Home Improvement Today?

Ok, who wants to advise the non certified DIY wannabe electrician?

new Siemens panel (yay) and tried AFCI/GFCI PON breaker, not happy.

this circuit feeds one exterior perimeter light with two flood LED pods pointing along the wall (side and front of garage). It was previously unprotected but I wanted to do holiday lights off this circuit as it seemed most appropriate so I added on and felt the need for proper GFCI at least.

I also added a Kasa smart receptacle tucked in a weatherproof single gang box under the eaves.

I swapped back to a standard breaker for now.

I suspect the fancy photodiode I used, some Tork brand that screws into the round metal box beneath the flood pod cap. But it could be the smart receptacle.

I’m thinking the best plan is to just do a 4” metal box inside, standard gfci receptacle then maybe a smart switch for the floods and ditch the photodiode?

I do like the Kasa stuff since you can schedule relative to sunrise / sunset and also turn on / off manually. But I don’t really want an extra physical switch nor do I need one. It’s a little tempting to use one side of the smart receptacle for the flood lights and the other for my holiday lights but that will look super terrible having a plug feed back into the round metal box.

If I do a GFCI and switch inside then I’ll have to swap the 12/2 to 12/3 which will be a fair bit of hassle too.


Note: photo is before swapping from led flood bulbs to CE led pods but the same basic thing.

 

Finally gout the garage done, before winter. Had to completely empty it out and rented a U-Haul truck to store all my crap until I could start putting all back in … more organized. Other than time, hanging the cabinets, probably the hardest part.

 

If it was tripping immediately, you likely have an issue--either loose/miswired. Which is good it tripped.

Arcfault can sporadically trip, but it will do it inconsistently. I had the most problem with magnetic dimmers. Rarely with smart switches or smart bulbs. Arc fault is looking specifically for leakage. Where 'x' goes to the device on the hot wire, and 'x-0.25mA' comes back on the neutral, but also some other fancy detection algorithm that no one understands. They typically will never trip immediately.

But the GFI side of it, it's a simple comparator circuit. 'x' power that flows through the hot wire to the device needs to be equal to 'x' power that comes back to the breaker on the neutral. Any mismatch in this comparison, and the breaker trips.

If you happened to miswire and flipped a ground and neutral somewhere, or combined ground/neutral, it will trip immediately. A combined ground/neutral will use the path of least resistance to return to the earth, which will be the ground wire, not the neutral, therefore, the breaker see's an imbalance between hot/neutral loads and turns off..

You should always have at least 2 complete wires. You need the hot/live 'feed', and a complete return path that doesn't take any shortcuts to any other location.

 

Thanks!

I have tried so far with both my shed and this light circuit. The light circuit trips immediately twice then the third time it holds power but flashes. I think it’s probably a capacitor in the photodiode. That seems to make sense based on what you describe it is doing / checking. So thanks for the explanation in terms I can understand.

The shed trips immediately every time. It has some fuses, lighting, and a baseboard heater which I hope is off / disabled. Then a wall AC unit which is unplugged. Same shed that I think you gave an opinion on long ago. I plan to disconnect it from power and move the shed to the yard then use this circuit for something else. I’ll see if it stops tripping once I disconnect the shed, otherwise perhaps a short in the line somewhere.

 

Typically photodiodes/photocells don't effect arcfault/GFI operation. It's just a literal light-activated switch.

 

Went to swap out a light over the sink, realized it was on a switched hot, and then saw I needed more wire. This was under the cover. Gnats! Going back tomorrow.

 

Well, at least it wasn't so old where they switched the neutral instead leaving a constant hot. My first house in Mississippi was like that and got me a couple times...

 

I’ll need to check that when I go back. 2 white wires coming in, white and black coming back up from the switch.

 

Older homes used to take a single line of romex to switch. Bring the line in and tie the hot to a white to switch it. Code now specifies a neutral needs to be in every switch box.

 

Curious for those of you that have had drywall work done recently what you think a reasonable price would be to re drywall this section of kitchen where I removed a soffit? Been getting some wildly different numbers and I’m already sure who I’m gonna go with but just wanted to check here for a pulse check on what you’d expect to pay. I know prices vary by geographic region, don’t really care too much about that, just curious what people would pay for this work. Pic below of area needing new drywall.

 

Id guess $800-1000 depends on state/area

 

It can also depend on people doing it as a company and doing it on the side.

I know a couple guys that do great work professionally that would take that on for a case of beer and $200 on the weekend

 

$500-$600

 

The joint between the ceiling and wall will take a little work to make it look right.

 

Great looking garage. Friendly reminder, when hanging the American flag, the union should always be positioned in the top left, both vertically and horizontally.

 

Hahah man where are those guys!!!

 

What did they quote you? Any drywall person worth their mud will texture the whole ceiling and the whole wall too.

 

This seems about right to me. I’ve had quotes from 700-2,500. I just assumed the $2500 quote was from a guy that probably has bigger jobs to do and frankly doesn’t want this one.

 

Quotes have been:

$700
$900
$1100
$1600
$1600
$2500

 

As much as I dislike drywall/insulation work I've gotten quite good at it. I'd be inclined to repair that myself vs hiring someone. I don't see more than $100 in materials.