Circuit Breaker Situation

Hello I need seriouse help! In my situation I have a three switch, one for the light, one for the vent fan, and one for the heater. This is in a bathroom rent house. My problem is that when I turn the switch on for the light, the light and fan turn on, when I switch the heater on, that switch does nothing, the same when I switch the fan on. The wall plate is labeled: light, fan, heater. So what I attempted to do is put a switch outlet combo in. I have two black wires, two white wires and a ground. So I put the black wires on brass and the white wires on black,( they are black screws instead of silver, not sure if I got the right kind of switch). So when I did that, when I turn the switch on, the fan turns on, but no light, also when the switch is on the outlet is hot.( which fine that is how I want it). But what did I do wrong, why does fan work but not the light. I my biggest fear is that I might have made a fire hazard. Please help and tell me if what have done is safe, and maybe help me figure out how to turn the fan and light on with the same switch..  Thank you for all your input, have trouble falling asleep, keep thinking the house might burn down.. Sorry for the long post
      

Hello everyone. I need ask advice on my electrical.



Over the past few weeks the lights in my house (built in 1941) have been dimming intermittently. It wasnt happening very often so we figured that it wasnt anything big. Over the past few days however it has become more and more frequent and the fluctuations have been of higher intensity.



The power company came out this morning, did some tests, and told us that it is a bad main breaker. We have a call in to our home warranty company (we bought less than a year ago) and they have said that an electrician will call within 24 hours to set up an appt.



I have 2 questions...



1. Does this sound like a reasonable explanation for the flickering?

2. Is there a safety issue here? Should we be spending the night in a hotel until this is fixed?



Thanks for any advice!
      

over 2000 fire related to the panel an the loads going thru them where the wire insulation melts up and thru the walls to the loads before the breaker trips rated amps... DO NOT BUY OR SIGN OFF ON A HOME WITH THEM
      

I have an older Kohler whirlpool (Tea for Two) that I installed and worked fine (occasional slight delay in starting).  I shut off the breaker to work on a vanity light installation.  When I threw the breaker back on, the tub would start on its own.  At first could shut it off.  Then had to turn the breaker off to keep it from coming on spontaneously.  The only way I can use it is to turn on the breaker and then wait for it to come on.  It stops after about 20 minutes (normal I think).  But then won't restart or restarts/tries to restart later, sometimes multiple times.  I have to shut the breaker off, or it will keep going on or trying to go on.  Runs fine when it gets started.  I am thinking it is the starter button and/or a timer problem.  Any thoughts?
      

i have 3 switch sets in my house that are giving me absolute fits.



#1  kitchen switch, controls the light over the outside door




    Code:

   

3 sets of lines coming in,



line from the breaker panel (power)



line to the ceiling lights 



line to the outside porch light.

i cannot get this 3 line to work without tripping the breaker every time i turn the switch off



#2 bathroom switches




    Code:

   

power feed line



line to the light over the medicine cabinet



line to the second switch to control the exhaust fan.

same issue as the first set, flip the switch and trip the breaker (different breaker from the kitchen switch)



#3 living room switch and plug controlled via switch




    Code:

   

 power feed line



outside porch light line



line to wall switch to control the lower wall outlet

flip switch, trip breaker



the switches i have are "1 pole" am i using the wrong switches for this job?
      

Hello!



In a house I recently bought I have a strange situation.



There is a three way switch on one side of the wall with two sets of wires coming in:



Red, Black, White

Black, White



and then one stray Black that goes to the duplex receptacle on the other side of the wall (on the OUTSIDE of the wall!  Clearly an afterthought.)



Into the receptacle goes this strange black single wire from the light switch and the usual black and white wires + ground wire.



I went to change the ugly receptacle to a decora and now it doesn't work, though I'm not 100% sure it worked before.



I've wired the new receptacle as I remember it being wired before, any idea what is wrong? 



I've attached a diagram!



Thanks in advance for any input.
      

Hello all, and thank you in advance for any help you can provide! Here is the deal I wanted to put a bathroom exhaust fan in and was told I could come off the existing switch to cut the wire, install a junction box, tie the wires all back in adding the wires for the fan. Trouble is the bathroom light stays on with the switch off. Turn the switch on light dims and the fan now runs, switch off fan shuts off light goes bright used black to black white to white where oh where did I go wrong!?
      

I have a covered (rafters, decking, shingles, etc) screen room out back. It used to have a single light, which I wanted to replace with a ceiling fan with light kit, independently switched. So I bought this fan/light dimmer: http://www.lowes.com/pd_69955-539-S2...d=10151&rpp=24



I checked the wire at the old light, and as it was 14-2, I removed it and replaced it with 14-3. It wasn't until after I spent 3 hours crawling around the attic on my stomach running the new line that it hit me....the circuit is on a 20 amp breaker. The line running to the switch, and a jumper running from it to 5 wall outlets in the living room, is all 12-2.



The new line runs straight from the switch to the fan box, with no other outlets. So while I doubt it is up to code, it seems like it should be ok. The fan/light won't pull anywhere near enough power to overheat the 14 gauge line, and if there is an actual fault, it should trip the 20 amp breaker anyway.



I would very much like to hear from the experts. Running the 14-3 was a serious pain in the butt, and replacing it with 12-3 would be just as bad. So if this is safe, I'd rather not replace it. But if I am risking a fire, it is obviously worth the hassle.
      

Hi all, this is my first post, so...my kitchen was just renovated and the electrical outlets are on the walls and I wanted them in plugmold under the cabinet. Why didn't it happen?  Long story, but I'm doing it myself now.  The electrical receptacles are on 2 separate circuits with a gfci receptacle on each and neither circuit has a receptacle outside the kitchen where I can put the gfci's, so I'm putting gfci breakers in the panel instead. I've run into a different problem on each circuit that'd like some advice on.



Circuit 1: this is a 20 amp circuit.  I have to plug this circuit's neutral wire into the gfci breaker, but I couldn't see which neutral wire matched the hot wire (buried in mess of wires) and I don't have a continuity tester so I just pulled one neutral at a time (tedious) until the circuit failed, but it never failed. So I did this again for every neutral...same result. This circuit shares a few boxes with other circuits so I'm wondering if the neutrals on different circuits are tied together somewhere, and if so I'm pretty sure, but not completely, that that's not going to work with the gfci breaker.  So I didn't install that gfci breaker since I'm not confident it would actually gfci (yep i verbified gfci).  What do you think?



Circuit 2:  this is a 20 amp circuit.  This circuit currently has the refrigerator, gas stove and range hood, and then a gfci in front of 3 electrical receptacles, which already sounds bad since I thought the kitchen receptacles required 2 dedicated circuits. I replaced that breaker with no problem, but it tripped after a few minutes and continued to trip every few minutes. I haven't changed anything else on that circuit yet and it's never tripped before, but now it is, so I put the old breaker back for now. The current gfci receptacle is only protecting the 3 outlets since the appliances are ahead of it. I know you wouldn't normally want the appliances gfci protected, so do you think the refrigerator motor may be a problem?  Do I need the appliances on a separate circuit?  What would you suggest I do?



Thanks, and if you're wondering "why all the effort?", it's partly because I'm meddlesome, partly because I'm bored, and partly because the backsplash tile is to be on showcase, not the electrical receptacles.
      

We recently purchased an apartment complex built in 1950. Inspector's report advised us to upgrade the main electrical panel (fuse box) on the  outside of the building. He also advised us to relocate fuse boxes in closets stating it is unsafe and a fire hazard.

We met with several electricians to get a quote. It's so confusing because everybody says different things... 



FUSE BOXES IN THE CLOSET: One electrician advised us to flip the panel into the bathroom(closet is adjacent to bathroom) and install a breaker instead of a fuse box, another electrician claimed it's not up to code to have breakers in the bathroom.



MAIN PANEL OUTSIDE THE BUILDING: One electrician advised us to upgrade the amperage (currently 30 amps), the other claimed it's an unnecessary change that drives the cost up since we do not have any appliances that require high amperage: no washers or dryers.

So confusing. I want the property to be SAFE for our tenants, but cost-efficient for us. Any thoughts?

thank you.