Electrical problems.

[Gary D]

1 hour ago, Tommy T. said:

Yeah... I read in an article a while back that aluminum is a commonly used wire here. I just, yesterday, re-checked the house blueprints and it specifies copper wire and the sizes to be used. I will be sure to confirm with the contractor that they will use only copper wire. That's another thing to add to my list. Thanks for that info!

I think a lot of the main lines are aluminium, I guess the copper gets stolen too often.

[jimeve]

22 minutes ago, Gary D said:

I think a lot of the main lines are aluminium, I guess the copper gets stolen too often.

Yes they are of aluminium the service drop lines. That's what they are called over here.

[sonjack2847]

23 hours ago, jimeve said:

In the UK it's law to have the shower with a 30amp  breaker ,Same with the electric ovens. But what do we know lol. Basic maths count the amps that the appliance will use add them up thats the total of amps for that breaker. Safer to keep the shower on a seperate breaker.

It is now before he just tried to cut corners and got caught. I also had him crawling around in the roof space putting in Ground cables. He told me it was very hot up there tough I said if you had done what I paid before you would not be here now. Some of these so called tradesmen are their own worst enemies.

[Dave Hounddriver]

5 hours ago, Tommy T. said:

. I think that in USA, we just did straight connection without the return - at least that is what I remember

Are you sure?  How did you wire you 220V dryer or range?

[Gary D]

35 minutes ago, Dave Hounddriver said:

Are you sure?  How did you wire you 220V dryer or range?

It's my understanding that each house gets two phases so by connecting between phases you get the 220v.

[Tommy T.]

2 hours ago, Dave Hounddriver said:

Are you sure?  How did you wire you 220V dryer or range?

I think what Gary said is the way our house was wired in USA. The outlets and light circuits just went out with no "ring" using one phase. The dryer and range used the 220v three phase with the two legs connected.

One thing I miss here is the GFI - ground fault interrupter. I put those in all circuits and I know they saved me some shocks because I tripped them a few times when working in the shop in the garage. Has anyone seen those here?

[bastonjock]

We mostly use a cable called twin and earth here in the UK for domestic installations,  it's a flat looking cable with 3 conductors in it , I.e live , neutral and earth 

For a 30a circuit we would run that in 2.5 twin and earth , if we measure between 2 phases in the UK we get 400v , our domestic supplies come into the house are single phase with neutral and earth 

Breakers also come in many different types depending on your usage 

[Arizona Kid]

18 minutes ago, Tommy T. said:

I think what Gary said is the way our house was wired in USA. The outlets and light circuits just went out with no "ring" using one phase. The dryer and range used the 220v three phase with the two legs connected.

One thing I miss here is the GFI - ground fault interrupter. I put those in all circuits and I know they saved me some shocks because I tripped them a few times when working in the shop in the garage. Has anyone seen those here?

Not sure but I think Wilcon has the GFI's  Meanwhile I use the same power strips that I use to power my PC  for everything else. There is a fuse in them that will prevent a lightning strike from reaching your tv or pc. Could be wrong but if I am it would only be the second time in my life.

[Tommy T.]

19 minutes ago, Arizona Kid said:

Not sure but I think Wilcon has the GFI's  Meanwhile I use the same power strips that I use to power my PC  for everything else. There is a fuse in them that will prevent a lightning strike from reaching your tv or pc. Could be wrong but if I am it would only be the second time in my life.

I have to go to Wilcon soon anyway to pick floor tiles. I will check for GFI's while I am there.

Not sure if you followed a different thread about electricity a while back, but it mentioned AVR (automatic voltage regulators). I will have the sparky install one of those on the house for all circuit protection. If I remember correctly it will protect from lightning surges as well as low voltage. If not, then I will also get a whole house surge protector. I don't want fried laptop, TV and other appliances...no no no!

[Tommy T.]

6 hours ago, jimeve said:

Yes they are of aluminium the service drop lines. That's what they are called over here.

My remembrance is that the service drop lines in USA (I think we called them feed lines where I lived?) were also aluminum. They were also quite a large gauge to make up for the lower conductance. I asked the sparky who installed this on our house and he explained that copper was already so expensive that it was cheaper yet safe and efficient to use the aluminum so long as it was big enough. This stuff was bigger than my finger so maybe 0000 or bigger?

I read somewhere recently that some people are using aluminum cabling or wiring for other uses - like possibly house wiring? I don't remember that part so well but I think that's what was written because I do remember my reaction was a bit shocked (pun intended).

Perhaps an interesting aside for you boys here... When I was running cabling in the yacht for the anchor windlass I needed heavy cable to handle the load - sometimes 200 amps - and over a round trip distance of about 75 feet. I ended up using welding cable. But the shop where I bought it in an industrial section of Seattle sold everything - including diesel locomotive cable. I actually used that to connect the batteries to each other. They had cables that were at least 3 inches in diameter! (No, mine were much smaller.) It was fun just to roam around and check out all the neat stuff they had there.

Edited October 20, 2019 by Tommy T.