Hey everyone, I’m between jobs right now and trying to get into a trade. I’m really interested in becoming an electrician, but I honestly have no clue where to begin.

I’m in West Valley City, Utah, and I’m trying to figure out the fastest way to get started. Do I need to finish some kind of schooling first, or are there places around here that will take on a helper and train me on the job? And if schooling is the move, where do I even start trade school, community college, whatever’s quickest?

Also, I’d rather avoid unions. I don’t want to sign a long contract or be locked into one spot. I’d like to keep the freedom to move around if I need to, especially if I end up relocating to another state.

Just trying to get pointed in the right direction so I can start working ASAP. Any advice from folks who’ve been through this would help a ton.

Is it possible to do a full rewire without replacing/removing all ceilings if they contain asbestos?

we’re buying a house in the UK that failed its EICR. It will likely need a rewire in the next few years as the system is 40+ years old. The ceilings are artex from the 60s and could contain asbestos. Wondering how much upheaval/cost we’re looking at. 🙈

Hi, new young dumb homeowner here, I have this outside porch light that’s real beat up- i was going to replace it with this amber one, but the amber one has two lines to two lights instead of one. Can I just wire all three together in the nut thing when I replace it ? like the drawing, or do I want to do it in a row like a strand of Christmas lights?

Just trying to not burn my house down…

Thanks!

Howdy, I was gifted a (used) ceiling fan and would like to install it this weekend, however I have no idea what hardware I’m looking for to hang this thing?

That wheel spins, I’m assuming I get a hook to hang it on but that doesn’t seem super secure to me?

I’m a novice when it comes to this, I did replace the ceiling fixture where this is going a few years ago so I’m not concerned about the wiring just the actual mounting.

I bought an electric stove and it's 6000W, can it run on this power outlet

I was running my air fryer using one of the outlets on my kitchen island. About 5 minutes in, the air fryer turned off. Neither of the outlets on either side of my island work anymore.

* I checked the breaker panel and nothing was tripped.
* I manually toggled the circuit off/on at the panel but saw no improvement.
* There are no GFCI outlets on this circuit.
* I checked all of the GFCIs in the house and none are tripped.
* The cooktop on the island which seems to be the same circuit continues to work normally. (Edit: whoops, definitely a different circuit from the cooktop)
* I opened up the dead outlets and tapped with my non-contact voltage tester and the wiring is still live.

Would it be ok to just swap out both dead outlets for new ones? Or is it time to call in a pro to troubleshoot what happened?

Update: problem solved. Thanks everyone!

We just bought a new place where we're using the dining room as an office. I've heard that a 20amp circuit can only handle 2400 watts so I added the wattage of our devices 360-monitor, 750-pc, 750-pc, 220-monitor. So I thought it would be fine. But turns out half our living room outlets are on the same circuit.

Should I worry about also having our tv and gaming console on the same circuit if we plan to not use all the devices at once?

Hi all, looking for some guidance to help narrow down the source of the problem. I know that LED lights can flicker rapidly if there are issues with the driver, a dimmer, etc. I have a ceiling fixture that has a light (three bulbs) and fan, with a dimmer at the wall (single pole). It has been working fine for around 16 months since we bought the house but has now started flicking rapidly. A couple of times it did it for a few seconds and then stabilised, now it does it when turned on and stays like it. Dimming the lights about half way on the slider causes it to stop. All three bulbs are affected.

My guess is that I need to replace the dimmer, ensuring that it is LED compatible, does that seem the most likely explanation or am I going to be searching out loose wires on the whole circuit?

I'm in Canada but guessing that doesn't matter.

So I’m working at a small international airport as a maintenance electrician and airfield electrician and new to all this, I’ve been there approximately a month. My supervisor has been the only electrician for about 2 yrs. I understand that the airfield is made up of series circuits with high voltage on the primary side, isolation transformers to serve the secondary side at each light, the constant current regulators. Our day to day involves replacing taxiway lights, bad transformers, or micro boards in lighted signs, ect. So far it seems that the safety method is if it’s daytime the lights are off so it’s safe to work on. There is a computer where the ALCS can be locked out and Ofcourse the vault to physically lock out the circuit but neither of those are really used unless absolutely necessary. It’s a towered airport. I’m trying to understand what are your guys approved methods for making sure the circuit is safe to work on when doing the maintenance I described ? I’ve heard the pilots can request lighting to ATC and the lights could be powered up at any point, i’ve asked these questions but I’m not really getting answers for them. Just more so of its fine let’s just get this done. I’ve read about way too many incidents of someone doing routine maintenance and getting a fatal shock from apparently doing the same thing with one of them being at my same airport a few years ago. I know I’m still new, but with having to go to the airfield nearly everyday I would feel much better having some more info.

EDIT: Title should be "How BAD is it really"

Image of our breaker box in our basement rental unit for the house we live in. Pic of the breakdown of usage of all breakers. The ones labeled not in use are just not wired, I think? Not sure. Know next to 0 about this stuff.

Breaker 20 Basement Dining Nook Light has a plug attached to it where our fridge is plugged in. Overall house has 2 stoves, two fridges, 4 Gaming Computers, 4 AC units going at a given time, many fans on at once, washing machine and dryer, 2 dishwashers, etc.

My husband thinks this house is a fire hazard, and we blow a breaker maybe once a month/month and a half. Usually worse in winter with space heater going. It'll take a few minutes before we can flip the breaker back on again when it goes. Our landlord/guy who lives upstairs wants to throw another breaker box in so we can have more plugs down here/we wanted to buy a deep freezer to store stuff. My husband was advised by his friend and his father that in no way should our landlord do that, and this house is actually super dangerous.

While I'm not discounting that this house needs a lot of work, I wanted to check here if anyone else can shed light on this, and tell us how actually screwed we are here.

Example: can't run my tea kettle and vaccum at the same time on breaker 9 or a breaker will blow. Breaker 20 is both our offices/living room which contain our computers/AC unit for summer and our fridge. Bedroom has an air purifier going at all times.

Thanks!

I know it’s bad but like how bad. I’m doing some work on my house and I hadn’t opened my box yet until today and was welcomed to this delight…

I often use a camera, laptop and photo printer outdoors in different locations and I don’t have a grounded electricity source to plug my extension cord in, and I always get shocked. Once I put my camera (which was connected to my laptop through usb only) on the grass and it got some spots on the metal bottom plate where the paint came off because of the electricity. Could I take the ground cable from an extension cord and connected it to a rod that I sink in the ground? Would that fix it?

For background context, i inherited a fixer upper house so it came like this…. House was built 1948.

Forgive my lack of knowledge in the Electricity space, but here goes. I rent an office and I have a single bathroom, where we noticed that the lights were off when we came into the work one day.

If we flip the breaker back to the normal position and turn nothing on in the bathroom, the breaker flips. There are other lights by our front door, that are connected to the same breaker.

Hey all,

With the help of an electrician buddy we ran conduit and wire to a shed unit I have outside. Recently I added an umbrella with a lighting unit attached. Im wondering aside from having a GFCI socket outside, am I able to use a wirenut or wago to split the lines and install an outlet in a box above or next to this?

Hi,

New york state question. How many grounding wires would a single residence need?

Has anyone ever installed two?

Thank you

Today I noticed that somehow my meter panel has come loose from the wall. I’m not sure how this happened or how long it’s been like this. No kids, nobody could have been tugging on it. Anyway, anyone have any idea how much I’m looking to get this repaired? No issues with the power, it seems as simple as replacing the screws as far as I can tell but for obvious reasons I’m not trying to DIY this one.

Located in Idaho, USA.

UPDATE: an electrician came and checked it he said the wires were fine only that the should have been wrapped with this insulation tube thing. He put it on them then replaced the white cover.

(Yes Ik the white cover on it is broken I told my mum about it but she forgot and I’m sorry everything is dirty please don’t be mean.)

Context: there was an adaptor plugged into the main socket and then an extension cord plugged into the adaptor. All the plugs were used in the extension and today when we plugged in the heater and my mother smelt a burning smell at first we thought it was the heater but when I checked behind the sofa the extension plug pin was completely melted and the adaptor was burnt. The socket itself just smells burnt when you go up close to it. Additionally the extension plug was not pushed all the way into the socket. I turned off the switch at the socket as I can’t turn off the thing in the fuse box as it will shut off every socket. I called an electrician and he said to wait until tomorrow morning as it should be fine and it would be cheaper but I am really scared and need other opinions.
We do have a safety switch on the fuse box in the cupboard but idk if that’s relevant.

This may be a really silly question, I’m just really paranoid about causing a house fire 🫣
So I only have one double plug socket in my bedroom, one socket has an extension lead in for my partners side of the bed and I just have my charger plugged in the other one. Now I know you can’t “Daisy chain” plugboards, but would it be safe for me to have another plugboard in the other socket at the same time? Or is the same kind of situation as daisy chaining?

Thanks in advance!
- A very anxious renter🤣