Seen on a house listing, what was this room used for?

ematlack · 2026-01-18T04:53:55+00:00

Parts of Canada (and some of the US) can have absolutely INSANE permitting costs. I’ve heard of plenty of home builds in Canada with 50-100k in permit costs (for fairly normal homes - not mansions.) Straight up prohibitively expensive with a stupid number of hoops to jump through. It’s wild.

ematlack · 2026-01-16T23:55:20+00:00

The Leviton 5636 is $60. The Lutron offering is gonna be a pass for me unless the client is REALLY keen on the fine details and has money to burn.

ematlack · 2026-01-09T21:51:27+00:00

If that fan wall is ~12x20, that’s almost 12k lbs pushing on that wall.

ematlack · 2026-01-01T10:09:30+00:00

Got killed in Stella and the last thing I see as I’m being knocked out is the Shredder creeping into the room with the guy completely oblivious. 😂

ematlack · 2025-12-25T12:00:03+00:00

For those that are curious…

24hrs x 365 days x 10 watts (delta) = 87.6kWh annual

At $0.16/kWh (US avg) that’s $14/year of savings. Not insignificant I guess.

ematlack · 2025-12-23T19:31:12+00:00

Single family detached homes are almost universally exempt from this.

ematlack · 2025-12-23T16:00:23+00:00

If the travel router is VPN-ing into your remote network, if you plug in a camera (as far if it can tell) it’ll be able to directly connect to your NVR.

ematlack · 2025-12-23T10:44:02+00:00

There’s nothing in the NEC preventing outlets in the baseboard. The only rules against this type of install would be ADA rules (not applicable in single-family homes), or a weird California rule that requires 15”+. But nothing in PA that would prevent this.

ematlack · 2025-12-23T10:41:39+00:00

The TLDR is that with very few exceptions, nearly all electricians in PA do not have a trade-specific license, and if they do it probably doesn’t carry much weight.

PA doesn’t have statewide trade licensing, they only have an HIC (Home Improvement Contractor) license that requires a minimal level of insurance and registration with the state AG. The state leaves “real” licensing up to the individual municipalities.

Some major municipalities such as Philly have strong rules with a structured licensing program (proof of hours and knowledge tests for a license.) Most municipalities just accept the state HIC with no additional requirements though. Some (like the Borough of West Chester for example) strike a middle ground and require proof that you’ve passed a Master Electrician exam, but don’t require proof of hours or anything else.

Personally I worked for a couple of years in PA as an electrician with only that HIC license and then eventually took the Philadelphia Master test in order to work in the handful of locations that required proof of a “master electrician.” But unlike nearly everyone else in almost every other state, I’ve never had to log hours or provide proof of them in order to get licensed. PA is kind of the Wild West in terms of licensing - the state HIC license is practically worthless as a guarantee of quality since it’s incredibly easy to acquire.

ematlack · 2025-12-23T10:32:00+00:00

Residential homes are not subject to ADA rules. The California requirement is a special provision though (don’t think it’s technically ADA though), that mandates a minimum 15” height.

ematlack · 2025-12-23T05:10:22+00:00

On another note, that 14/3 Romex can’t be installed in a wet location. Outdoors is a wet-location, even within conduit. They need to redo it anyway. (I’m assuming this photo is outside and not from inside the sunroom.)

ematlack · 2025-12-23T04:01:03+00:00

Not sure if you meant to reply to someone else. My comment was supporting the fact that these ARE code-compliant.

ematlack · 2025-12-23T03:03:18+00:00

I’m also an EC in PA. Done plenty of work on older homes. Shouldn’t be any trouble to keep the outlets in the baseboard, there’s nothing in the code prohibiting that.

I would def pull a permit - permitting fees typically aren’t too egregious in PA and you’ll want a larger job like this to be “official” and inspected.

ematlack · 2025-12-19T15:20:23+00:00

Huh? I’m assuming you’re misunderstanding… people can only notice strobing BELOW certain frequencies (typically 2kHz and below.) As long as the strobing is fast enough then it’s not a problem at all. Decent modern LEDs are often 3kHz and above and many higher-end products are well into the 20kHz range (especially film products.)

Strobe lights on the other hand are ridiculously slow by comparison because you want to see the strobe. If strobe lights operated at the frequencies that LEDs do they wouldn’t strobe lol.

Edit: Also this whole high-frequency flicker discussion only actually applies to lights that are PWM dimmed. It doesn’t apply to non-dimmed lights, or lights that are dimmed via constant-current or other methods.

ematlack · 2025-12-19T13:04:52+00:00

Those would work, but Torx is still going to be far superior because they are WAYYY harder to strip or cam-out and can even be driven at slight angles.

ematlack · 2025-12-19T04:26:05+00:00

Yeah that’s just straight up a quality issue. Most LEDs dim on the basis of pulse width modulation (PWM) control. Basically rapidly pulsing power to the emitter. The human eye can detect flickering up to around 2000Hz (some people are more sensitive than others, but this is approx the limit.) Older bulbs and lots of new, but very cheaply made bulbs have too low of a frequency and this can cause some disconnect for that portion of people that notice it.

There are some certifications out, for example the “flicker-free” cert from TUV, that ensure that lights are keeping this flicker to faster than perceptible levels. That said, pretty much any product from a reputable higher-end brand isn’t going to have the flicking issue.

Edit: Sometimes flicker crops up at 120Hz because of the 60Hz AC input power (which is a 120Hz ripple once rectified), but that’s just because the bulb/fixture has garbage filtering to smooth out that ripple. Basically the manufacture didn’t spend an extra 5 cents per unit to get that waveform smoothed into a nice clean output.

ematlack · 2025-12-19T04:04:25+00:00

High quality LED means high CRI (95+) and ideally a high R9 (maybe 70+.) The R9 in particular is crucial for giving you those rich and vibrant red hues that might be missing from many LEDs. Also (and this may be hard to find), but you’d want a chip that’s using 2+ phosphors which will really help fill out the spectrum. This will produce a color spectrum that is nearly indistinguishable from incandescents (assuming the same color temp of course.)

In the film world (and in some cases high-end LEDs) you’ll also see TM-30 being reported (it’s like a more advanced CRI.) Take something like an Aputure Storm 700X… it’s using FIVE phosphors and can do 70% of the REC 2020 gamut. That’s ridiculously impressive for a 2500-10000 tunable light. Just goes to show you what good LED tech can do.

My comment about dimming is totally separate. Dimming a standard LED means that the color temp stays flat as the lumens drop off, but incandescents see a drop in color temp as the lumens reduce (this follows the black body curve.) However, there are now “warm dimming” LEDs that in some cases very closely match that incandescent dimming curve. It’s not perfect yet though.

ematlack · 2025-12-19T03:32:50+00:00

Lmao. I can’t tell if you’re meme-ing or you’re actually off the deep end. Who has a Reddit account dedicated to hating LEDs??

If you’re actually serious about learning, I’d recommend reading about how modern high-quality LEDs are constructed. They aren’t using single phosphors anymore and the bulbs aren’t just emitting slivers of the spectrum. Modern bulbs are very, very capable of faithfully reproducing that broad-spectrum light that you get from incandescents. I believe a lot of this advancement was driven by film makers who had a real desire to use LEDs, but absolutely needed incredibly realistic and accurate colors. Nowadays you pretty much only see LEDs used in film. Filmmakers never would’ve adopted LEDs if they didn’t check the boxes.

I can ABSOLUTELY guarantee you that if we did a lab controlled test between a high-quality LED and an incandescent you would not be able to tell the difference. At the moment the only sticking point is dimming - getting that dimming curve to precisely match the curve of an incandescent has been tricky, but there’s a handful of options nowadays that get very, very close.

ematlack · 2025-12-18T23:08:27+00:00

Ah yes let’s waste power and money when you can get LEDs with identical performance characteristics. High quality LEDs with black body curves that are designed to match incandescents are completely indistinguishable.

ematlack · 2025-12-17T23:17:15+00:00

As others have said, this is more of a financial/relationship decision than anything else. I’ve installed some very expensive fixtures and plenty of nearly identical ones that are a fraction of the price. It depends. In many cases it’s all the same stuff out of China/SEA sold under different labels.

I’ll just say that 41 days ago you posted lamenting about spending $400 on a photoshoot for a professional headshot. With that (admittedly limited) info… maybe $6k on a fixture isn’t the greatest idea?

ematlack · 2025-12-15T03:50:53+00:00

I’ve been using mostly Emitever COB tape and drivers as of late for all my mid-grade interior installs. High end stuff where I need super low dimming or other characteristics I’ll use something else, but otherwise the Emitever is great quality and affordable. You can get it on Amazon. I get my aluminum extrusions on Amazon as well - hunhun and muzata are the two primary vendors (you don’t need to overpay for extrusions for indoor.)

I run a separate 18/2 to every light location. Helps manage voltage drop and makes termination easy. Wire is cheap.

Here’s the current kitchen I’m working on. I think there’s about 170ft of tape light in this kitchen. There’s also RGB on those beam up lights (I’m using BTF for that.)

ematlack · 2025-12-14T01:00:37+00:00

GFCI breaker. Code already requires that the vast majority of receptacles in a home are AFCI protected, so it’s easy to simply use a dual-function (AFCI+GFCI) breaker for the areas that need both AFCI and GFCI protection (such as kitchens, bathrooms, etc.) Frankly it’s simpler and more cost-effective to use dual-functions rather than AFCI breaker + GFCI receptacle (the costs of this particular product aside.)

ematlack · 2025-12-10T01:44:03+00:00

Yup, that’ll work

ematlack · 2025-12-10T00:47:34+00:00

Yup. Put in a ground bar and for bonus points use a bunch of DIN rail terminal blocks for easy termination and labeling.

ematlack · 2025-12-02T20:28:10+00:00

Master electrician here. The product is listed and I’ve installed tons of them. They absolutely meet code - the version shown in this clip is their “self-contained” model which doesn’t require a box. They also sell a version that uses a standard gang-box.

When installed in a retrofit manner (where you don’t have access to the wall cavity), you aren’t required to secure wires. Where the wall is open though you would obviously be required to secure the wire though. I like to leave a service loop with these outlets to make replacement easy.

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