I would think that if you can figure out how to kill the power to it you can probably change it.

Are you mocking me?!

I don't go around telling you how you can fix everything, know everything about cars and be an all-around badass.

Not mocking.

Serious. You can do eeeeet.

Chill Lew, I think he was just saying if you just shut off the breaker the wiring shouldn't be that big of a deal. Positive, negative and ground wires should cover it.

Great.

I'll give my wife the good news and the go ahead to do this project.

She's the brains of the operation. I'm just the eye candy.

and we have the same textured walls, I'm looking to repaint before long but we can't seem to find colors we like, everything is a cream color now.

I just looked at the manual for that switch. It works just like a Double Pole Single Throw switch. It needs the Hot and the Common wire to operate.

If your existing switch is wired as a Single Pole Single Throw it probably won't work.

Check how it is currently wired before you buy the switch.

Wiring from manual.

Simple single pole diagram.

Lewdog's head just probably exploded.

Electricity is easy, if I had a dollar for every time I've been shocked I'll bet I'd have $1000. Of course that's over a 30 year span so that only comes to like 33 times a year. Working on a hog farm sucks sometimes.

I know mine did. ROFL

I know a lot about poles but this stuff is way over my head.

Wanna come work on my pivot? It's only 480 volts :D

All the existing switch does is interrupt the hot (black) wire on the way to the light. The timer is an actual electrical component so it requires a hot and common wire to operate.

So I need to take the plate off and pull it out to see how many wires I have back there?

Translation:

Look at the back of the existing switch.

If there two black wires and two white wires.
Replace it with the new switch and wire it exactly the same as the old switch.

If there are only two black wires, it probably won't work.

This green color was here in the main area but we painted a bathroom and 2 bedrooms before we moved into this house.

Painting I can do!

You can, but I doubt that there's a common wire lurking back there.

Huh. And if I don't have that I can't do this?

My neighbor says he has his garage lights outside on a timer switch....We have the almost exact same house too.

Yeah but that's only if you grab two legs at the same time ,I'm not stepud.

If it's not there you'd have to run one from the electrical panel to it, so you can, but it won't be simple. Is your neighbor is using the same switch in the same location?

I think so. Think it's exact same switch but his house came with it installed.

House is built in 2003 if that matters here. I took face plate off and there's definitely more than 2 wires going to each switch. I can see white and black wires. Tons of wires back there from what I can see without taking the switch out.

You need a common(white) wire to make the switch work.
To power the electronics of the switch itself.

You should be fine then.

Make sure you flip the breaker to this circuit before putting screwdriver to terminal.
Test with a meter. When in doubt kill the main to the whole house and make your wife hold a flashlight for you.

Yea, I might work on this some other day. I got a far as taking the plate off to look but it's night here and I don't want to go any farther.

I think I'll order the switch. Pretty sure it will work without taking the whole thing out right now.

Don't flip the breaker. Have the wife use the screwdriver on the wires. Take a shot and hold the flashlight.

That's mean!


Switch ordered. Should arrive Wednesday. Thanks. This could be life changing.

FYI... Injury from shock often comes from the reaction, not the actual shock.

When you elbow your flashlight holder in the face because you poked the wrong wire. Expect to get hit with that flashlight. It won't hurt bad enough to make you forget about being shocked, but it damn sure won't feel good.

Electricity is ****ing magic.

Seriously, that's all you need to know. My buddy works in energized services where they honest to god replace power lines that are still hot. The guy knows his shit backwards and forwards when it comes to electricity. He has a patent or two on some shit designed to keep strikes from coming from the earth at an aura or some weird shit like that.

And as we're wiring something up in my shop and talking about a jumper of some sort, I just got frustrated because I get lost as hell in that stuff. He just looks over and says "man, I'm not trained in engineering but the guys that I work with that are all tell me the same thing when my eyes cross - electricity is ****ing magic and sometimes that's the best answer we have"...

So that's what I go with. I can occasionally operate a multi-meter correctly. I sometimes remember the difference between volts and amps (though I don't believe today is that day...is amps volume and volts velocity? Shit, I don't know). Mostly I just electrocute myself a lot.

Electricity is ****ing magic.

Why not put a photo eye at the light?

Please explain?

As you can see, I'm quite dense.

Maybe he means motion sensor. Come on only when something moves.

Nah. Comes on in the dark, goes off in the light. Most full time yard lights out here have them.

This is what he is talking about and there is a decent description at the link.


https://www.amazon.com/Woods-59408-O...otocell+sensor

Amps = Current (how many electrons are flowing through the material)

Ohms = Resistance (how difficult it is for electrons to travel through the material)

Volts = Current * Resistance (also called potential difference)

Does that help?

+1. I added one to our driveway lights, easy to do.

I thought about that at first too, but he's wanting it for security & I'm thinking a criminal would be able to figure out that the light was just coming on when it gets dark.

If I understand correctly he's wanting it to shut off at about bed time & come back on about the time someone would wake up to simulate someone being home. Not sure the dusk to dawn light is going to accomplish that.

nobody's ever going to say "OMG, they turned the lights on at a set time thats not coinciding with dusk, they must be home!!!1!

Criminals are idiots, but they know about timers. The only thing that's going to deter them (if it will) is having the light on period.

Eh, he's kinda right but that's not the whole reason. The light bulbs in these two fixtures are the smaller candle light looking light bulbs. Not sure if they even make sensors for fixtures like this that would work? They are also fairly bright even with just one bulb in them, instead of the 3 I could put in there. I do not want them to be on all night as they are fairly bright and don't think they need to be necessarily.

the sensor wires into the electrical and controls the fixture, bulb type is irrelevant. if you don't want your lights on all night, a photocell won't work for you, but anyone will tell you that lights on outside your home at night are added security.

I've done a fair amount of stuff with irrigation and fish tanks so generally I fall back to water/hoses and it makes sense.

Amps = amount of water flowing through the hose
Ohms = Pressure of thumb on the end of the hose
Volts = resulting spray

Run a ton of water through a hose but don't put your thumb on the end, it just runs out to no real issue. Put your thumb hard on the end with no water behind it and again, not much of anything. Put a ton of water through the hose and then put your thumb on the end of it, suddenly getting blasted in the eyes is gonna hurt.

I have a basic handle on it....sometimes....but the I get the terminology turned around because I just never use it.

I zapped the hell out of myself with my Sous Vide machine over Christmas because some stray voltage made it into the water bath. I put my hand in there to check the temp and got quite a jolt. It didn't hurt as much as it made it tense up quite a bit; high current, low volt? That's my memory of how that works.

But again, it's all magic and like Baby Lee - I had legos and shit as a kid; the little electricity kits just didn't appeal to me. I'll build cabinets (poorly) and work on suspensions or the like (again, poorly), but I'll be damned if I'll ever get electricity figured out.

Yeah!

but high current can be quite dangerous too though

Can you link what you're taking about, the actual product?

I would assume he's referring to something like this:
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Hampton-B...Q&gclsrc=aw.ds
However you will have to find a way to install that somewhere you have access to the wiring & also that is somewhere outside that light will get to it. The most obvious spot would be in the fixture itself, just not sure what exactly you're trying to hook this thing to and if you'll have room. Other than that it should just wire into either of the wires going to the fixture.

Honestly I was more referring to just buying a fixture with the photocell already installed, but if you're attached to the ones you already have you're going to have to go this route.

Honestly the timer shouldn't be too bad to install assuming you actually have a common wire. However the other thing to consider is whether or not the existing switch is a 3 way. The easiest way to tell is if there are 2 switches that control that same light you'll need a 3 way switch.

Thanks for the help.

This is the only switch that controls these lights. I got my timer switch in the mail just now and will do this project tomorrow afternoon.

Please pray for my safety.

It's 110. You won't die. You just won't love life.

V=IR --> I=V/R --> R=V/I
W=VI=I^2R

You should be fine, just make sure you kill the breaker before doing any work. Also something I just thought of, assuming you do have the white wires in the box you may want to double check if they are "hot". If you're house is newer it probably won't be, but at my house (built in the 70's) the circuits are wired "backwards". So that the white wires are hot & the blacks are actually the neutral.

The switching is done on the neutral wire which works fine except that the light socket is always hot so if someone were to stick their hand in there they will get shocked even with the switch off. I always forget about it & just a couple weeks ago had to repair a light fixture turned the switch off thinking it killed power to the fixture & got a little jolt. Which is another reason you should always kill the breaker, not the switch.

However the reason I mention it is because if that is what you have it will probably burn up your new switch.

I want to put a motion sensor in my garage. I see some sensors have a watt limit. Like this one is 800 watts
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Lithonia-...0-WH/203606977

I am running 5 200 watt bulbs. i want light.

the lights from the garage door openers do not give enough light.

My garage is huge. It has everything shown here.
http://www.centrahomes.com/wp-conten...7440907273.png

Replace them with LED with similar lumens.

Those are 70 a light.
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Westingho...6200/300958119

These are 22 from amazon
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01IJQTS5O..._t1_B01LZAUOYI

That's what I'd do. You could quit being a pussy and get the 54 Watt bulbs :D

This morning I was awakened by my kids asking what a sound was....brideowanian goes to investigate and hollers.

One of my PEX shutoff valves under the kitchen sink had popped during the night and was spraying a solid stream of watcher inside the cabinet....under my wood floor, down the inside of the wall, into the basement carpet and ran under the door Tom my vault and was under...the wood floor I have in there. I had a damn mess.

It's Sunday in a small town...hardware stores aren't open...people are gone for spring break and in church. I shut off the water and send four Tex messages. In half an hour I have located a supply of per tools and hardware includimg two valves.

I spend four hours shop vacuuming and rug doctoring up water. I've got fans blowing and a couple of dehumidifier blowing. I then used my super duper handyman skills to clip the pex and put in a new valve.

It's a pain in the ass and I'm trying to decide if I need to open up the walls to blow air into them....but it was a day the MRs was glad to have hitched up to a deplorable than some bun wearing snowflake.

Sounds like you got it under control but one easy way is get a 4 inch hole saw, put in 4 inch duct and pull air out of the void....u can even put back the 4 inch piece the hole saw makes...

Try to do it at the very low point where it wants to drip out anyhow...if nothing drips out you're good

That sounds like a plan. How do you propose pullupint the air out, through the shop back?


I've heard of pen joints failing and leaking and I've heard of valves leaking, but the handle of this valve was 6" from the rest of it and it had sprayed quite a while in the night. Not sure what caused it, I suppose a pressure siege from rural water.

Wither way, I'd like to kick the guy who put this valve together in the nuts.

If you get it dried out within 72 hours mold shouldn't be a concern. What part of the valve failed? I've seen water lines blow but never a valve.

The actual valve knob/handle just explode. The handle was broken off and water was spraying from that spot. N ver seen or heard of it before.


If the carpet isn't much better tomorrow I'll pull it up.

My biggest dilemma now is the holes in the wall....necessary or not? How many?

The good news is I have spray foam insulation so I'm not worried about that being wet.

That is odd. And disturbing seeing that I have several thousand of them at the property I work at.

Not sure what to tell you about the walls, when we have flooding issues we just try to get it dried out as well and as quickly as we can. If we tore open walls every time one of our idiot residents overflowed something we'd need a full time guy to handle it.

Dehumidifier would be very beneficial if you have access to one.

U could try a couple small (1/4 inch ) holes at some spots right u der the leak, just to see if anything drains out...so u can patch super easy.


If u get anything draining or dripping do a 4 inch and ventilate...

If nothing drips out it will probably dry

I've had only 1 angle stop ever fail in hundreds...and it was a tiny pin hole from a piece of sand or small rock that ground a pin hole out if the side of the angle stop after 30 years


By fail I mean leak , like you had...I've had a shit load fail as in get plugged or refuse to shut off....

I've had several supply lines fail though....

Around here (california) you can get 4 inch fans in any hardware store. Shop vac is over kill , amp wise ...you just need a 4 inch in line fan

If your relative humidity is fairly low, get as much outside air in as you can.

It has been insanely hot and dry here.

Good luck man. I hate water leaks. I hate plumbing. I hate everything.

you definitely want to get air into the wall cavity if water got in there. If you don't, you WILL get mold. Really you want to cut off the bottom 2' of the sheetrock to do it right, but at a minimum, put a 2" hole every 6 inches and then put some floor mover fans to blow some air in plus the dehumidifers.

Wow. I've never seen a failure like that before. The stem looks really brittle. What brand of valve is that?

I'm not sure of the brand, I'll have to look later. They're only 3 years old....

Those little egg handled shut offs are shit. By the time you need to use them they either break or leak.

I'm pondering replacing every one in the house......and maybe going to see the plumber that installed all of them during construction....

Don't kill him Iowa

Ironically, the plumber retired early and left the area, but the business is still in place.

I'm not sure that I expect them to do anything about it, but if they want future business they might do something like throw me a bag with a handful of better valves that I can switch out. It's easy to do, just a pain in the ass.

If I had to do what I did yesterday again, I'd be in a bad mood.

I've got 7000 acres and a backhoe. Just saying. No reason.

This is bullshit. Somebody posts about a leaking faucet and boom, the bastard in upstairs bats has a leak. Its a Moen and about 30 years old. Hope they still make the damn part thing you shove in there.

the damn shutoff on the cold turns but now it drips, and the hot is stuck. Is there anything more godawful than plumbing

Your posts.


Badda bing

They still make the same cartridge for moen. It takes a 1225b and a cartridge puller.