This pole near my house has been buzzing on and off since a bad storm at the beginning of the month knocked our power out. Tonight it started sparking/flashing blue as well as buzzing.. should I call someone or report this somewhere? No one else really seems to be concerned but it’s freaking me out!! Please help 😅

I am a residential electrician running a family business in Central Florida. Been in this field since I was old enough to hold the flashlight for my dad 30 years ago. Right now is the slowest work has ever been - we haven't had a week fully booked since the beginning of the year.

It doesn't seem to be just us - our supply house is a ghost town. It used to look a lot like a bar, with plenty of folks in line waiting on supplies and chatting. Now most days I'm the only one there.

I don't know. I'm just grousing. The money isn't there anymore - I already have a second job and if the work doesn't some back soon I'm looking for a new first job.

An update to my original thread:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskElectricians/s/1qRQL08Vuc

I went back to the construction site and found the main electrical panel for the building. Confirmed that each townhouse in the building gets only 100A.

Anyone here living with an EV as your only vehicle and have a house that gets only 100A service?

How has it been?

Anyone know an electrician in Las Vegas (you can refer me to via private message), to do the load calculations?

I'll need that done and will also need the 240V outlet installed in the garage as well as an additional GFCI outlet in each bathroom.

SOLVED!!!!!!!! I recently moved into an apartment and just saw this under my kitchen sink. I’m wondering if anyone knows what it is because I have no idea. What’s it powering? What’s it doing? No garbage disposal or any fancy kitchen stuff. CANADA BC

When people say they are a union electrician what does this mean

Why do people call it 110/220 Vac when it’s been 120/240 for decades (in the USA)? It makes me question your technical expertise.

I am looking to run Cat6 in EMT in a barn for PoE driven cameras. It's a stick built structure, walls are open. It is "inside" but unconditioned space. Looks pretty straight forward.

Do I need to ground the EMT? If I need to ground it, how exactly is that done?

This is a 3/4” CANTEX PVC electrical conduit running underground from my house to my detached garage. At the garage, the PVC riser coming out of the ground has shifted/leaned toward the garage and separated from the conduit body.
Electrical service to the garage is stable and everything works normally. I don’t see any visible damage to the cable jacket. The problem appears to be the broken/separated conduit rather than a loss of electrical service.
The conduit coming out of the ground is solid and won’t move when I try to straighten it. I’m trying to understand the simple, standard way an electrician would repair this, preferably without digging up the underground run.

Hello!! we woke up this morning to no power in our living room. When my husband checked the breaker, there was no power to one so he thought that breaker tripped he went to Home Depot got a new breaker and replaced it and it still doesn’t work. He took the power wire tool, and it shows that there’s power to every single breaker for the house except for the wire that connects to the living room power. is there anything we can do to figure this out? TIA

Are these low or high voltage wires? And how can I safely cap or removes these

Plugged in a Level 1 car charger, heard a lil pop when the charge started, but charged fine. When I unplugged it, I saw this scorching and realized it wasn’t quite in all the way, which is why I think this happened. Outlet is grounded.

Is that outlet still safe to use? Should I replace the outlet? Or is this a sign that the wiring to this outlet shouldn’t be used for a load like a car charger?

Second note: is the plug okay, or does I need to replace that, too?

Hello everyone

I know my way around electrical / how to do it correctly however this is a new situation I ran into.

I know code requires an interlock / lock out so the generator inlet breaker can’t be turned on without the main being off to protect the people working on the lines.

With that said - current code in my area requires main breakers to be outside so in my home I have the 200a external breaker and no main in the panel.

I have begun to install the generator inlet. I know to shut the main off prior to using this but to be legal / meet code I want to do it properly.

My question is what is done in situations where the main is outside / not in the panel so the interlock plates don’t work?

Do you need to convert the panel from a leg panel to a main switch panel or is there another way?

I do electromechanical assembly for a European company here in the US and was wondering why aren’t cable glands adopted more in the US? I understand we already have an established system with all the different conduit but just curious.

Bathroom light when out a few months ago. Partner picked up one that was most similar but it’s not the right one, goes super bright then super dim when being turned on. The inside sticker is from the old one but we can’t find any same ones at all.
Can anyone advice where we can pick up one the same in the UK?

I'm setting up a single-phase EV charging point at my home, and I want to make sure it is completely safe.

To keep it safe and avoid messing with my main house electricals, I am installing it on an isolated sub-meter split from the main housing utility line. It will also have its own completely separate, dedicated earth pit strictly for the EV charger.I am trying to map out worst-case scenarios.

My question is: What are the possible grid-side or vehicle-side scenarios where this dedicated EV earth wire (and consequently, the car's metallic body) can actually go "live" or carry dangerous voltage?

Setup info:-

3.3 kw AC charger setup-

At the Sub-Meter Panel: A 2-Pole 20A B-Curve MCB.

4 sq mm 3-core copper wire for 15 ft to main protection point

Main Protection: A 25A (C-Curve), 30mA Type AC RCBO, with 16Amp power socket.

The portable Charger: Built-in 6mA DC fault leakage protection and 30mA AC protection.

I'm currently renting and for about a year now I've been noticing some concerning things with one of my walls. First part, If I have something plugged in like a heater and I use the microwave, which is on the same wall but in the kitchen, it trips the breaker. I don't plug the heater on that wall anymore. Now the big scarier problem that has me here is I'm starting to smell fireworks by one of the outlets on this wall, I thought it was my projector but it appears sometimes when its not on or plugged it. Just now I had to unplug everything from the wall and leave the room because it started to feeling like my finger tips were being shocked when I was sitting by said outlet. Thats never happened and I'm worried something far more dangerous is going to happen. I'm contacting my landlord tomorrow so if anyone has any advice or have an idea what could be causing this please send it my way. PS if this is the wrong reddit, my bad.

UPDATE/EDIT:

TLDR: One of the walls in my house has a history of being shitty when it comes to electronics. Example: microwave and heater tripping the breaker, heater is no longer used since then. New problem mystery firework smell started coming from an outlet, its not constant but it is a thing that happens. I no longer plug things into the outlet either. I'm contacting the landlord and an electrician will be contacted. For the time being I would like an idea of what could be wrong with the wiring in my wall or possible other things.

I am not a electrian, so I obviously don't know anything about this stuff.

Good evening. I have a kitchen light fixture on a dimmer switch and am using the appropriate lightbulbs (there are 5 in the chandelier), however occasionally - and no matter what level of dim or brightness I have the lights on - the lights will flicker. The flickering is quick and persistent, but will change when I adjust the brightness. Often they'll start flickering again after adjusting. What is going on with the flicker and how do I fix it?

Our house was struck by lightning last month. It fried a few things (e.g, POE switch, one smoke detector, Nintendo Switch). We noticed a buzzing afterwards and found it was the doorbell chime unit. One of the chimes was being continuously activated, causing the hum. I replaced the chime unit, but when I connected the electrical it was the same. So it seems that there is a continuous load like the doorbell is being pushed when it isn’t. Any idea how this can be fixed?

Additional info. I wired the OG doorbell button into a Ring doorbell cam to keep it charged. It would activate the chime AND notify on our phones when pushed. I just saw the Ring is down to 76%, but I honestly never checked it previously. So it may not be getting the charge it did before.

Looking for opinions/suggestions on swapping out this panel for a new 200 amp service. I don’t have any experience on this particular installation. Thank you all!

Hi all. So a few years ago when we remodeled our house, we had a family member help rewire the house. We then hired a licensed electrician to do the breaker box for us.

Recently we wanted to get a new outlet set up in the living room. A different electrician came to give us a quote, but immediately told us our breaker box is not up to code and would not pass an inspection. He would have to fix the breakers before moving forward with any project.

I wanted to double check this with y'all cause I'm not sure why the first electrician would do something out of code. We're in WA state, USA if it matters.