Basement Project Journal

[Chet]

Missed your completion date on the jewelry box, now you are way off on this project, its a good thing you don't do this sort of thing professionally... you would be missing the mark on all you bids.

[pkinneb]

9 hours ago, Chet said:

Missed your completion date on the jewelry box, now you are way off on this project, its a good thing you don't do this sort of thing professionally... you would be missing the mark on all you bids.

Yep going forward no more dates 

Ultimately one of my issues is I want it done right not just done I have the same affliction in my woodworking so I should just leave things open ended. However then I run into another personal issue and that is I like setting goals...what to do what to do LOL

[legenddc]

Just double the budget and estimated time. I do that and then I'm usually closer to reality. 

[Chet]

2 hours ago, pkinneb said:

I like setting goals...what to do what to do LOL

Absolutely nothing wrong with setting goals,  just don't let this demanding bunch know about them. 

[Tom King]

My goal is always simple.  It will be right when I get through with it.  No estimates.  No deadlines.  I don't, and won't even think about it.  I'm too simple minded.  I just do as much as I can every day.  If you need to know how much it's going to cost, or how long it will take, ask someone else.  

Usually, I get called to do some job, and end up staying there to work on many other things for a couple of years.  Clients I've done that for before are waiting, and wanting me to come back now.  I plan to when I get to it.  I did tell them that it wouldn't hurt my feelings a bit if they found someone else to do their work.  So far, they say they'll wait.

There is no goal I could set that would change any outcome about how fast anything gets done.  I had one client that kept thinking if he rearranged the order of different projects, that it would result in taking less time overall.  I didn't work for him long.

My point is that a goal for an end point in time is not going to do anything productive when you're already doing all you can do.

[pkinneb]

Big milestone today, I passed the rough in electrical inspection 

Next up some low voltage wiring, insulation, and sheet rock

[Tom King]

Congratulations on the pass, but my inspector would have wanted the twisted ground wires to be a prettier, tighter twist, and with a crimp on copper connector on the ground wires instead of a wire nut.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Gardner-Bender-14-8-AWG-Copper-Crimp-Connectors-50-Pack-10-311C/202520223

 

[drzaius]

That's a big milestone. Soon there will be gypsum board. You doing that yourself?

Different areas, different standards. Around here you can't have more than 1/8" of sheath sticking out of the cable clamp in the box & there must be at least 6" of wire in the box. 

[pkinneb]

37 minutes ago, Tom King said:

Congratulations on the pass, but my inspector would have wanted the twisted ground wires to be a prettier, tighter twist, and with a crimp on copper connector on the ground wires instead of a wire nut.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Gardner-Bender-14-8-AWG-Copper-Crimp-Connectors-50-Pack-10-311C/202520223

 

Its not as bad as it looks there is actually a pigtail out of there  

Never seen a crimp on connector.

30 minutes ago, drzaius said:

That's a big milestone. Soon there will be gypsum board. You doing that yourself?

Different areas, different standards. Around here you can't have more than 1/8" of sheath sticking out of the cable clamp in the box & there must be at least 6" of wire in the box. 

Yeah we have the 6" rule but never saw anything on the sheath.

 

[drzaius]

4 minutes ago, pkinneb said:

Yeah we have the 6" rule but never saw anything on the sheath.

I think it's a Canadian thing.

[wtnhighlander]

2 hours ago, Tom King said:

Congratulations on the pass, but my inspector would have wanted the twisted ground wires to be a prettier, tighter twist, and with a crimp on copper connector on the ground wires instead of a wire nut.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Gardner-Bender-14-8-AWG-Copper-Crimp-Connectors-50-Pack-10-311C/202520223

 

That wire-nutted ground wouldn't pass here. My county requires the green wire nuts with a hole in the tip, so one of the grounds is left long, passed thru the hole, and serves as the 'pigtail'.

[pkinneb]

1 hour ago, wtnhighlander said:

That wire-nutted ground wouldn't pass here. My county requires the green wire nuts with a hole in the tip, so one of the grounds is left long, passed thru the hole, and serves as the 'pigtail'.

Based on the responses apparently the National Electric Code isn't so uniform after all becuase that's another way to do a ground wire that I haven't seen. 

Good news for me is it meets MN code at least in the eyes of the inspector who visited my house  

And since I wired my shop, bonus room, pool house, garage at this house and the basements in two houses before that I feel pretty confident the light switch will work

[wtnhighlander]

Oh, I'm sure your wiring is perfectly OK. NEC is just a baseline / minimum standard. Lots of states and municipalities have much more stringent codes in place. I hear Chicago has requirements like conduit for all residential wiring, that came about after the great Chicago fire.

[Mark J]

36 minutes ago, wtnhighlander said:

I hear Chicago has requirements like conduit for all residential wiring, that came about after the great Chicago fire.

Which is mildly amusing considering the fire was supposed to have been started by a cow kicking over a lantern.

[Chestnut]

9 hours ago, pkinneb said:

Based on the responses apparently the National Electric Code isn't so uniform after all becuase that's another way to do a ground wire that I haven't seen. 

The thing that entertains me the most is the guys that wire on the thousands of volts to hundreds of thousands of volts for the utility companies don't need to have a license nor do they have to follow the NEC. Also the code doesn't handle technique as much as you may think. It'll specify that things need to be connected but doesn't get nity grity like this. A good inspector will go out there with the mind set of helping you not burn your house down, not just following the code to a T. So they may comment on things not in the code.

[Tom King]

I expect the inspectors feel like they're carrying the burden of public safety, so some will be more strict than others about what they want, just so they can sleep at night.   We've had the same Electrical Inspector for at least 20 years.  He's very careful about checking everything, and will even hand check the torque on every lug in a panel, and sometimes pull a device out of a box to see how well it was connected.

I sold one of my houses, in 1983, to an Electrician.  He had looked over the whole house, and pulled the cover off the panel with my permission.  He said that he didn't know a whole lot about the different trades, but knowing that I had done all the work, he asked me if the rest of the house had been done as well as the electrical work.  I told him it had, because my hands had done all the work.  He asked me right there how much of a deposit he needed to write the check for.  I never used a real estate agent, but only had a small sign at the street.

[Bankstick]

Quote

restaurants and culture ( so says my wife) and a s*#t pile full of great folks! 

Interesting thread on the basement remodel. The quote sounds like about 80% of the places (25 in 71 years) I have lived. None actually the corner on  the market of R, C, & GF., unless you count NYC.

[wdwerker]

An electrician taught me that spending the time to straighten the wires in a panel and making clean neat bends made it easier for the inspector to follow each circuit. Habits like twisting ground wires well and bonding them in the locally accepted method also increase safety and the time the inspector has to spend. Years after I had added a bunch of can lights & circuits to a home an inspector was there for a different job. I was just there adding shelves in the basement. Inspector commented that someone who knew what he was doing had been there before so why isn't your work as neat ? I don't touch wiring & plumbing anymore but things were different in the 80's.

My hypothesis on Chicago's strict code is part safety and bigger part Union mentality to require they get more hours on each project  irregardless of the need for such overkill. It probably reduces or eliminates rodent chewed wiring as fire causes so yea, part safety.

[drzaius]

Neatness is good. This is my shop panel.

 

[Chestnut]

Wire nuts in the lower left terminating a run that isn't utilized?

[wtnhighlander]

@drzaius , we think alike. My house panel looks like that. I wired it myself in 1992.

[wdwerker]

I read an article about a yacht under construction. The owner saw the attention to detail in the electrical panels (low voltage & 120/240) that he had clear covers made to showcase the craftsmanship.  Certainly makes tracing a circuit easier. 

 

[Isaac]

22 hours ago, wdwerker said:

My hypothesis on Chicago's strict code is part safety and bigger part Union mentality to require they get more hours on each project  irregardless of the need for such overkill. It probably reduces or eliminates rodent chewed wiring as fire causes so yea, part safety.

Bingo. Similar requirements exist for plumbing.

[Bankstick]

Dr. Zaius, my complements on the wiring job. I helped do electrical and plumbing in KY years ago. We wired and plumbed an entire house. The only gig was adding an extra vent pipe to the system. Electrical passed without comment.  I was taught- Black wire to the breaker, white wire to the common block, green wire to the ground block. When I moved to Louisiana, the ground and common were together. It works and, according to the builder, acceptable (but not to me) but then why do the put the separate common and g round blocks in a panel box. BTW, worked at Lowe's in electrical and was "supervised" by a licensed electrician for a while. Learned a lot from him.

[drzaius]

1 hour ago, Bankstick said:

Dr. Zaius, my complements on the wiring job. I helped do electrical and plumbing in KY years ago. We wired and plumbed an entire house. The only gig was adding an extra vent pipe to the system. Electrical passed without comment.  I was taught- Black wire to the breaker, white wire to the common block, green wire to the ground block. When I moved to Louisiana, the ground and common were together. It works and, according to the builder, acceptable (but not to me) but then why do the put the separate common and g round blocks in a panel box. BTW, worked at Lowe's in electrical and was "supervised" by a licensed electrician for a while. Learned a lot from him.

Thanks for the complement. Here, and I believe the NEC is the same, the only place the the ground & neutral are allowed to touch is in the main breaker compartment in the panel. This is rigorously enforced & is one of those things that make inspectors freak right out. When the ground & neutral are connected downstream of the main service, there are scenarios where bare metal conduits, building components or machine parts can become energized.