be very tolerant of moist conditions, even being found in pilings subject to tidal flooding. Colony size varies but may contain as many as 4,000 individuals. Colony growth is aided by the production of secondary reproductives. Like other termites this species aid in the spreading of wood decay fungi, the spores of which are carried in the gut and on their bodies. A well established colony will produce winged reproductives which may infest nearby timber. The life history of the Pacific dampwood can be summarized as follows. Both male and female swarmers excavate a chamber, they enter, and the chamber is sealed. They mate and within about 2 weeks, eggs are laid and the colony is founded. The queen lays about 12 eggs. The second batch is laid the next spring.

In that case they could very well be Dampwoods that arrived there on the wing. AFAIK, they don't need to go down to the dirt level for moisture. Another scenario is when they are in a log that is milled locally and air-dried a bit or nailed up green. Not likely but possible in larger timber.

Agreed, Termies. They don't like to come out in the light. They could be Dampwood termites in your area. They find rotting wood, and don't need mud tubes, I don't think.

Thanks, y'all, good info.

Hello Charlie. How is the Burham boiler standing up to over 50 years of service? I am curious because a client is very concerned about a 20 year old Burham boiler he is buying.

What's all that stuff on the right side of the diagram and why are there four switches? The R's are resistors. R1 is 2000 ohms with a rating of 25 watts, big one.Switch 1 is the test button for GFCI, shorts the Line to Ground through the bulb. The R1 slows the electrons down so it isn't a dead short which would fry the tester and your hand. The Switch S2 is for converting to a European 240 volt tester, must be an internal setting. Marc, I wonder if S2 and S3 could be switching diodes that close when they are grounded? That could be some other gizmo tester. Check out this schematic. Click to Enlarge 39.3 KB No test button shown on this schematic. I am tired of this now.[?]

What I said, use your voltage sniffer, or what he said, ShurTest or pull covers.

Try that one agin, Denny? No comprende. [] Only the center light on tells you there is no ground. If you plug the cheezy 3-light tester into a 2-prong adapter, only the center light will light, no matter which way you plug it into a receptacle. So it can't tell you if hot and neutral are reversed on an ungrounded outlet. That is not what you asked, tho. To find reversed polarity on a polarized but ungrounded receptacle, hold your finger over the narrow slot and bring you voltage sniffer in to the wide slot. It will not ring, then ring when you remove you finger. Thanks Trent for enlightening me on that one.

Maybe it's an illusion, but it looks like the concrete steps jumped out and left that hole. [:-bigeyes