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Solve Home Electrical Problems Yourself!Does your home have: Site Map
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-th visitor since April 2005, welcome! What if this site ever becomes unavailable? Or what if your computer circuit is a victim of your next little outage? You'll be glad to know that all this electrical advice is now available as a book (or download) called Circuit Down. Give yourself, or a DIY-er you know, the gift of Detective Larry's experience and his 35 diagrams and charts. Available online from Lulu, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble.Tip of the Day: Congress says that by 2014 normal 40-100 watt incandescent light bulbs must no longer be made (to encourage the more efficient fluorescent bulbs). Remember when your dimmer switches were promoted as saving energy? Guess what? Those dimmers are not able to get along with most fluorescent bulbs! You may be going back to regular on-off switches. - Detective Larry ...More Tips of the Day. The Scope of This Website: These pages have been designed for the U.S. or Canadian DIY homeowner who faces home electrical problems, that is, electric malfunction issues in his/her household electrical wiring system. The site is not oriented to helping with design, installation, or with remodel projects. [More geared to these are such sites as this well-written one and electrical-online; but I would avoid ehow.com as unreliable based on this page, where for three years they have been advising wrong and dangerous ways to test outlets.] Some books are better at wiring projects than most websites. Some who need to find this site's material may be searching with terms found in this statement: "When I replaced a toggle two way switch with a rocker tree way switch, the GFI breaker switch wall socket popped off. I guess I need help to trouble shoot my house hold electricity. Cant a GFCI circuit or GFI switch handle a 3 way circuit? I don't want any wall outlets to go bad or get dim from a bad breaker. I want a free electrical advice website and to learn home electrical repair." Navigation: Besides using the sidebars, these may help:
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![]() Background includes: Did You Know? Your System The power company Your main panel Circuit operation Wires: hot neutral etc Switching How Things Go Wrong Symptom categories Symptom-cause chart Cause categories Testers Related pages: Tour of a typical circuit Frames version Typical cabling 3-way & 4-way switches 2-circuit cables Main service wire bad? Melted wires Labeling a panel THANK YOUsSo glad I waited and found your website! You make it so easy to understand electricity! -Sandy (AZ)moreOther Pages FAQs Common problems Glossary Testers chart Symptom/cause chart Safety opinions Electrical fires Electrical myths Tips for electricians Articles by Larry Wiring Diagrams Sitemap of Diagrams includes: System overall Power company Main panel How a circuit works Wire colors/functions Typical circuit System weak spots Connection glitches The dead/live border Circuits sharing neutral Shared neutral open Main wire open GFI protecting loads Test for tripped GFI Hot/neutral reversed 3-way switches 4-way switches Rare 3-way switches Open hot Open neutral Open ground Beginners' Corner - An outlet with a reset button is usually sensing faults at other normal outlets too, and will make them go dead too when it trips off. |
![]() Troubleshooting includes: Safety Diagnosis in a Nutshell A DIY Strategy Categorize Symptoms Categorize the Cause Pinpoint the Location The Open The Ground-fault The Short Circuit The Shock Testing Repairing Related pages: GFI-GFCI problems AFCI breaker (arc-fault) A diagnostic tree How to test for what Is a breaker tripped? Signs of bad connection Real estate inspection? Replacing outlets? Misc.device/appliances THANK YOUsYou definitely have gone way beyond the typical things that something like my Home Depot Wiring book goes into. -StevemoreDiagnostic Tree START HERE includes: Doesn't work Breaker won't reset GFI won't reset Lights blink Lights stay dim/bright Shock Comes and goes One item out Troubleshoot heaters Open hot/neutral Short circuits Tripped only once GENERAL Troubleshooting stories A pro-DIY journal Poetic attempts Copyright Links About me Privacy Policy Donate CONTACT ME HOME Local Work Seattle area Bellevue Carnation Duvall Fall City Issaquah King County Kirkland North Bend Redmond Sammamish Snoqualmie Woodinville Advanced Corner - If you are slightly live (from a fault in a heated floor, say), then anything grounded that you test with a neon or non-contact tester may register as if those things were what is live. | |