Quality outlet for dedicated 20 amp line?

[TLS Guy]

Only the Krell amp does this. The dryer has no effect on my two AVR's or any other of my A/V equipment.

That is because it is a matter of resonance. The core of the Krell can resonant at the frequency of the switching cycle of the hair dryer. It is a matter of chance that the laminations of that transformer resonante at the switching cycle of the hair dryer. It still does not alter the fact, that the hairdryer is an atrocious device.

 

[mtrot]

When I asked if it was perhaps normal transformer noise, was more thinking the hair dryer was off and it still hummed plus was more thinking of a standby mode than power completely disconnected, too. Wouldn't surprise me a boutique piece like a Krell might have issues others may not.....

The Krell is dead silent all the time except when that hair dryer runs on one of its speeds. Yes, the Krell is in sort of a stand by mode until you press the button on the front and will buzz in that stand by mode in response to the hair dryer. It also will buzz when the amp is turned on with the front button in response to the hair dryer.

Now, there is a toggle switch on the back, by which you can turn the amp completely off. If that is turned off, then the amp does not buzz in response to the hair dryer.

 

[Speedskater]

Old hair dryers and tea pots, when switched to low heat mode, would place a power diode in series with the AC line. This half wave current is what is causing the problem.

 

[cpp]

A dedicated circuit for AV is a good thing because it's not shared by anything else and in my house, built in 1946, half of the second floor feed goes to a ceiling junction box in a hallway and is distributed to the East half. I found out by disconnecting the light fixture and lost those outlets. Totally crappy wiring. I could replace the feed, if needed.

Luckily the home we purchased in March of last year, the area where the cable, router and TV and HT stuff resides has a dedicated 15amp circuit. Was it planned , not a clue the home was built by a dentist in the late 90s. , I personal feel during the build of the home, they the builder didn't put an outlet on that wall, and the dentist wanted his TV there and the electrician ran him a new outlet and separate run to the breaker box. Cool. OH ps, there is crappy wiring even in new homes.

 

[Speedskater]

OH ps, there is crappy wiring even in new homes.

Yep, especially if the home is in a development.
The electrical contractor is always looking for ways to reduce the costs of pieces & parts.
The person doing the wiring is paid by the house, so quick & dirty is the plan. That person is probably not a licensed electrician (and may not have a Green card). It's the contractor signs-off on the job.

 

[TLS Guy]

Yep, especially if the home is in a development.
The electrical contractor is always looking for ways to reduce the costs of pieces & parts.
The person doing the wiring is paid by the house, so quick & dirty is the plan. That person is probably not a licensed electrician (and may not have a Green card). It's the contractor signs-off on the job.

Not this home,

I was here and supervised it myself. I made sure it was done right, and my grounding plan followed to the letter.

 

[Speedskater]

Yep, you almost need to check everything yourself. One Neutral, Safety Ground swap can mess things up.
Some years ago, Audio Precision wrote a blog about the many wiring errors, that they found in their new building.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
and those little 3 LED testers don't catch some of the biggest problems.

 

[cpp]

Not this home,

I was here and supervised it myself. I made sure it was done right, and my grounding plan followed to the letter.

That's the way to do it, but difficult to do if the home was NOT built by "you".

 

[highfigh]

That's the way to do it, but difficult to do if the home was NOT built by "you".

I would hate to buy a spec home- most of those builders will do whatever they can to save a few bucks, even if it means not building to code. Low voltage contractors have to deal with this and have, for a few decades- the builders don't want to exceed a price, but they usually have absolutely no understanding what they're dealing with. Electronic stores that got into low voltage installation sometimes had people in charge who didn't understand that network cabling isn't daisy-chained, like phone lines that are used with simple phones- phone systems usually need cables going to the head end, too. The electrical work I have seen, even in high dollar homes, was pitiful.

 

[cpp]

I would hate to buy a spec home- most of those builders will do whatever they can to save a few bucks, even if it means not building to code. Low voltage contractors have to deal with this and have, for a few decades- the builders don't want to exceed a price, but they usually have absolutely no understanding what they're dealing with. Electronic stores that got into low voltage installation sometimes had people in charge who didn't understand that network cabling isn't daisy-chained, like phone lines that are used with simple phones- phone systems usually need cables going to the head end, too. The electrical work I have seen, even in high dollar homes, was pitiful.

Amazing what builders can get away with these days and not to mention, not much faith in a city or county doing proficient inspections if the builder and the "inspector" are " well known to each other. I've seen things slip by, ( a remodel to our sunroom at our old beach home back in 2015 ) only to question the inspector why didn't you note that " oh I missed that, OH really !

 

[highfigh]

Amazing what builders can get away with these days and not to mention, not much faith in a city or county doing proficient inspections if the builder and the "inspector" are " well known to each other. I've seen things slip by, ( a remodel to our sunroom at our old beach home back in 2015 ) only to question the inspector why didn't you note that " oh I missed that, OH really !

Some places don't want to have their own inspection departments because they don't want to be sued in case something goes wrong. Where I live, they have inspectors, but those are actually employed by an outside company. If they tell me that I have to fix some things in my house when I sell it, I'm definitely hiring a lawyer- I still have the inspection report and even that guy missed a lot of details that should have been addressed at the time. While I know they can't see through walls, he didn't say anything about the sparse insulation in the attic with some joist spaces not having ANY. I didn't go up there because I hadn't bought it at that time but it was easy to see. He didn't seem to have a problem with the plumbing and some structural problems either but the City allowed the sale, so it's on them, not me. The things the city wanted the previous owner to pay for were inconsequential, other than the wiring to the grid being updated to support the larger breaker panels.

Nobody wants to be on the hook for anything. Some places in rural locations don't have any codes- I'm surprised they don't have more electrical fires and structural collapses. When I was in Missouri last Fall, we looked at a home that was being renovated and saw that the old roof had been covered by new roof at the end of the living room and we counted seven layers of shingles. OTOH, I don't think that place would ever fall down since the framing lumber was cut onsite- it's all Oak.

The city has a relatively new 'Community Development' director and he, the Inspection department and Architectural Planning Commission are almost acting like an HOA- I wanted to build a small bump-out on the rear of my garage (4' x 8' x 8'), so I could store lawn tools, snowblowers, lawn mower and other things on shelves, to take less space in the garage. This was going to be on a concrete slab, attached to the garage and since the slab and soil were placed over 20 years ago, it's not going to move. They wanted more than $200 for fees & permits- one of them said it was to make sure the addition doesn't fall. Seriously? I provided drawings and details, showing that it was totally over-designed, yet they wouldn't budge. Apparently, they're trying to save us from bad architecture. Previously, I asked about placing movable fence panels behind the garage, to block the neighbor's view of my compost pile, wheelbarrow, rain barrel and a few other things- the inspector asked for drawings because "I can't visualize that". When I had the garage built, the inspector showed up out of the blue and told me the electrician had never pulled a permit. He allowed it to be added to the existing permit for the furnace and I had him check it while he was here. Sure enough, Sparky screwed up a few things what ended up costing me $500 after the fact and he was in the wind, even though code is the same here and in Illinois, where he was based.

 

[nicoleise]

Don't worry, it's not just where you live. I had a request to put up a structure next to my farm house. This is on my own property, not visible from anywhere public and the neighbours is a fence, tall trees and a road. The structure was a total of 1,098 sq ft and was intended to house a package shed, room for the lawn mover, two deep garage bays for a boat and a caravan and a three car carport.

This was refused on the basis that the building was "much too large", and that it would "reduce available farm land". (I can't think of any farmers who'd want to work a 1,100 sq ft field with modern machinery).

I asked what would be acceptable. "Typically 500 sq ft without issue" and they would "be inclined to accept up to 1,076 sq ft for the current proposal."

So I asked if we were really arguing over 20 sq ft of building footprint on my private lot against no neighbours and visible from absolutely nowhere. The only one to ever see this building would be my family and the mail man. Yes, we definitely were discussing that.

So I asked "Well, would it change anything if it's a mixed used building?" to which the reply was that it potentially would. So I told them (which was true) that the parcel shed and one of the parking spaces was for my commercial use.

Proposal accepted. WTF?

I spent five (yes, five) years of my life on obtaining planning permissions for an addition to our old farm house. It's been here since 1880, and for the addition (sans the garage which I've basically dropped for now) we're only building inside the existing buildings. We're replacing the roof, adding skylights and so on. But again, hardly anyone will be able to even see this, no matter how hard they squint.

We went through the whole nine yards. A local hearing to allow any neighbours to object (noone cared, obviously), and it was even processed as an agenda point in a city council meeting whether this project could be considered permissible (the council immediately agreed). Yet the people working the case kept drawing things out. I got like 12 (mostly pointless) questions, answered those, then got another 12, answered those, then another 14.

They littered us with claims and demands they have no legal grounds to ask for, and I had to quote several laws and building codes to them.

It was only after answering those last 14 questions, in which I had previously asked that they now ask all their remaining questions at once so we could all get on with things, that we finally got our permits.


All that nonsense meant we got to pay much more for labor and materials because of the inflation and energy shortage, which resulted in some items increasing several hundred percent in price.

And at the same time, the council spends hundreds of thousands on advertising in order to attract new residents to the area.