Adventures in Electricity

The most important part of this blog, for me, is to encourage everyone to realize that DIY projects, even big ones, are possible. But the sheer lack of knowledge is what makes a big project seem impossible.  And I can relate:  If I were to imagine taking on the project of, say, framing my own house, the magnitude of both the job and all of the stuff I know that I do not know makes such a project really daunting. Embed from Getty Images \ In order to do a DIY project of any size, one needs to learn.  And, for me, here are the sources of information that have proven to be invaluable. Books.  I went to Amazon and searched for books about electrical wiring.  They are legion.  I chose one because one commenter stated that it was his reference book he used for wiring his own house.  Your local library would be a good choice too.  Read the book, cover to cover, in order to get the complete picture of how it all goes together.  I like this book ...

  I've been approved! And I am ecstatic and relieved. This initial inspection is needed by the power company before they will bring in electricity from the street.  On Thursday I completed the work needed in order to request inspection.  Here is the list: Attach the vinyl mounting blocks. (not code, but it makes for a nice finished look.) Attach the disconnect switch to the wall. Attach the electric meter to the wall. Connect the two with a 2 inch conduit (make sure the bushings are used to keep from abrading wire). Attach a 3 inch conduit down into the soil so that the power company has a protected path to bring in their wire Run 3 heavy gauge copper wires ( I used 3/0 ) between the output of the meter and the input of the disconnect.  Make sure the wires are color coded black, white, and red.  Black and red are power, white is neutral. Pound two 8 foot grounding rods into the soil. Connect the grounding rods and the concrete encased ground together and connect...

My latest hobby has been purchasing electrical equipment.  I hope to describe the process I used to determine what I need.  I will wait on that to see how close I came to being accurate.  This post, is all about shopping. Embed from Getty Images Have I mentioned that I really do not like shopping?  For me, this ranks right up there with listening to an AmWay presentation. Early on in this process, I asked my builder if he could recommend somewhere to purchase all of the electrical supplies.  He suggested a) any of the big box stores and b) a particular electrical supply business that serves West Michigan. The latter sounded better to me.  I was thinking I could just offer a list, and they would pull the list and sell it to me.  It sounded good because, while I had a good idea what I needed, in many ways I did not know what to call it. For instance, when you run a piece of PVC conduit to a meter box or electrical panel, what is the thing called that...