Home Improvement Today?

wut

 

Grouted the floor today, got some wall tiles up yesterday. Then realized the subway tile I was planning on putting in the shower stall is a different shade of white.





Also got the door hung today.

 

Tilework looks good. Always see subway tile up northeast.
But looks of toilet profile may need to keep a plunger nearby. Just my .02.

 

Mmm curry. Nom nom nom

 

Here is my tile work.

 

Not to hijack the bathroom remodels here, but I had an electrical question.




I'm running power from my primary house panel to a subpanel in my (detached) garage. I'm going to be using standard 3+1 copper cable, so the subpanel is going to be grounded to the primary panel. Should I also install a ground rod at the garage? I've talked to a few electricians and I've gotten both 'Yes' and 'No' for answers.

Vitals are as follows:
200 Amp service (so that I can run my welder)
Copper wire, underground (direct burial, but I'm putting it in conduit for extra protection)
Roughly 60 feet of distance.

Can anybody help clear this up for me, or do I flip a coin and hope that nothing burns down (not my first choice)

 

I don't know about your state, but code in Utah requires all unattached buildings with sub panels to have the neutral bar grounded with #6 wire to the panel box then to a grounding rod in the earth. Treat the sub panel like it is coming in from the meter, the only conductors that should be entering your sub panel now are your 2 Hot Feeds, and your Neutral. (no ground from the main panel.)
I'm about to do the same thing you are so I have been reading up on codes

 

Hm.
Everything I've read says NOT to bond the ground and the neutral at the subpanel...
But, I've been reading up on 4-wire rather than 3-wire installs.

Edit-
Scratch that; everything just cleared. I had my attached and detached structure requirements mixed up.
My book has detached and attached structures in the same chapter, but with different headings. I totally missed the heading announcing the change every time I've read over the chapter.

Detached does require a ground at the structure. Now I feel silly for having asked before my 'aha' moment kicked in, haha!

 

Reading code is confusing sometimes, I've got 6 pages of copy and paste code on a word doc that I have been trying to sift through before I bite the bullet and buy all the parts I need. I'll have the inspector give my plans a once over also.

 

Now I wonder about the different answers from those electricians, though....

Maybe I didn't make it clear enough that the garage is detached when I talked to them.

 

From what I understand, it's not that old of a code and additions to older setups can be grandfathered in. Also, there is a clause that says if there is no dirt for the ground rod to go, only concrete around the unattached structure, you can run it back to the inside box.

 

Do they make puck lights for under cabinet lighting that I can wire directly to 14/2 wire? Every puck light I find has the wires attached to them. Unless I can remove their wire and put my 14/2 to the light instead. Any help would be great.

 

That's what I was thinking ...they do make 120v puck lights...but for some reason they provide wire...is it possible to just put my 14/2 wire into it? My problem is I daisy chained all my wiring behind my walls and into the cabinets already..off a switch.

 

btw.. i'm certainly no expert, but i was not happy with how the kerdi fabric went up. next time i'll spend the extra money to use kerdi board instead and save atleast a day of work.

 

What was the problem ?

 

the first wall i did, i didn't have the thinset wet enough, so after i started squeegeeing the thinset out from behind it, and pulled a corner to check for adhesion, it wasn't embedding at all. so i had to take it down, scrape it all off the wall, mix up some more watery thinset and try it again. then in the amount of time it took for me to cover an entire wall in thinset, the older stuff starts to skin up before i got the wall completely covered. I'm sure for someone that knows what they are doing this is easily remedied, but for me it just makes me doubt the strength of how its attached to the walls. I'd prefer a premixed "glue" that i could just roll onto the walls and attach the membrane too, then when it dries, tile over the membrane.

so for the amount of time it took for me to put up the sheet rock in the shower area, tape the seams and spackle the screw holes (because i figured it couldn't hurt), then the amount of time it took for me to put up the kerdi fabric, I could've put up kerdi board in 1/4 of the time. probably would've been able to put it up and tile the shower area in less time than it took me just to get to the point to be ready to tile.

 

The Kerdi board is definitely convenient

 

For over a tub I think the kerdi fabric is abit overkill. I only use it for walk in showers and the like. You did use the correct thinset right?

 

What's difference if it's a tub / shower or walk in shower ? We always use it