Fucking around with mains power as an amateur is a great way to get killed or burn down your building and have your insurance hang you out to dry, IMO. This is what electricians are for.
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Home Improvement
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Fucking around with mains power as an amateur is a great way to get killed or burn down your building and have your insurance hang you out to dry, IMO. This is what electricians are for.
Palum
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Nah I have 200 amp service so I'd only be fucking around with half mains power!
But I don't want to pay $2000 to install a $100 item.
BrutulTM
Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun.
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If you aren't literally helpless and can follow basic instructions you can hook up a sub panel with YouTube university and even if you go full retard and hook it up totally backwards or something the worst thing will happen is you will blow a breaker. Just make sure the power is off while you're touching stuff and when you turn it on if smoke or sparks come out of anything turn it back off quick.
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Palum, WHY do you need to install a sub panel? If it's breaker space there may be better (but not necessarily cheaper) options.
Palum
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Well Poo , way to rain on my parade! I would not add a panel and not have a breaker ahead of it. I'm thinking more of issues with resale of your house and of course not burning the place to the ground. Do like a 2P/100 or whatever is the max your panel allows and wire the sub panel to it.
Palum
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I don't know how I will add a sub panel without adding a panel and a breaker?
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Palum
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Why? The AL scare due to shitty old 70s wiring seems like an old wives tale that has irrationally spread to every application at this point. Every service cable is aluminum, the lugs are aluminum, etc. Anti-oxidation coating is necessary on the exposed bits, but if it's torqued to spec it shouldn't be an issue.
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Aluminum gets brittle and does not have the "bending" capacity that copper does. Our cabin up in N Michigan has all aluminum shit and constantly breaking down because of brittle wires. And the thing is you cannot even fix the shit proper because there is not enough slack to just cut it back and redo it. Its also dangerous from a fire perspective because when the shit gets brittle, breaks its cause for electric to jump and cause spark. Service cable is a different monster because its more like rope than your typical wall shit which is only single wire. Also its thick fucking shit which when installed wont really move much. It also has a metal wire which supports the run. Just spend the extra cash and do copper if you're talking about interior wire.
Palum
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Intrinsic
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In the same spirit as his question, how dangerous is replacing this myself?
HVAC guy said mine is dead and wants >$1,000 to replace it, suggesting just replacing my furnace completely since it is from 1995. Main concern is my 13 week old and it is getting cold, don’t want to risk having a freeze. We could always sleep downstairs, heat works there but his nursery is upstairs.
HVAC guy said mine is dead and wants >$1,000 to replace it, suggesting just replacing my furnace completely since it is from 1995. Main concern is my 13 week old and it is getting cold, don’t want to risk having a freeze. We could always sleep downstairs, heat works there but his nursery is upstairs.
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Not that hard to do, but you need to test the fuck out of it to make sure there are no leaks when you're done.
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Intrinsic
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The_Black_Log Foler
PalsCo CEO - Stock Pals | Pantheon Pals
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Do you use the cleaning solution or water? I rock 1960s terrazzo and I’m hesitant to use the solution on it.. I’ve used bona before so wonder if that could be an option..
Fogel
Mr. Poopybutthole
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Sounds like your furnace is pretty long in the tooth either way. I'd look into replacing it with a newer and possibly more efficient unit.
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