Your pet peeve, technical or otherwise.

[themadhippy]

Yep, I second the james_s comment about inspectors and that scheme. Honestly it just seems dangerous no matter what the local standards may allow.

In the uk rcd (gfi) protection is required on all socket circuits,also  any cables passing through certain locations like bathrooms,even if its in the roof space,require rcd protection.The rcd's are normally in the  consumer unit (fuse board) and protect the whole circuit,unlike  the states ,were from what i can make out from the gfi tend  to be built into the socket so the cable supplying it is unprotected.

[IDEngineer]

In the States you can get circuit breakers with GFCI protection. In fact, they're basically required on most new work these days, indoors or outdoors. Freaking expensive... ~$45 each instead of <$10 each. But then you can use standard outlets on that entire circuit.

They make combined ground fault and arc fault circuit breakers too. I've written about those here before. Try using a welder on one. The entire POINT of a welder is to create an arc, so the breaker trips after a few seconds. Lather, rinse, repeat. When I first discovered this I dealt with it quickly with a super beefy extension cord to a circuit in an older part of the house that still had its grandfathered-in normal breaker, worked perfectly. I suspect long term I'll have to switch the outdoor circuits that power my welder to normal, non-AFI breakers.

"New and improved" isn't always a better solution for every situation.

[SilverSolder]

[...] "New and improved" isn't always a better solution for every situation.

It often (but not always) ends up that the "new and improved" solution is more complicated, less robust, and generally just an added cost.

There have been some wins along the way.  I'd never give up fuel injection / electronic ignition to go back to carbs, points, and condensers on my cars, for example!

[Cubdriver]

In the States you can get circuit breakers with GFCI protection. In fact, they're basically required on most new work these days, indoors or outdoors. Freaking expensive... ~$45 each instead of <$10 each. But then you can use standard outlets on that entire circuit.

They make combined ground fault and arc fault circuit breakers too. I've written about those here before. Try using a welder on one. The entire POINT of a welder is to create an arc, so the breaker trips after a few seconds. Lather, rinse, repeat. When I first discovered this I dealt with it quickly with a super beefy extension cord to a circuit in an older part of the house that still had its grandfathered-in normal breaker, worked perfectly. I suspect long term I'll have to switch the outdoor circuits that power my welder to normal, non-AFI breakers.

"New and improved" isn't always a better solution for every situation.

That's for damned sure.  I despise AFCIs - can't run my power tools on them, they nuisance trip.  And they're like $50-60 a pop.  But I'm sure the breaker manufacturers are pleased that they're being written more and more deeply into the code with every iteration, it seems.  Bloody PITA.

-Pat

[james_s]

AFCIs are horrible, they're a band aid over those stupid backstab terminals that are allowed on receptacles, I've seen them fail dangerously on numerous occasions. The AFCIs are a nuisance though, like you say, they're expensive, literally 10 times the cost of a standard breaker, they consume power, in many it's enough that the breakers get noticeably warm, and they're notorious for nuisance tripping. I can see maybe requiring them for bedroom circuits as was initially done, but now in new construction you have to use them virtually everywhere. Talk to any electrician and they'll tell you AFCI nuisance trips are their number 1 source of callbacks.

[james_s]

Maybe red is used for cold in that jurisdiction. 

I wonder if there's a code requirement for which goes above and below, and which color for that matter? My house is copper so the color has never come into question, can't say I ever paid attention to which pipe is above in horizontal runs. That Pex stuff has advantages and it's certainly easy to install but it makes the water taste like plastic if it's a less frequently used tap.

[IDEngineer]

I've never heard of a temperature based orientation requirement. They're every which way in my house. Blue is hot in a couple of places, the plumbing sub asked if I cared because they ran out of red on the last day. As you said, copper isn't color coded and I have a mix of both so what's the diff?

[PlainName]

copper isn't color coded

Any place it matters will have labels showing direction and that kind of stuff. Does it matter for a home owner? No, but we are engineers and like things to be 'right'. Would we wire up some hobby box with all black wires, no ident on the PCB and that kind of thing? There is satisfaction in doing things well.

However, even if you don't care, the case with the red/blue pipes is really bad IMO. It's the equivalent of putting yellow/green sleeving on a live wire because they ran out of red stuff. A decade down the line when the next owner wants to tap into the cold water supply, I reckon it will matter then.

[SeanB]

You were lucky with only having a double brick wall. Helped a friend change out the broken toilet in the new to him house, and there the walls are a half meter thick in the old part of the house. Toilet was the original, came with the original build, and while the tank was replaced in 1957 (made 1956, but not the same style as the original) the bowl was probably installed pre-war. 6 hours of work to get the old concrete mount cut away enough to get the last bits of the bowl away, along with getting the old original lead sealed cast iron pipes out from both the ground ( did not want to damage that socket, I needed it), from the toilet itself and to get enough of the vent pipe broken to get movement. Did I mention the half meter of brick I had to chop out to get the pipe to move, and the elbow was buried partly in it.

New toilet went in in under 2 hours, including the time I waited for the first round of Rockset, that made the base level, to harden sufficiently to not move. The rest went to stick the new one in place, and funny enough it was in nearly the same position as the old one, only moved 5cm further back in changing from bowl with wall hung cistern to close coupled. At least changing will be easier for this one, though I very much doubt the bowl will come loose intact with 2kg of Rockset as adhesive.

Peeve from this is cowboy roofers, as the vent pipe was stuck in with 30 layers of tar paper, but there was no actual seal as the base layers were all loose.  It left Friday after a good talking to with a hammer and a long chisel to get the obstruction to move, then a bit more work to make the roof actually rain proof. Got one cast iron pipe out, looks like new, just stored for a century outdoors, but otherwise fine. not the same for the outlet pipe, that came out in lots of little pieces, along with the bowl. As far as we can figure this was originally a police station, as the windows do not need any extra bars, the ones there, half inch thick steel bar, with one inch solid steel rod, are not likely to break for anything short of a very large plasma cutter. I need to buy a 600mm drill bit to do plumbing there again, he wants a shower.

[Vovk_Z]

"We are one of the top fifteen companies..."

I wonder which one they are? Number one? Number two?

- this is easy: they are number 15. If they were number 10 - they say 'We are one of the top 10' :-)
(Or, for example 'We are a one of the top 192' :-) )

[IDEngineer]

I especially like it when they use an uncommon number: "We are in the Top 17 companies...". C'mon, just say you're 17th and be done with it.

[Circlotron]

"We are one of the top fifteen companies..."

I wonder which one they are? Number one? Number two?

- this is easy: they are number 15. If they were number 10 - they say 'We are one of the top 10' :-)
(Or, for example 'We are a one of the top 192' :-) )

My point exactly. 

[TimFox]

Noisy HVAC units in hotel rooms.

[Sal Ammoniac]

They make combined ground fault and arc fault circuit breakers too. I've written about those here before. Try using a welder on one.

I have a similar problem with a treadmill in my garage when plugged into a circuit with a ground fault breaker (as all circuits in my garage are). Using the treadmill for just a few seconds is enough to trip the breaker. I've been told that it's due to the treadmill acting like a Van de Graaff generator.

[james_s]

They make combined ground fault and arc fault circuit breakers too. I've written about those here before. Try using a welder on one.

I have a similar problem with a treadmill in my garage when plugged into a circuit with a ground fault breaker (as all circuits in my garage are). Using the treadmill for just a few seconds is enough to trip the breaker. I've been told that it's due to the treadmill acting like a Van de Graaff generator.

Possible I suppose, although they also use brushed permanent magnet motors and those are notoriously noisy. The arcing brushes will trip AFCIs and RFI suppression capacitors may have enough leakage to trip a GFCI.

[DrG]

Corrected 1099s that reach me 24h after I file....R_t B_s___d S__s of B_____s

...and let me add to that...Crappy Tax Software that claims to be able to do an amended return, but it gets rejected and you have to go through a series of incredibly convoluted steps to fix it 

[Sal Ammoniac]

They make combined ground fault and arc fault circuit breakers too. I've written about those here before. Try using a welder on one.

I have a similar problem with a treadmill in my garage when plugged into a circuit with a ground fault breaker (as all circuits in my garage are). Using the treadmill for just a few seconds is enough to trip the breaker. I've been told that it's due to the treadmill acting like a Van de Graaff generator.

Possible I suppose, although they also use brushed permanent magnet motors and those are notoriously noisy. The arcing brushes will trip AFCIs and RFI suppression capacitors may have enough leakage to trip a GFCI.

Perhaps, but I use lots of power tools in the garage, many of them with brushed DC motors, and none of them has ever tripped the breaker.

[AlfBaz]

I'm curious as to what the typical trip currents for other countries. Here the standard is 30mA and I believe there are lower trip current requirements for outlets near water

[Ed.Kloonk]

I'm curious as to what the typical trip currents for other countries. Here the standard is 30mA and I believe there are lower trip current requirements for outlets near water

I'd like to know also. But given that the prevalence of those standard Din breakers are everywhere, I'd say 30mA is the magic number.

[Monkeh]

RFI suppression capacitors may have enough leakage to trip a GFCI.

Whopping great caps those would be.

[themadhippy]

I'm curious as to what the typical trip currents for other countries.

presume your talking about rcd's,in the uk 30mA is the  most common.

[IDEngineer]

I believe there are lower trip current requirements for outlets near water

I haven't seen any separate "water proximity" specs in the USA. They might exist, but I've never heard of them. We don't seem to sell any "water specific" breakers that I've seen nor heard about. Just one type of hideously expensive, false-positive-tripping breakers for all applications.... 

[srb1954]

RFI suppression capacitors may have enough leakage to trip a GFCI.

Whopping great caps those would be.

Or you could have a lot of individual pieces of equipment plugged in at once. The equipment installed on the work bench of a typical EEVblog forum member would be getting close to tripping a GFCI!

[AlfBaz]

I believe there are lower trip current requirements for outlets near water

I haven't seen any separate "water proximity" specs in the USA. They might exist, but I've never heard of them. We don't seem to sell any "water specific" breakers that I've seen nor heard about. Just one type of hideously expensive, false-positive-tripping breakers for all applications.... 

My PC is down at the moment so I don't have access to au standards. All I've managed to find is talk about 10mA RCD's for medical class I gear for patient care

[IDEngineer]

Well, yeah, medical is its own specialized world. Hospitals have completely separate wiring codes, for example. I don't know much about them but I can easily believe they have specialized fault interrupters for that market. They probably make the normal ones seem downright inexpensive!

Heck, even rabbit-in-the-python power supplies have a separate medical rating system. DC-DC converters also have entirely separate capacitive isolation requirements for medical applications.

Medical is its own world. Comparing to residential or even commercial, "near water" or not, is like comparing those to aircraft or space applications.