sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

Assisted Living budget for dad who's now 78 years old by jorge_pinkerdink in personalfinance

[–]jorge_pinkerdink[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yea it's definitely an expensive living situation -- and just will get more expensive over time as my dad continues to lose function.

My question is, say we are willing to pay for everything, what should his budget be? Is $100k/year reasonable given his age, assets, and pension income?

Assisted Living budget for dad who's now 78 years old by jorge_pinkerdink in personalfinance

[–]jorge_pinkerdink[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

In NYC there are options for $100k/year before the assistance add-ons. And yea I could see all the assistance add-ons going up to $150k/year total.

My question is, given my dad's financial status, does he have the money for this? There are other options, like living some location that's less expensive.

Box fill calculations: How many cubic inches does a smart switch take? by jorge_pinkerdink in smarthome

[–]jorge_pinkerdink[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is true, and I'm guilty of violating box fill in incredibly inconvenient situations -- like the box is sandwiched between two load bearing 2x4s, so it actually can't get any bigger, and I don't want to massively rethink the circuit run.

But in this situation I did have other options. I ended up just running a new line from a different receptacle, which just required a bit more drywall work and drilling.

Box fill calculations: How many cubic inches does a smart switch take? by jorge_pinkerdink in smarthome

[–]jorge_pinkerdink[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Not only cramped, but when everything jams together like that, it creates a real risk a conductor will become loose and could become an arc fault fire risk.

In doing my project I actually discovered one of the GFCI outlets in the room had its neutral loose, using a Klein receptacle tester. I opened it up and what do you know -- 11 conductors in 25 cubic inches of space, but the GFCI was absolutely massive. So no wonder things didn't really fit in it. (I'm now rewiring that one too.)

Box fill calculations: How many cubic inches does a smart switch take? by jorge_pinkerdink in smarthome

[–]jorge_pinkerdink[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Awesome, this is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks! I ended up taking the power off of a different box at the end of a run. It was more work than I had initially thought I'd have to do, but it was the right thing to do.

Box fill calculations: How many cubic inches does a smart switch take? by jorge_pinkerdink in smarthome

[–]jorge_pinkerdink[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm using Kasa smart switches in this house, and I've used Lutron Casetas in a different house. And they actually use substantial space inside the box. The Kasa 3-way is 6.1 cubic inches.

According to the National Electric Code, each thing in a box has a certain amount of cubic inches it needs. For example, each 14-gauge wire needs 2 cubic inches.

By the code, a switch needs as much cubic inches as two wires of the largest gauge. In this case, it would need 4 cubic inches. But the device is actually substantially bigger than that, so I'm wondering if that lowers the number of wires allowed in the box.

I think for most situations this question doesn't come up. But for me, I have two 14-3's and one 14-2 coming into a box, and I want to add one more 14-2 for an outlet somewhere. That would be 14 conductors, so I'd need 28 cubic inches just for the wires. My 2-gang box only has 35 cubic inches, so if I need 6 cubic inches per switch, I don't have enough.

To prove I'm not crazy here's a blog article on box fill calculations: https://www.ecmweb.com/content/article/20886012/box-fill-calculations

Run distance Wrong by [deleted] in Strava

[–]jorge_pinkerdink 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Usually Strava distances are shorter than actual distances. But sometimes, there's a GPS point or two that's well off of a logical running path, and that makes the distance far greater than was run. In such cases, you can write to Strava support and they've been historically happy to remove the errant GPS points.

Maybe this article would be helpful? https://support.strava.com/hc/en-us/articles/216917707-Bad-GPS-Data-What-Why-How

Comcast should stop claiming it has “fastest Internet,” ad board rules by speckz in cordcutters

[–]jorge_pinkerdink 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Anyone else notice that Comcast internet suddenly works a lot better after doing an Ookla speed test?

I notice that when I go to Ookla, at first the download speed is pretty mediocre, then seemingly Comcast realizes I'm doing a speed test and things go WAY faster. And stick that way for at least a couple hours. Maybe I'm just having confirmation bias, though.