Originally Posted By: JHZR2
The only saving grace may be that a licensed electrician or plumber, or mechanic may save you from insurance issues and non-payment of a claim, I suppose.
The licensed electrician knows how to make the installation safe. The guy from the 7-11 parking lot only knows what he sees the electricians do.
So, the licensed electrician knows what size breaker to install for a given size of wire, among many other things.
The guy from the 7-11 parking lot has seen an electrician install a breaker, but has no idea what size breaker to install other than that bigger ones don't trip as often so bigger must be better.
And so you get situations like I saw in a house where someone, most likely one of the 7-11 parking lot day laborers (the house was a crew house where they lived, complete with the basement subdivided into multiple bedrooms with key locks on each door), had installed a 30 amp breaker on two 14-gauge wires, the circuit overheated, the ground wire burned in half and left the grounds for the entire circuit energized.
Surprised the place didn't burn down or someone didn't get killed.
The only saving grace may be that a licensed electrician or plumber, or mechanic may save you from insurance issues and non-payment of a claim, I suppose.
The licensed electrician knows how to make the installation safe. The guy from the 7-11 parking lot only knows what he sees the electricians do.
So, the licensed electrician knows what size breaker to install for a given size of wire, among many other things.
The guy from the 7-11 parking lot has seen an electrician install a breaker, but has no idea what size breaker to install other than that bigger ones don't trip as often so bigger must be better.
And so you get situations like I saw in a house where someone, most likely one of the 7-11 parking lot day laborers (the house was a crew house where they lived, complete with the basement subdivided into multiple bedrooms with key locks on each door), had installed a 30 amp breaker on two 14-gauge wires, the circuit overheated, the ground wire burned in half and left the grounds for the entire circuit energized.
Surprised the place didn't burn down or someone didn't get killed.
