Electricity

VEVOR Hot Water Dispenser

A month or three ago we started decompressing the basement and expanding back into the main floor of the house. We had a remodeling project going on last year and while that was going on we were living in the basement. Usually I have place to myself, but we were both living in there for the duration of the remodeling project. Plus we had all the furniture. It was a little congested. My workbench suffered the most. Anyway, things are getting back to normal and I thought I would move the coffee maker and the hot pot onto a table in the big room. That worked okay until somebody tried to print something using the laser printer that was plugged into the same outlet and a breaker tripped. Laser printers draw 15 amps! Who knew? Certainly not me. Actually it was a bad arrangement overall. The coffee maker and the hot pot each draw about 15 amps. The coffee maker and the laser printer probably only draw that much for a few seconds, so you could probably get away with running both of them on the same circuit as the odds would be low that they would both want big power at the same time. You might even get away with it until you have completely forgotten about this whole power arbitrage thing. So, to keep the peace among my minions I moved the coffee maker back into the work room and the hot pot into the kitchen. The coffee maker displaced the battery chargers, so they got sent out to the big room.

There are still some problems with the current arrangement. The laser printer is still on the same circuit as the air fryer oven, but we seldom use it. I guess there was a time when we were using it regularly, but it's been months since it's been turned on. The hot pot died and has been replaced by an always hot pot. I suspect it is on the same circuit as the microwave but no problems. So far.

Then the new hot pot died. No, wait, it's working. No it's not, it quit again. What gives? The outlet is bogus. Maybe the prongs on the new plug are thinner, or something with fat prongs was in here before. In any case it's not a solid connection. So I replaced the outlet, 77 cents from Home Depot, and all is well. Except, while I was trying to sort out how many circuits I had, I discovered that the outlet under the sink is busted - no power at all. So now, since I'm getting all electricicated, I am going investigate. 

Did ROMEX Cable Change Again? (NM-B Update)
Backyard Maine

I found the problem in the switch box. Presumably the outlet under the sink is for the disposal that was never installed because we only use the basement for drinking beer, nothing serious like actual food. The switch is for the never-installed disposal. What I found in the switch box was three Romex cables. One would be power and one would go to the outlet box. The third? Well, hell, every electrical box in the world seems to have two or three extra Romex cables that often have nothing to do with whatever the box is for. But the wires in this one aren't connected to anything, they are just taped over.

Check the hot lead and it's got 15 volts. Check taped leads, and whoa! This one is hot! Talked to Jack at lunch today and he suspects that the 15 volts was induced by running next to a live wire. 15 volts, but no oomph behind it. So I decided to just tape it off and leave it. 

Electricians earn their money. Stuffing those wires back into the box takes some oomph, and trying to contort myself so I could reinstall the outlet under the sink was a struggle.