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Electrical - Page 41 of 42

Most of us will think of the electrical system in our home as what’s easily visible: outlets, lights switches, overhead lights, and, for the more adventurous, the main panel in the basement. But, like plumbing, wiring is mostly a system that is hidden from view. It consists mainly of a few hundred yards of wires of various gauges buried in the walls and tucked into the ceiling.

Installing an electrical system is a job best left to a licensed professional, mainly because of the inherent dangers of working with electricity. Unlike a botched plumbing job or poorly installed tile, an improper electrical connection can kill, or reduce a house to ashes. Yet there are many situations where some intervention by an unlicensed homeowner or builder is necessary, and learning the basics can lower the risks for those who exercise some caution.

What about installing an arc-fault breaker, or replacing a faulty light switch? If you’ve just renovated a bathroom or built a new utility room, maybe you’d like to consider wiring it as well. Not planning to jump in and wire up your new outdoor lights? That’s OK. There are still advantages to having the basics under your belt — to know when 12-gauge wire is fine but 14-gauge wire is not, to know whether that funky ground-fault circuit interrupter in the bathroom should be swapped out for a new one.

Whatever your comfort level, look for good advice from Fine Homebuilding’s team of experienced professionals. They’ll be able to walk you through just about any thing you may find yourself up against.

  • Buzzless bulbs

    A contractor friend of mine recently replaced some of my light switches with dimmers. I like the adjustable light levels, but I hated the buzzing noise made by the bulbs…

  • Documenting projects

    I have a simple, accurate way to document the placement of the framing, wiring and plumbing parts that go into a construction project: photographs. If I see the possibility of…

  • Trimming outlet boxes

    Despite everyone's best intentions, switch boxes and electric-outlet boxes sometimes project a bit beyond the plane of the drywall. Left this way, the cover plate won't seat properly, leaving an unsightly…

  • Making Wooden Light Fixtures

    With nice ones so hard to find, creating your own makes sense.

  • Rotary fishing rod

    When fishing a wire for a doorbell recently, I ran into a seemingly impossible situation. I'd drilled the hole for the bell-push, and an angled hole through the wall plate into…

  • Wiring Guide

    If you come back to a wiring job days or weeks after installing the cables, you sometimes have trouble remembering which wire goes where. I have an installation tip that…

  • Overhead Outlet

    I installed an outlet directly above my workbench, and I've got a 3-ft., 12-ga. pigtail cord plugged into it. Near the female end I tied a clothesline cord that runs…

  • On-site bender

    Nothing is worse than showing up at a job to discover that an important tool didn't make it into the truck. One day, I left my conduit bender at home,…

  • No-nail zone

    An old carpenter once advised me not to use nails in the area 12 in. to 24 in. above the sole (bottom) plate at places such as built-up corners, trimmers,…

  • Cable Pulley

    While rewiring my house, I was confronted several times with having to thread the cable behind finished walls and under subfloors. Difficulty arose when the cable had to be drawn…

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Fine Homebuilding Magazine

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