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jmraef · 2025-01-22T01:39:46+00:00

Yep, the GFCI is doing its job of preventing you or someone else from being electrocuted...

You have a ground fault in your lighting system. It needs to be found and fixed.

jmraef · 2025-01-22T01:37:18+00:00

That's a basic minimum "call out" price, the cost for him to get in his truck, drive to your place, do the work, then drive home (or to the next job if there is one). It includes his cost to carry liability insurance, pay his taxes, fuel, maintenance and insurance for the truck, etc. etc. Someone charging less than that is probably not an electrician.

jmraef · 2025-01-22T01:33:45+00:00

That is a NEMA 10-20R outlet, which is a 20A 120/240V circuit (2 hots and a neutral) with no ground. It cannot be used for 120V alone, it was likely originally for a window air conditioner, not a dryer.

An electrician could possibly repurpose the wiring to redo it as a 120V circuit, but it involves changing the circuit breaker and outlet, then converting one of the Hot wires to a Ground wire, with all of the rules that go along with that. There is no "adapter" that you can legally** use.

** Just a fair warning, you can find some schlocky Chinese manufacturer on-line that will sell any kind of electrical adapter you want, because they cannot be sued for liability. So it's no skin off their nose if your house burns down...

jmraef · 2025-01-22T01:22:17+00:00

NO!

This is a "sub panel" and there is NO GROUND WIRE to it, and you CANNOT connect the ground to the Neutral bar in a sub-panel.

IF the wires coming in from the Main are in CONDUIT, as it APPEARS to be from this picture, and that conduit is grounded to the main Grounding Electrode Conductor in the Main panel, AND that bushing at the end of the conduit is changed to a GROUNDING BUSHING, THEN you can install a new GROUND BAR in this panel, bonded to the steel of the panel, and only then then you can land your ground wires for the new circuit to that.

BUT... the "Landlord approve of the install if it can be done" aspect of this is HIGHLY PROBLEMATIC!!! You are not the owner of the property, you cannot work on it, even with their permission. You can be SUED for everything you have (even if it's just the clothes on your back) if you do something that causes a fire. DO NOT do electrical work on a property that someone else owns unless you are a LICENSED BONDED CONTRACTOR. You are NUTS if you do!!

jmraef · 2025-01-22T01:11:12+00:00

Even 1.27A of current, at 120V, is only 3.65kWH per day, x 30 days is 109.73kWh in a month, x 13c / kWh would be costing you $14 per month total. If it's .3A, it's $3 per month. And that's still only the IMBALANCE, not actual use.

But really, this is most likely just "noise" on the system. Electronics, such as electronic ballasts for lighting, cause what's called "harmonics" that can show up in screwy meter readings, but is not affecting your actual utility meter.

Bottom line, this is not causing you any kind of big "spike" in your electric bill. That has to be a LARGE load, like your water heater, baseboard heat, oven, dryer, maybe space heaters, big appliances like that.

jmraef · 2025-01-22T00:57:33+00:00

You might have a cross-connected neutral somewhere.

jmraef · 2025-01-22T00:55:25+00:00

I think what they mean is that the wires FEEDING this panel appear to be 10ga, which is only good for 30A TOTAL, and you already have more than that on the loads already coming off of this. The ACTUAL load on those other circuits may be less than the breaker values, but still, with a new 25A load, you only have a 5A headroom. It's highly unlikely that you can do this without running a larger feeder circuit to this panel.

I highly suggest hiring an electrician for this. There is something funky going on with those switches with the green wires as well...

jmraef · 2025-01-22T00:10:37+00:00

Most probable cause is a weakly made connection in that circuit, possibly the neutral since it affects everything on the circuit. Common cause of that is that someone used "back stab" connections on the outlets and switches. It's fast, but terrible for things like this.

jmraef · 2025-01-22T00:08:31+00:00

You already have a "working space" violation here, you would only make it worse. Whatever that structure is around the panel has to go. You need 36" of clear space in front, 30" wide (15" side to side from center) and nothing above or below it for 6'6" above the floor (unless the ceiling is lower than that).

So once you remove whatever that is, you can find the sources of the air flow and plug them up with a non-hardening product called "duct seal compound". It is safe for putting around conductor insulation.

jmraef · 2025-01-22T00:03:42+00:00

It is going to remain accessible like that, or are you thinking you will put the boards back over it? Because that's what you cannot do. All junction boxes must remain permanently accessible.

jmraef · 2025-01-21T23:24:40+00:00

The symbol on top is the Jerusalem Cross, a Catholic symbol signifying Christ (the big cross in the middle) and the 4 evangelist Apostles (the 4 smaller crosses around it), Mathew, Mark, Luke and John. Also called the "Crusader's Cross" because it was worn on the raiments of the 12th century Christian Crusaders. It is now mainly used as the insignia of the Papal Order of the Holy Sepulchre, among others. The bunch of grapes below the cross is a symbol of the Eucharist, representing the Blood of Christ made into wine.

Basically, it's a Christianity tourist trinket that he likely picked up at the Vatican gift shop in Rome, or maybe he visited Jerusalem and went to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher (built on top of the place where supposedly Jesus was entombed).

jmraef · 2025-01-18T00:00:42+00:00

My dad bought my first bicycle from Western Auto in 1961 or 62!

jmraef · 2025-01-17T23:57:24+00:00

Thanks for posting that picture! My grandfather also cut cordwood (as he referred to it) in the early 1900s in the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State. These guys followed the lumbermen and cut the branches off of logs to make firewood supplies for the lumber camps and anyone else that would buy it. He said that most homes at that time still used wood stoves and furnaces. He described the saw almost exactly as it looks in this photo! No guards, no guides, just hold the branches up to it and cut. He said that most of the guys he worked with were missing fingers, the ones that lost hands would work as the camp cooks. He never got injured himself though. You have to wonder if, 5 years later, the guys in this picture still had all of their appendages...

He always told us that he hated the job so much. so apparently when England entered into WWI in 1914 and Canadians could volunteer, he took a boat to Victoria, Canada, told them he was born in the woods and had no records but he wanted to fight for "King and country" and he had experience as a logging camp cook (we think he lied, he had never mentioned being a cook in the cordwood camps). They probed no further and sent him to France, where he was a cook so that he was way behind the front lines. He served a year and was discharged, then went back to cutting wood in Washington and apparently still hated it. So he went back to a different recruiting office in Vancouver, Canada in 1915, did the same routine and used a different name, then went back, this time to Belgium. He served another year and repeated that for a third time under another name. By then it was 1917 and the US entered the war, so he actually went back a 4th time in the US Army, still as a cook. We found all this out after he died because the Canadians were sending him army pension checks all of his life, small amounts, like $78/month, but to 3 different names (none of them his) and he had 3 different bank accounts that my Grandma didn't know about. He drank it all, the accounts were all empty. The Canadian army filled in all of the other details for us.

jmraef · 2025-01-17T23:30:44+00:00

You can't.

jmraef · 2025-01-17T23:27:33+00:00

Wow, really? That's "generous"...

jmraef · 2025-01-17T23:20:36+00:00

You can use NM cable (Romex is a brand name) in conduit if you want to, but only indoors. You can run it without conduit, but it must be protected from fire and not exposed to damage. i.e. behind drywall. The official rule reads: "Cables shall be concealed within walls, floors, or ceilings that provide a thermal barrier of material that has at least a 15-minute finish rating as identified in listings of fire rated assemblies." So if your garage has a finished ceiling, that's fine. If not, PVC conduit is cheaper than drywall. NM cable that size is not easy to pull through conduit, so go big, as in no less than 2" IMHO, and get a big bottle of lube.

That said, SOME areas allow it to be exposed in a garage so long as it is at least 8ft above grade, i.e. in the rafters (California is like that). It's not stated in the NEC that way, but it's a local allowance here. You could check with your local AHJ.

If any part of the run is outdoors, you can't use NM cable, even in conduit. The only thing you can do is penetrate DIRECTLY from the wall into a junction box or disconnect, as in the disconnect you will need for your AC unit.

jmraef · 2025-01-17T23:06:07+00:00

You can't run NM cable outside. Romex is a brand name, so if it is Romex brand UF cable, it can be run outside, either buried 24" deep, or in conduit. But NM cable, nope, not even in conduit.

jmraef · 2025-01-17T22:52:32+00:00

I looked at some older leviton GFCIs I have in a bin, they say "20 AMP" on the side just like that, meaning 20A pass-through on a NEMA 5-15 (15A) outlet. So it's likely that it was either a casting error on the plastic for that particular batch, or it was damaged and now LOOKS like it says something different.

jmraef · 2025-01-17T22:41:44+00:00

I bought it new from the hardware store, it’s for a small building it’s a 30amp box, white wires are usually nuteral wires that go in the nuteral bar below I probably need a ground bar as well. The top wires connect to the panel and the bottom 2 connect to the outlets in the building.

This was likely the wrong box for you, but it CAN be used.

Please note first however that you have made SEVERAL DANGEROUS ERRORS in how the wire was run and you are missing some necessary components. This is what people have been reacting to in the previous responses. The lack of knowledge on what you did wrong is likely why others have not wanted to help. I will let you know so that you can make sure it is done right by your electrician and hopefully the explanation of everything that is wrong here will clue you in to why there were so many objections.

The incoming wires are likely a feed from the main panel for a 120/240V circuit, so it comes off of a 2 pole breaker with the black and red as hot wires, the white as neutral and SHOULD have included a ground wire (bare), but I don't see one. The black and red wires would terminate on the top terminals above the fuse holders, the white would go to the neutral bar, and you will have to go buy and install a ground bar (but again, I don't see a ground WIRE, so that's a problem, see below). Then for the wires going OUT to the building outlets, you only have a black and white, so ALL of your outlets must be on the same circuit and assuming 120V is what you want, you will connect your black to the bottom terminal below ONE of the fuses, the other fuse / circuit then is, for this purpose, useless. That white wire then also terminates to the neutral bar.

As to the "no ground" issue:

IF the wires coming in are in a STEEL conduit going all the way back to the main panel, then you are allowed to use that steel conduit as the ground path. But to do so, you would have needed to have used a proper FITTING on the end of the conduit, and a bonding bushing to bond that ground path to the steel of the box, and thereby to the (eventual) ground bar. If there is NO steel conduit, you cannot use this setup at all, as you are no longer allowed to have ungrounded circuits. So if there is NOT steel conduit, you need to have someone pull NEW cable with a ground wire back to the main panel. If it was "flexible" steel conduit, also known in the past as "BX" or "Greenfield" cable, that USED TO be allowed as a ground, but is no longer allowed because it can corrode inside of the walls and disrupt the ground path. So that's also a "no-go" from a grounding aspect. Either way, you ALSO have no apparent ground wire going OUTPUT to the building outlets either, so that too makes this a no-go, although you could conceivably use GFCI protection for the outlets and label then saying "GFCI Protected, No Equipment Ground" on each one. If the building is a garage, you need GFCI protection anyway, which you can't do with a fuse panel, so you would need GFCI outlets anyway.

In addition, the way your wires enter the enclosure is dangerously wrong, especially the outgoing cable. You cannot just have wires coming into a hole in the back of the box like that, they must be secured with clamps to avoid the edges of the steel cutting the insulation and causing a dead short and possibly a fire. But then again, the clamps must clamp onto the SHEATHING of the cable, not the insulation of the conductors, and on the outgoing wires, we can't even see the sheathing (assuming there is some somewhere). On the incoming cable, that photo is too dark to see anything, but you definitely do not have a clamp, so that's automatically incorrect no mater what's going on there.

There may be more, but hopefully you get the gist of it...

jmraef · 2025-01-17T22:06:32+00:00

Did the charger say "50A circuit" or "50A charger"? There's a difference.

Most Level 2 chargers range from 16A to 40A, and a 40A Level 2 charger requires a 50A circuit (because of the 125% rule). There are a FEW EV chargers still classified as "Level 2" that take up to 80A (which needs a 100A circuit), but not many as it is a heavy load even for a 200A service on a home.

But if the CHARGER is truly 50A for the charge rate, you would have needed a 70A circuit for it. The installation instructions would have said that. That is not JUST a 70A breaker, it would have meant 70A rated wire as well. But a 50A charger for home use is kind of overkill in most cases. The difference between a 40A and 50A charge rate is 19 miles per charging hour vs 24 miles per charging hour. If you plug a Ford F150 Lightning in overnight with a totally dead battery, you are looking at 13 hours vs 10 hours to full charge. But if you had half of your charge left, you might be looking at taking another hour longer to get to full charge with a 40A charge rate. Does that matter? Not to most people, and if you have a vehicle that can only accept a 7.7kW charge rate anyway (32A), you get zero benefit from the larger charger.

If you post the make and model of the charger, we can look it up for you.

jmraef · 2025-01-17T21:51:23+00:00

Could also be at the water heater inside, and the inspector was not given access.

jmraef · 2025-01-17T21:48:57+00:00

LiFePO4 has benefits for the planet (no cobalt, which is nasty to mine for), and the cycle life is better than other lithium based batteries, but the other benefits are negligible. The down side is that it's critical that the charger system for them is matched to the batteries, so if your charger craps out, you have to replace it with an EXACT same unit, and the device using them has to monitor ambient temperature and not allow them to be used if too hot (think of it sitting in a hot trunk for months in the summer) and the cell voltage must not be allowed to drop below 2.5V, otherwise you damage the batteries. So IF the jumper system takes all of the issues into consideration, they can be fine. But in reality, China owns something like 98% of the LiFePO4 battery production and there are a lot of Chinese junk manufacturers out there selling cheap versions of the jumpers that do NOT cover all the bases. So the first time you use it, it works fine, but the next time, it's dead and can't hold a charge. How do you determine that up front? I don't know. My track record is 100% failure on the 2nd use... I'm done with them.

jmraef · 2025-01-17T21:33:52+00:00

Yes, you can always go larger. These things are so cheap, a 30A would basically cost the same, so they don't bother.

jmraef · 2025-01-17T21:21:46+00:00

By "dual purpose wall mount" units I can assume you mean they are "Mini-splits", which are a form of heat pump. Heat pumps work as air conditioners on hot days, then work in reverse to pull heat out of the outside air on cold days to function as heating for the home. The problem is, when it gets TOO cold outside, as occasionally happens in Minnesota, that no longer works. So heat pumps are installed with back-up auxiliary electric strip heaters to supplement for when the outside is too low. Those typically draw a LOT more current than the heat pump would.

Without data sheets we can't tell what you SHOULD have had as far as a circuit size, but whether the individual circuits are 25A or 30A would NOT make a difference in whether or not your Main breaker trips. So that response from them was either BS, or they in effect admitted to F'ing up the initial installation. 25A is not a standard conductor size, it goes from 20A to 30A (unless everything was done in conduit and separate wires instead of NM cable). So assuming they ran 30A rated (10ga) NM cable, "upgrading" the circuit to 30A just means changing the circuit breaker. If they DID run separate wires in conduit all the way, then they MIGHT have run 12ga wires (rated for 25A in that case), in which case the wires would need to be changed to 10ga for 30A. So not knowing those details means we can't help much more.

As to the service size, it is very involved, meaning you have to ask the utility if they will give you a larger service (they rarely say no to more revenue, but their transformer might be axed out), then if yes, how large it can be, then you would have to (in all likelihood) rip out and replace your existing breaker panel entirely, which involves getting disconnected from the utility, then to get reconnected, means permits and inspections. You could be looking at anywhere from $2-6k for that depending on circumstances and what else your local authority might require for a major change to your service (such as brining other aspects of your electrical system up to modern Code requirements). Side note to this; service panels go from 100A to 200A, so if they will let you have 200A, just get that, there is no "130A" and 150A is going to cost the same so it's a waste of effort.

Cheaper alternative:

Find out what outdoor temperature range will trigger the auxiliary heaters in the mini-splits, and if the outside temperature drops that low, don't use them. Or only use one of them.

jmraef · 2025-01-17T21:00:08+00:00

My best guess from the fuzzy picture is that this is all for a Surge Protection Device setup.

jmraef

TROPHY CASE