Tag: Electrical

March 4, 2026 – Troubleshooting 201

March 4, 2026 / / 0 Comments

I won’t assume that everyone reading this went to college. We hear the term 101 thrown around all the time, but what does that mean and what is the difference between 101 and 201? Well, 101 is a survey level course. In the case of Chemistry the year long sequence of 101, 102 and 103 attempts to cover three different disciplines of chemistry in a year long, high level series of courses. If you ask me, in many ways the 100 series is the hardest because the student is not given any basis for understanding the disciplines as they are intended for non and unrelated majors.

In contrast to the 100 series, the 200 level courses are intended for students that are going to go forward in the area of study. This means that the topics are harder and deeper with more emphasis on the why and not just the what. Today I am going to cover, why is the bathroom so cold?

From the first picture on the left, I see a bathroom fan with an integrated heater. It is not heating. This means that it could be broken or it is not wired correctly. Those are really the only two options. When I look at the picture to the right, I see two switches. One controls the lights in the bathroom and the other controls the fan. Based on what fan switch does, it should turn on the fan, a heater and a light. Only the fan worked.

That cannot rule out either of my hypotheses yet. It is either miswired or broken. I took the cover off of the fan. Low and behold there was a connector that was not connected. This is missing heater connection. I plug the connector in and turn on the switch, the heater belches and smokes to life. The problem now is that there are three things and only one switch.

This is a permissible mode of operation. What I mean by that is that power to the unit turns on the light and the fan and the heater. But, does that make any sense? I say no. Imagine that this is summer and now the heater is on every time the fan is on. Further to that, you are now blowing heat into the room and then sucking it out with the fan. This seems wrong in my book.

When we installed a similar unit in the ADU a few years ago, I separated the heater and the fan operation. That way you can have heat or the fan or both if it makes sense. In order to do that, you have to look at the wiring. I pulled the switches out to determine if it just wasn’t wired correctly. You probably can’t tell from the picture below but unfortunately it was not wired for separate operation.

Certain devices benefit from a more complicated wiring scheme. Take for example a ceiling fan. Before remote controls and external switches, it was very common to wire two hot wires to the fan. That way you could operate the fan and the light independently. Today you can control most ceiling fans at the device so that makes two hot wires irrelevant.

In electrical vernacular, the cable operating the device is labelled 12/2, 12/3 or 14/x. The first number is the wire diameter and the second number are the number of conductors in the cable. Without getting too deep into theory, 14 gauge wire is for 15A circuits and 12 gauge wire is for 20A circuits. This particular heater is a 1300W heater. If you do the circuit math, the total load is 15A * 120V = 1800W. The means that the heater could be on either a 15A or 20A circuit. I know it is 12 gauge wire because the cable insulation is yellow. But, what I do not see is 12/3 cable. Based on how the switch is wired, it is not possible for independent control.

To fix this situation, a cable would have to be pulled from the fan to the switch containing three conductors instead of the two conductor cable that is currently in use. OK, I don’t like that but it is doable. When I look at the other bathrooms, it gets more complicated. The pictures I am showing is the bathroom with a fan/heater combination already installed. To upgrade the other bathrooms, the overall circuit load has to be considered.

What has been standard was 15A circuits for lights and 20A circuits for outlets. Doing the math again, 1800W/ 60W = 30 permissible bulbs on one circuit. In old houses, you might even have all the lights on one circuit. In these days of LEDs, light bulbs are drawing 10-15W. That is now 120 or more permissible bulbs on one circuit. Not only is this power efficient, but it means that the lights can be on while you work on the outlets or other electrical concerns.

That is one way of wiring, the other is to have all terminations on one circuit. This means the lights and the outlets are all part of the same circuit. According to AI, a hairdryer uses about 2000W of electricity. That means one device is taking the entire circuit load on a 20A circuit. There is simply no way to add a 1300W heater and operate a hairdryer at the same time. This means running a new, dedicated circuit. Not only is the wiring from the fan to the the switch inadequate (but perfectly acceptable for just a fan only) but the power requirements are simply not there.

End Your Programming Routine: As I have stated previously, this new house is in a heating climate and the heat that is available is completely substandard. The good news is that one bathroom has the capacity to be fixed and operate properly, the other two are going to take more effort. It is my opinion that the house was miswired and even poorly designed. While not code to have heat in the bathroom, it is required in certain loans (not ours). More so than any of that, the house is simply uncomfortable. We aim to rectify that.

January 28, 2026 – Gotta Use Your Noggin

January 28, 2026 /

So, the war is on. We were at the lake house last week for our longest stint ever, three days. We were there primarily because we had the house inspection and Radon test. I was willing to come back so that the tester could pick up the Radon module after two days but my wife wanted to stay.

One of the things that the inspector asked was if there were any concerns. I said that the heating is absolutely inadequate. My wife and I actually were discussing about purchasing and replacing one of the wall heaters the previous night. One of the heaters I could put my hand on the metal grate while it was running for as long as I wanted. It was warm, but that was it. The other heater I could hold my hand about an inch from the metal grate for about two seconds before it was too hot.

I was also interested in the electrical panel to see if there was any space if we do want to add a mini split. Maybe we will resize the heaters? I don’t know for sure but I will say that it takes 24 hours before the downstairs living space is comfortable. One of the thoughts we had was to turn on the ceiling fans in reverse. That is supposed to help keep the heat from moving upstairs.

I didn’t have a ladder so I climbed up on one of the few pieces of furniture that we had, a bar stool. I didn’t have enough height to see on top of the fan base but I felt around and I could not find anything. On the list for the next trip was a ladder. Only the cheapest of ceiling fans cannot be reversed. Ask me how I know but these had remotes and different light hues and fan speeds. I found it hard to believe that there was no reverse switch.

On Saturday, we were working on a puzzle and really just killing time until the Radon test was picked up so that we could leave. This was my time to get busy with the ladder. On the first fan, I plopped the ladder down, climbed up and the switch was right in front of me; fan reversed. I was excited that in five minutes I would be back to the puzzle.

I move to the second fan and I don’t see a switch. I checked three different angles on the fan base. Then my wife wanted to see. She said, “here is the hole where it is supposed to be”. I said “what”? I still couldn’t see it. Once I got through the paradigm that the switch wasn’t there, I missed it because I was looking for something raised, not a hole She was underneath the fan and said that it looks different than the other fans. We did some bickering about why I could not see the hole and I reluctantly agreed to take the fan down and see what I could see.

Ceiling fans are job that I don’t like doing. These things are heavy and awkward. More so than this, it really is not my place to be taking down someone else’s fan to see if I could determine what is wrong. But I did it anyway. When I got the fan off the ceiling, I could definitely see the hole. I stuck the flashlight in the hole and I couldn’t see a switch anywhere. I reluctantly agreed that I would take the fan apart further to see if I could determine the problem.

Once I got the upper housing off, I could see that it was installed about 120 degrees from the switch. Hence, the switch was underneath the housing but not visible or accessible. Once I got thing put back together the way they were supposed to be, I begin to wonder how this was possible. This had to have been built incorrectly in the first place.

The escutcheon was painted to the ceiling. It is possible that this was a homeowner installation, but based on the fact that the previous owners only lived in the house three years, there has already been a major remodel and there are some other electrical oddities, I suspect that this is exactly the way it was installed. Before I am too hard on the installer, I can’t say that I would have noticed this problem either. I strongly believe this is how the fan was built as the fan cover is not a typical user installed part.

End Your Programming Routine: Because we had already been at the house for three days with the heat blasting the whole time, it is hard to say if the fans actually helped. It also makes me wonder if I should pull apart the heater that is only kind of working. I will probably do that while we are here this week. I would have never have guessed that something made incorrectly, installed an used but never noticed the problem would be the case.

August 20, 2025 – Introducing My Mistress

August 20, 2025 /

I know, I just kind of dropped off of the face of the earth. Most outages are planned and I try to make some kind of announcement. But, I just got overwhelmed and hyper-focused with what I had to do. My wife has set my deadline at August 31 which I should comfortably make. But, you would be surprised at how many steps go into this seemingly simple process.

I should also mention that in the middle of last weekend, I also had to redo the front brakes of my Lincoln Navigator. I needed the Navigator to go get sheetrock so that I could continue making progress on this project. I was forbidden to drive it unless I fixed the brakes. Add that to the list of reasons why I was not able to write.

I know that I have already written about this once and will possibly show the finished product in a week or so. When I casually said, I can do that, I had no idea what that really meant. It has also been really helpful that the finished vanity is right behind me so I can take measurements. For instance, because I did a mock-up, I realized that the backsplash was going to hit the switch plate cover. Rather than trying to modify the cover, I decided to move the electrical box up so that it would clear the backsplash.

I was already doing electrical work to add the new light fixture. While I would have preferred to eliminate the round junction boxes for the old lights, the wiring was just too complicated to fix without ripping out the ceiling and re-wiring the bathroom fan as well.

Speaking of old electrical work, those junction boxes turned out to be antiquated. They are 3 1/2″ round which is a size that is not made anymore, at least I didn’t run across it. By proxy, I was not able to find paintable covers, except for one. I tried all of the local hardware stores and both box stores. Ordering was the only way to get something that would work.

I had a dream of insetting the medicine cabinets into the wall. That is just a better look to me, but it meant that I needed to take a critical look at the framing given that was a structural wall. I took a good chunk of drywall out to do the wiring and see what I could see with the framing. No dice there, the vent stack ran right where I wanted to inset the medicine cabinet and I was not about to re-plumb all of the drain pipes to make it work. I would have been possible but not without a lot more time, money and effort.

When I committed to the project, I didn’t give any thought to the plumbing. Well, only a little. I figured plumbing was there so it should work. I thought that I would tee off of the existing shut-off valves to each fixture. That was before I learned that each fixture should have a shut-off. Since I had to modify the rough plumbing, I might as well make it so that I had to modify the cabinet as little as possible.

I also learned the copper flux can go bad. After hours wondering why I couldn’t get the solder to work, I finally decided to change the only variable that I hadn’t changed which was the flux. Pretty soon I had one joint completed in five minutes instead of 15 minutes on the torch and $20 of solder on the bench top. That stuff has gotten crazy expensive at $41 for a half pound roll.

All that was child’s play when it came up against the drain plumbing. I thought that I was going to add a p-trap to each sink and then out the drain until I was wondering if the pipes needed some pitch. It turns out that I needed a whole new setup. I was scratching my head with a whole bucket full of pieces wondering if I got the right stuff. I am still not sure until I get to the point of doing the work.

I haven’t done a serious project like this since I remodeled the little house in 2020. I was telling my wife, image if someone didn’t know what they were doing and had to call a plumber, electrician, drywaller and painter. This would would be a serious financial investment. The vanity wasn’t cheap to begin with but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was $20,000 job.

End Your Programming Routine: On the surface, it seems simple, replace one vanity with another. But, boy oh boy going from one sink to two is an exponential dynamic. It’s good though, it flexes some muscles that have atrophied. I know that it is going to be something that I can be proud of because I was careful and did everything right.

April 29, 2025 – He Who Smelt It, Didn’t Fix It

April 29, 2025 /

Bathroom fans are a dubious proposition. We want industrial hood suction with a consumer level price and engineering. I for one am somewhat skeptical on their effectiveness as it seems like fan off/on seem to have the same results. This particular fixture has always had weak lighting and now the fan has stopped working. It may be worth trying to diagnose but an upgrade in lighting is certainly in order.

I am amazed at the number of options today. When I was last looking at fans a couple of years ago there were a handful of choices. I didn’t buy one because the volume I wanted was on backorder. Those choices were largely based on fan volume. Today, there is a whole isle of bathroom fans. Later I learned that there was nothing wrong with the fan at all and what I thought was a bearing was a loose cover connection.

I have replaced this fan once before, so I am confident that this job is easier than it could be. If your fan is original to the house, your job is going to be much tougher as it is likely attached to the structure in a way that is not accessible from the finished space. This means that you will have to come up with a way to cut and chop your way through the fan body to get it removed.

I suspect that this fan overheated due to dust (or see below). The easiest fix would be to simply replace the fan motor. In our case, the light is so poor that we are going to upgrade the fixture. Replacing the motor is about an hour job, replacing the whole fan, box and all is probably an eight hour job including multiple days of finish work.

I did find out when I took the box out that a squirrel had made it’s way down the vent pipe and stashed a walnut in-between the flapper vent. For all I know, maybe that is what caused the fan to burn out. At the very least, this should help with heat loss and better ventilation for that matter.

Make sure the power is off. If you are confident that your wiring is conventional, then you should be able to leave it off at the switch. But, if you are not, then you will need to find the breaker. Next, remove the electrical connections. In this fan they are made underneath the plate that you see. That means that you will have to figure out how to disconnect the fan from the box. Detach the box from the framing so that it is only connected to the duct work. Finally, disconnect the duct and install in the reverse order.

Now is time for the pro tips. I did have to cut out my old fan box to remove it. I was not expecting that but it had to do with the wiring clamped outside the box. Second, I did have to modify the new fan. The first modification was that I cut the new work tabs off of the box so it would fit in the hole. The second modification I had to make was I had to disassemble the entire fan to make the electrical connections. There is no way to use a wire clamp (middle picture) when the box is in place. None of that is in the instructions. Finally, the new fan box is quite a bit smaller than the one that it replaced. That means that there is drywall repair to be done. I am still working on that as I type this.

End Your Programming Routine: I have to be honest, this job requires a lot of different skills such as electrical, HVAC and drywall finishing. If you could find someone to do the work at a fixed rate, you would probably time ahead unless you are pretty darn good. Since I had done this a number of times, I thought it would go quicker than it did. And even though I can handle it I found myself frustrated at points and sweating a lot.

November 9, 2021 – Troubleshooting a Failing Bath Fan

November 9, 2021 /

We have lived in this house over sixteen years. Since the week we first moved in, I thought that a bearing was bad in the fan unit since it made a vibrating sound. I was even going to replace it one time about three or four years ago but the shelving stock was out. I looked for several months thereafter but then forgot about it.

Instead of just being noisy, it started getting to the point of not actually working. You could hear the power applied but the fan wasn’t moving always. Sometimes, flipping the switch a couple of times would get the fan going, sometimes not. I decided that now was the time to finally do this.

I checked the availability at the box store and it was in-stock. My experience over the years has taught me to visually inspect the unit before doing anything. I wanted to make sure that I was replacing the unit as quickly and painlessly as possible. You could say a like for like swap is what I was looking for.

Much to my surprise, the fan was not a 50 CFM unit but a 70 CFM unit even though the bathroom is only 3×5′. So I started looking a little closer at my ordering options because I was not going to be able to go to the store for several days. When I looked on Amazon, I realized that I would not have to tear the entire housing out like I had done with the two others I replaced but I could swap the motor/fan assembly out only saving tons of effort.

Then, I went to the local hardware store and bought a replacement motor/fan unit. When I took the unit apart to replace the motor, I think I identified multiple issues.

If you see how dusty the outside is, you can imagine that there is 30 years of dust caked on the motor and fan. I suspect that the dust on the outside of the motor housing was causing the motor to overheat. I didn’t bother cleaning it and putting it back since I thought there was also a worn bearing causing noise.

My wife really wanted a new fan since the outside bezel was yellowed from age but I convinced her that I could just spray paint the old one and it would look much better. Before I started painting, I stuck the screw back in the housing so it wouldn’t get lost in the process. The screw was not what originally was part of the unit and when I turned on the fan, it was vibrating and making a ruckus while it was not holding the bezel tight. In the end, I decided that the noise I heard all those years was the screw vibrating and not a bad bearing.

When I put it back together, I put several wraps of teflon pipe tape to give some extra dimension to the screw and hopefully act as some padding. The fan is still loud because it is oversized for the room but works like a champ. I cannot say how much less effort the replacement motor is over a whole new unit. However, it is more expensive – imagine that but the cost was worth it.

Over time, these units do suck up dust and it ends up coating the electrical components. The one in the master bath I have cleaned several times because I can see dust on the outside, but never this one. Periodic maintenance would be recommended for long life.

End Your Programming Routine: The lesson that I would like to push today is look and understand the failure. It is highly possible that there was nothing wrong to begin with other than the dust needed clearing. This is at least the fifth fan that I have replaced but I never knew that a replacement unit could slip into the existing housing. So, I suppose $40 was a good investment in education.

May 25, 2021- Rough wiring complete, Insulation mostly done

May 25, 2021 /

Time is a consistent theme for me. I never seem to have enough of it. There are the things I want to do, I do some of that. There are the things I have to do, I do those things when I must usually dragging my feet. There are the things that I should do that seem like I rarely do those things.

It is always better when time constraints overlap like should/want and want/need. Planning what I want to write about falls between want to do and should do, but definitely not a have to do. Because of that, I didn’t really have a topic today. My choice of free time is going toward my project work. So you are getting a project update today with a helping of thought provoking commentary.

I have the materials and the wherewithal to finish the insulation. But, without light inside the space, I am delaying the final enclosure as long as possible. I would like to get as much of the drywall installed before I finish the final wall. I do have work lights, but they are a pain. I could also install a temporary fixture, but I would have to daisy chain all the proceeding electrical together first and then it would still be in my way.

I have a little bit of framing, blocking and stiffening work to do, they are all on the north wall to. So, I will see if I run out of things to do before I only have insulation to work on. I do plan on buying the drywall this weekend. That will be the last major chunk of expense. In the mean time, I have two pieces of drywall that I had carefully removed before I started.

For some reason, I didn’t push the right buttons to build a career in this line of business. It would have combined multiple interests like business development and hard skills like building. I suppose that it didn’t turn out to be my lot in life but it is really on my brain all day long. As I sit here doing my work, I can smell the lumber and the craft paper of the insulation and it I keep turning to look at my project causing me to get distracted and scheme about my next moves.

Sometimes, I can’t help myself and start cutting pieces of insulation or pull a run of wire when a meeting is droning on. That gets me thinking along the lines of content generation and how I can utilize my skills and interest in that direction. Pretty soon, I am not paying any attention to what is going on. I am sure that God has a plan for me, I am much less sure what it is.

On an semi-related note, yesterday I was listening to the Outside podcast. They snuck one in on me and the subject matter was an interview with a transgender outdoor athlete. When podcasts get too deep into social justice and social engineering, they don’t last to long in my feed. Outside tends to lean that way to begin with but as long as it is not the only subject matter, then I listen with an open mind.

I do not get it, but I do believe that people can be living lives that do not fit with how they are born. It is clear that when they describe the before and after life that the release is genuine. It makes me wonder what it would feel like to feel that way and how a person would struggle with identity and contentment. Fortunately, my problem is more of building and plan and executing rather than doing something that is impossible.

Circling back to time now. In order for me to re-invent myself, I would need to dedicate the time to do so which is hard. I have things that I want to do as well but it comes down to how much pain is the current situation versus desire to change. For that, I will not complain but continue sculpting whatever my life will end up becoming; I guess that if it was quick, then I would already be doing it.

End Your Programming Routine: I don’t think that I was ever planning on talking about let alone connecting transgender to insulation. Regardless, just like all things that I write about, we have to evaluate the data that we have and execute decisions based on what we think has the best outcome. The most important thing to do is to think about the variables and potential outcomes. At least that way, we don’t continue to do the same things for reasons that we don’t understand.