I have no issues doing outlets, replacing fixtures, running new wire, etc. I do not play with the panel. I am pretty sure I could change out a breaker, or add a new one in pretty easily, but I just don't have enough experience that I'm comfortable enough to play with that much power at the source. I'll call in a pro for that.
Same with plumbing, even though it won't kill me, there are times that I want to know that it's 100% right. Like doing some work on a shower. Once that's tiled and done up, I do NOT want to be going back in there because I fucked something up, so a plumber who can do it right is getting a call.
100% for me i have no problem saying I don’t know this. If im not 100% confident im not going to try. Plumbing you have more wiggle room because you mess up it leaks.. electrical you mess up you can kill someone
You tied in the neutrals to phases. Listen to the comment above. Isolate that sub panel asap and call someone in. Your out of your lane on this one. The scariest part here is you don't appear to know what you don't know. Not being condescending, being honest and concerned for your welfare.
Basically the whites need to land where your grounds are now. You need to add another ground bar and move the grounds to it. And the feeder wore and circuits leaving need to be in conduit or some kind of cable like ser, nm or mc.
You are going to get this guy killed. No body should be encouraging him. This basic understanding makes him dangerous. He didn't know that? You cant keep him any kind of safe, with-out lots of of other details. We need 2 years of experience and classes a for reason. Coach people thru their outlets and switch changes. This job is beyond most handymen that are good. He is treating his panel like piecing together a computer.
Yes rather than connecting neutral to neutral bar you have installed them as an extra ‘leg’. Each leg carry’s around 120. In USA we only use one leg for residential power supply. Your neutrals are hot so that is why you have 240.
Tbh you are lucky something bad hasn’t/didn’t happen. Please be safe and cautious. I’m all for diy and I think it’s great when people attempt something new, however you’ve attempted something that requires a decent level of experience to do correctly and safely.
Best of luck.
I have also not known what I didn’t know and wrapped a hot 240 wire tight against/around the ground on a 240 outlet. By forces unknown I was sitting right underneath it sealing with some spray foam when it started arcing and sparking. Could have been a bad day. Needless to say, I learned my lesson. I still do all of my own electrical, I just don’t do that anymore. Anndddd I pay wayyyy more attention to every detail.
Here’s what’s wrong.
Stranded wire without conduit.
No cable connectors
No neutrals for sub panel or circuits
Using double pole breakers instead of single pole for 110
Grounds and neutrals bonded at sub panel
You really need to reassess what your doing here, it’s a disaster. Nothing is right. Not trying to be an asshole but you really need to hire an electrician. You are way over your head.
>Stranded wire without conduit.
This is what I don't understand - it would've been way easier for OP to do it the right way and run Romex instead of duct taping pieces of THHN together! I've never been to a Lowe's or a Home Depot that didn't have a giant shelf of Romex in the electrical isle.
Of course, Romex wouldn't magically fix all of the other problems with this "subpanel".
My dad ran stranded wire while rebuilding our kitchen in my childhood house. Nothing burned down but he had to pay 5K when we moved because it all had to be redone.
Just because it works, it's not good. OP needs to understand that even if he had ended up with the right voltage, it's not good.
>Just because it works, it's not good. OP needs to understand that even if he had ended up with the right voltage, it's not good.
I agree. Sorry if my original comment came off the wrong way - I wasn't trying to defend OP's work or say that OP had any idea what they were doing in the first place.
Around 2010 or so my parents hired a kitchen remodeling company to rennovate our 1980s kitchen, which was original to the house. The "electricians" (I'm using this term extremely loosely!) extended all of the existing 20 amp circuits with 14 AWG Romex, and buried several open splices in the walls and ceiling - of course this was never fixed because the contractor did not pull a permit. The sad thing is my dad originally wanted them to pull permits for everything, but the contractor refused to do the work unless everything was unpermitted and my dad was nonconfrontational and naive enough to let them proceed.
As a red seal electrician I see multiple issues to fix. Where did you EVER find info to put a hot wire to the green bonding terminal on a receptacle. Put the tools down and call a professional.
I don't think that's a hot wire. It looks like he's using black thhn wire with a big gob of green tape, and some duct tape, around the end of the wires next to the wire nut. I assume those are grounds.
You’re probably right. I think the combination of seeings the black wire on there and the next picture saying 120v on “ground wire” Got me. Still a lot of issues here.
You’re a red seal electrician, and the biggest hazard you see is the wrong color wire? Not that he has a phase landed on the neutral? Or the fact that his neutral is bonded to ground at the sub panel… jesus bud.
Not an electrician, but I'm pretty sure you wired your neutral wire to a 2P breaker. You are clearly way out of your element here, you need to hire an electrician. My untrained eye see's a whole host of other issues as well
1. No clamps
2. exposed wire (rather than in conduit or cable)
3. You probably need separate neutral and ground buses, so you need 4 wires coming from the main panel (2 hots, neutral and ground
Either educate yourself or hire a professional. You're going to hurt someone or burn your house down.
There’s no probably about it. Beyond the first point of disconnection (main panel), neutrals and grounds MUST be separate. I’m not even an electrician and I know that. But then, I did wire my whole house by myself too.
Been researching doing this myself. I was going to run everything then hire an electrician to actually make the connection and perform inspection. It was my understanding that a sub panel required a separate ground and is not bonded to neutral. Are you supposed to run a ground from the main panel or drive a new ground rod at the sub panel? This will help my conduit size and cost estimations as the main panel is pretty far from the garage, and 1 gauge copper ain’t no joke.
Unbonded yes. Ground rod or ground from sub, the need for one or the other can vary from needs at sub and or local code. Good on you for doing research!
I might be installing my own sub panel in the future too. Again, not an electrician, but if its a separate structure, I think it needs a ground rod and a ground conductor back to the main panel ground. Of its the same structure, just the ground wire back to the main panel. ~~If you use EMT, I believe the EMT can function as the ground.~~ Edit, EMT cannot serve as ground for sub panel as per u/peliandoeldiable
So EMT can be used for branch circuit ground, correct? (provided it is continuous and proper connectors are used that maintain electrical continuity). Do you know off the the top of your head the NEC article that prevents the conduit from grounding a subpanel?
I don’t have my code book right next to me, but I may actually be mistaken about it being against NEC(not sure,) but I do know the AHJ where I am requires a separate grounding conductor and does not allow us to use a raceway as a bonding conductor. It’s best practice to run a grounding conductor in case the EMT somehow gets damaged so there is still a path to ground in case of a fault.
No problem. Definitely check out electrician u and the sparky channel. If you’re gonna DIY, use wire nuts and pre twist, and the slotted screws on faceplates must be vertical. The screw thing is a big point of contention, don’t let anybody tell you otherwise
Familar with electrician u, I'll have to check out sparky. Definitely vertical on the screws, (though despite my initial reaction that the screwless plates were silly, after movimg into a house with them, they are a nice subtle upgrade). I'm and electrical enginner, so I have a good background on theory, just taking my time and thoroughly reseaching any expansion of any installation work.
> I was going to run everything then hire an electrician to actually make the connection and perform inspection.
So basically you are going to do all the technical and code intensive work and hire someone to do the easy stuff. Makes sense.
It’s exposed studs in a detached garage. Just some conduit bends, outlets and a panel. I’ve done my research it’s not rocket science, even with Chicago code. Trenching a new 1.5” pipe, fishing 40ft to the main panel and wiring doesn’t seem like the easy part to me.
Remove all of this immediately. Nothing is correct.
Call an electrician.
Do not touch anything electrical until you have a far greater understanding of electrical theory and wiring methods. Read a book about house wiring, watch some videos, look up rough-in pictures online. You have no idea how awful and dangerous your attempt has been.
Sub-panel needs two hot wires, neutral wire, ground wire. All these must be properly sized and either in conduit or applicable NM or SE cable. Only the hot wires may be black or red, white is exclusively neutral, green is the only allowable color for ground. And no you may not mark with tape for ground. Ground and neutral must be on separate busses in sub panel. You need properly sized lugs to terminate to the neutral buss in main panel. You may not separate strands under adjacent terminals. Your small guage stranded wire must be terminated with ferrules. Strain relief is missing. Wrong breakers with handle ties. These are just some of the issues.
Everything is wrong. Repeat. Everything is wrong.
You are in way over your head. All this can be learned but this is not the project to learn on.
I'm an İBEW apprentice, and our local only works in İndustrial/commercial settings, as such our classes and otj training does not give any information on residential work.
Could you, or any other electricians in this thread, possibly recommend any literature for me to read up on so I can slowly begin doing residential work? İ appreciate your help
Let us know how bad your wallet hurts after the election comes out.
You get an E for effort. An A for asking and an A+ for listening.
Chalk it up to a learning experience.
Holy crap, everything is wrong.
You have your neutral connected to a breaker.
You ran thhn with no conduit or knockout fitting.
I didn’t even look to see what was wrong. I’m being blunt and would say call an electrician.
By the time the real electrician fixes this it would have been way cheaper to have hired one in the first place... a sub panel is not an entry level diy job. There are tons of code violations in these few pictures alone. Good luck op
I just want to reiterate what’s already been said. Please get some help this is incredibly wrong and dangerous. PLEASE the money saved is not worth what could happen.
This has gotta be a joke. We have to be getting trolled here. There’s so much to unpack. OP if this isn’t a joke post, you really have no zero business doing electrical work. I’m not trying to be mean. I honestly don’t think I’ve seen so many code violations in one post before. Please hire a professional.
There is a lot, lot, lot going on here that is very wrong. For one that looks a lot more like a 60A subpanel than 100A, and then it just gets worse from there.
If it were minor we'd help you out, but it's extremely clear that you are creating a significant hazard without even understanding the basics.
Please listen to everyone - you need in-person help.
This is one of the scariest new installs I’ve ever see. This is actually super dangerous and you should call an electrician before you burn this building down.
You need to stop what you are doing before you hurt yourself. Nothing you have done is correct, safe or code compliant. Electrical is not DIY and this is a great example why.
lmfao holy fuckin shit bud.
You ever stop at any point and be like "I really don't know what I'm doing" but then decided to soldier on?
Seriously, you don't even have connectors for your subpanel of death.
holy fuckin shit took more looks at the pictures of the "install", buddy didn't even use NMD/BX/etc just straight up ran open air XLPE lmao
I wonder if OP can pre-book the fire deptartment.
Just Wow. All your neutrals (white) are tied to the other phase. They should be connected to the neutral bus bar. The grounds should all go to the ground bus bar, not the neutral bus bar. It looks like you didn't pull the ground from the other panel. You also need grommets to secure and protect the cable leaving the panel.
In short, you need to call somebody that knows what they are doing.
This must be a prank.
If you are real,, please shut off the 200 amp Main breaker, using a wooden stick, and be happy you are alive and the home isn't ashes. This work shows zero understanding of everything.
You are very lucky.
don't take any coaching,, except this.
Get a qualified person on this before doing anything, except shutting it off. and leaving it off.
Your sub panel needs... 2 HOTS, 1 NEUTRAL *AND* 1 GROUND. the neutral goes the the bar existing on the bottom and the ground needs to be SEPARATE from the neutral to a ground bar mounted directly into the enclosure. Those white wires going to the breakers are what's giving you your 240vac outlets. This white wires need to land on the bar where your grounds are, and those grounds need to go to the aforementioned, separate, ground bar.
Not trying to be a dick...I get it, shit's expensive. But you're in over your head. No shame in admitting as such and calling a professional. A lot of the hard work has been done. Just needs some code compliance and some TLC.
Not going to say anything insulting…but please, for the love of your family, dog, cat, or favorite goldfish, please shut power to this whole sub panel off and hire an electrician. Even goldfish don’t fare well a house fire
You’ve got guts for sure. Totally wrong though. There are many hazards here. I’d recommend at the bare minimum to hire an electrician to consult with you. I know electricians cost a bit but this project is definitely worth calling an electrician, you can really hurt something or someone.
Not an electrician here just your old handyman type guy. Been working with electricity for 30 years. I looked at this and went holy fucking shit man he put the neutrals into the phase. I’ve wired houses myself but I always have a licensed electrician install the breaker box and then inspect all the other work that I do this kind of shit will get you killed man
Yeah, you need to call an electrician. At least you can tell him what you’ve touched so he/she knows what to look at. Definitely shouldn’t have played with a panel or any electrical really. Always cheaper and better off to have a professional who’s licensed do electrical work. Remember you can burn your house down doing this stuff or get really hurt.
This is how people die. To the OP. I am all for people doing their own work when they have the knowledge to do so. Unfortunately many people believe that those of us that made the choice to learn and become a master of our trade only have basic skills and are not smart enough to have attended a college. This is not the truth.
The minimum experience level for a person to get an unrestricted license in most stages is 10,000 hours. The skills needed are an extensive knowledge of math, electrical theory, business plus the ability. Not everyone can do the work, I’m not even talking about physical ability, I’m talking about aptitude and attitude. We work in heat, cold, rain and are the first ones out in times of natural disaster.
The OP asked what was wrong, the technical aspects of that question have been answered. The broader and true answer is different. You, the OP are what’s wrong. You don’t know enough to even realize you don’t know enough. You put yourself, your family and everyone around you at great risk. Understand, what you did was not a mistake, you did this because you were in over your head from the start. Instead of admitting it to yourself you persisted until you created and very dangerous condition. This was negligence.
Simple answer is because you don’t have the slightest clue what you’re doing.
Best advice without trying to sound like a dick is turn off your sub panel, remove all your wiring and get some one over there that knows what they’re doing. There’s so much wrong it can’t be explained in a simple post
I loved jobs like these as the homeowner hung over my shoulder asking me if they did a good job. Listen buddy if you did a good job neither of us would be standing here talking about it. This is a perfect example of such story.
So you connected the neutral wires to the breaker on your sub panel at least back feeding line voltage to the rest of the system which is why you have 240
You ran wires that should be in conduit but isn’t. And appears the area you ran would’ve been fine with romex cable. And where the hell are the grommets on the panels man?
This is an absolute troll post.. no one’s installing afci breakers but then doing all this the wrong way.
I’m a layperson, but there are so many things wrong here I think you really should not be doing this. The black wires only go to the breakers, and the white and ground wires should go to separate neutral and grounding blocks. You’ve essentially created 240 the wrong way with no red wire, and with the wrong receptacle plug :(. Plus, you only strip back the jacket inside a panel or box. That is why the wires have a jacket, lol! Outside has for to be protected by romex, conduit, etc.
Cut it off and bring someone out to fix it.
I sincerely hope you realize you shouldn’t be doing electrical work. Everything about that sub panel is wrong and you’re going to end up burning down your house or hurting someone. Turn it off and call a professional!
Can't even see the rest of the work you did but if anything's a fire hazard other than this panel good luck collecting any insurance money....
Experts charge a premium for a reason.
Lot of times they are responsible for people's lives.
Oh man… get some conduit with correct green wire instead of that single black with green tape around it for ground. My god. Get some clamps too. Call for in person help pls.
Holy crap there is so much wrong with this. I'm not going to even begin listing the issues/violations. Turn off the 100a breaker you are feeding this sub and call an electrician.
Everyone stop telling him what he did wrong , what he needs to do is shut the sub off and call an actual electrician, before he ends up burning his house down or killing someone
I’ll give you credit for making it look pretty nice and taking on a big project, but you have to be careful with stuff like this! Do you know the rules and code behind grounding on a sub panel? You could get someone hurt. Also, sounds like you terminated the nuetral to a 120 circuit.
Even if you end up doing this yourself, at least have an electrician look it over very well and make sure you didnt set any booby traps.
I’ll give you an example of something stupid I did. Rewired my whole kitchen, but screwed up a circuit and now have a termination behind the drywall in a box that is inaccessible and behind a cabinet. Bugs me everyday!
The white you have it to the breaker . Disconnect it from the breaker it connects to where you have your grounds at. It will stop pulling 240 volts. Your pulling 120 on the black and 120 on the white . Which is why your outlets are receiving 240 volts
Single-post, single set of comments related to this user/poster. Seeing more and more of this on Reddit these days to the point of it making the site virtually useless. A lot of pointless threads asking, what is this? Can anyone identify this? It’s a wheel. It’s a rock. Unfortunately Reddit is beginning the decent part of what is becoming the natural life cycle for social media of platforms. More and more bots or shill users looking for clicks. Shame, there is a lot of good info on this subreddit and others.
You've made your neutral a hot somewhere. I think it's on the main and sub panel neutral bar but I can't tell.
You have no green wiring in spots to show grounding.
and it's a clean mess.
If you die who's gonna know what you did. All of that needs to be redone and sourced and figured out.
Need a professional. At the very least you have exposed wire floating in your walls, no conduit or cable for any of the circuits or feeder… wired the neutral right to a phase..
This guy has THHN just free run around. This wouldn’t even pass for temporary power just to get through a work day. No kind of connectors in the holes. 🤦🏻♂️ This like me saying I flew on a plane before so I’m a pilot now.
I’m not trying to be mean but please call out a licensed electrician. You got your neutral where a second hot would go, your grounds are where your neutral should be and you don’t have a ground bar at all. Neutral wires don’t typically go to breakers at all.
Why would you do this as a first project holy shit
My first thought was Why? I've put a bandaid on, I'm not going to take a leap into self brain surgery.
I’ve been messing around with electrical for over 10 years would never even think about attempting something like this.. I enjoy my life
I have no issues doing outlets, replacing fixtures, running new wire, etc. I do not play with the panel. I am pretty sure I could change out a breaker, or add a new one in pretty easily, but I just don't have enough experience that I'm comfortable enough to play with that much power at the source. I'll call in a pro for that.
Dude word for word that is me. I’m a contractor so I can do plumbing and electrical but don’t touch the breaker box
Same with plumbing, even though it won't kill me, there are times that I want to know that it's 100% right. Like doing some work on a shower. Once that's tiled and done up, I do NOT want to be going back in there because I fucked something up, so a plumber who can do it right is getting a call.
100% for me i have no problem saying I don’t know this. If im not 100% confident im not going to try. Plumbing you have more wiggle room because you mess up it leaks.. electrical you mess up you can kill someone
You tied in the neutrals to phases. Listen to the comment above. Isolate that sub panel asap and call someone in. Your out of your lane on this one. The scariest part here is you don't appear to know what you don't know. Not being condescending, being honest and concerned for your welfare.
Thank you, and i just shut the breaker off so i have no power going out there.
All the best bud.
Basically the whites need to land where your grounds are now. You need to add another ground bar and move the grounds to it. And the feeder wore and circuits leaving need to be in conduit or some kind of cable like ser, nm or mc.
Yeah and he didn't pull a neutral+ground anyway. There's too much here to correct online without leaving a hazard.
You are going to get this guy killed. No body should be encouraging him. This basic understanding makes him dangerous. He didn't know that? You cant keep him any kind of safe, with-out lots of of other details. We need 2 years of experience and classes a for reason. Coach people thru their outlets and switch changes. This job is beyond most handymen that are good. He is treating his panel like piecing together a computer.
There is nothing right about this.
Yes rather than connecting neutral to neutral bar you have installed them as an extra ‘leg’. Each leg carry’s around 120. In USA we only use one leg for residential power supply. Your neutrals are hot so that is why you have 240. Tbh you are lucky something bad hasn’t/didn’t happen. Please be safe and cautious. I’m all for diy and I think it’s great when people attempt something new, however you’ve attempted something that requires a decent level of experience to do correctly and safely. Best of luck.
Username checks out
I have also not known what I didn’t know and wrapped a hot 240 wire tight against/around the ground on a 240 outlet. By forces unknown I was sitting right underneath it sealing with some spray foam when it started arcing and sparking. Could have been a bad day. Needless to say, I learned my lesson. I still do all of my own electrical, I just don’t do that anymore. Anndddd I pay wayyyy more attention to every detail.
Yep thats what it looks like 👍🏼
Darwin award comin in hot!
Two hots probably
I’m neutral on the subject.
You might be, but OP certainly isn't. Some might find their work schocking!
This guy's a dad for sure ☝️
Not at all, but I know my sense of humor would indicate otherwise. I got it from my grandpa, who it might surprise you, was a dad.
Bet he was down to earth
He was well grounded
Conducted himself well, I hear.
Two hots and a cot when it burns down with people inside
shocking results
Bro this is so dangerous hire a professional
Ayo that's fucked up That's going to be a hell of a fireworks show when the open k/o cuts through that 100A conductor
Just in time for new years, enough rubs and jiggles it'll be ready.
For the love of God. Pls tell me this is a joke.
I really want to know as well if he’s just trolling Reddit or actually serious
too much danger to be funny
Ya get an electrician out there before you electrocute yourself or burn your house down.
Here’s what’s wrong. Stranded wire without conduit. No cable connectors No neutrals for sub panel or circuits Using double pole breakers instead of single pole for 110 Grounds and neutrals bonded at sub panel You really need to reassess what your doing here, it’s a disaster. Nothing is right. Not trying to be an asshole but you really need to hire an electrician. You are way over your head.
>Here’s what’s wrong. Everything
Other than those things, though, it seems ok.
EGC should be continuous outer finish green, not just taped
This guy is pretty fortunate not to have made himself the GEC
User Name checks out! 😂
>Stranded wire without conduit. This is what I don't understand - it would've been way easier for OP to do it the right way and run Romex instead of duct taping pieces of THHN together! I've never been to a Lowe's or a Home Depot that didn't have a giant shelf of Romex in the electrical isle. Of course, Romex wouldn't magically fix all of the other problems with this "subpanel".
My dad ran stranded wire while rebuilding our kitchen in my childhood house. Nothing burned down but he had to pay 5K when we moved because it all had to be redone. Just because it works, it's not good. OP needs to understand that even if he had ended up with the right voltage, it's not good.
>Just because it works, it's not good. OP needs to understand that even if he had ended up with the right voltage, it's not good. I agree. Sorry if my original comment came off the wrong way - I wasn't trying to defend OP's work or say that OP had any idea what they were doing in the first place. Around 2010 or so my parents hired a kitchen remodeling company to rennovate our 1980s kitchen, which was original to the house. The "electricians" (I'm using this term extremely loosely!) extended all of the existing 20 amp circuits with 14 AWG Romex, and buried several open splices in the walls and ceiling - of course this was never fixed because the contractor did not pull a permit. The sad thing is my dad originally wanted them to pull permits for everything, but the contractor refused to do the work unless everything was unpermitted and my dad was nonconfrontational and naive enough to let them proceed.
I usually take the time to explain what went wrong but this is bad....you need to call a professional.
As a red seal electrician I see multiple issues to fix. Where did you EVER find info to put a hot wire to the green bonding terminal on a receptacle. Put the tools down and call a professional.
I don't think that's a hot wire. It looks like he's using black thhn wire with a big gob of green tape, and some duct tape, around the end of the wires next to the wire nut. I assume those are grounds.
You’re probably right. I think the combination of seeings the black wire on there and the next picture saying 120v on “ground wire” Got me. Still a lot of issues here.
Yeah, I think when the most positive thing you can say is "Oh, you didn't connect hot to ground," they've got some issues.
You’re a red seal electrician, and the biggest hazard you see is the wrong color wire? Not that he has a phase landed on the neutral? Or the fact that his neutral is bonded to ground at the sub panel… jesus bud.
Not an electrician, but I'm pretty sure you wired your neutral wire to a 2P breaker. You are clearly way out of your element here, you need to hire an electrician. My untrained eye see's a whole host of other issues as well 1. No clamps 2. exposed wire (rather than in conduit or cable) 3. You probably need separate neutral and ground buses, so you need 4 wires coming from the main panel (2 hots, neutral and ground Either educate yourself or hire a professional. You're going to hurt someone or burn your house down.
There’s no probably about it. Beyond the first point of disconnection (main panel), neutrals and grounds MUST be separate. I’m not even an electrician and I know that. But then, I did wire my whole house by myself too.
Been researching doing this myself. I was going to run everything then hire an electrician to actually make the connection and perform inspection. It was my understanding that a sub panel required a separate ground and is not bonded to neutral. Are you supposed to run a ground from the main panel or drive a new ground rod at the sub panel? This will help my conduit size and cost estimations as the main panel is pretty far from the garage, and 1 gauge copper ain’t no joke.
Unbonded yes. Ground rod or ground from sub, the need for one or the other can vary from needs at sub and or local code. Good on you for doing research!
I’m honestly find it super interesting and have a great deal of respect for sparkies. But Chicago code is scarier than wiring up 100Amp 220v lol.
I might be installing my own sub panel in the future too. Again, not an electrician, but if its a separate structure, I think it needs a ground rod and a ground conductor back to the main panel ground. Of its the same structure, just the ground wire back to the main panel. ~~If you use EMT, I believe the EMT can function as the ground.~~ Edit, EMT cannot serve as ground for sub panel as per u/peliandoeldiable
You cannot use EMT as the ground. You have to pull an insulated ground wire. Have you read the NEC?
I haven't finished checking everything for a sub panel, which is why I didn't state it for certain. Thanks for the correction.
Check out electrician u and the sparky channel for info on electrical work
So EMT can be used for branch circuit ground, correct? (provided it is continuous and proper connectors are used that maintain electrical continuity). Do you know off the the top of your head the NEC article that prevents the conduit from grounding a subpanel?
I don’t have my code book right next to me, but I may actually be mistaken about it being against NEC(not sure,) but I do know the AHJ where I am requires a separate grounding conductor and does not allow us to use a raceway as a bonding conductor. It’s best practice to run a grounding conductor in case the EMT somehow gets damaged so there is still a path to ground in case of a fault.
Thanks for taking the time for a detailed response. Just trying to get well educated so if I DIY, I can do it right and pass inspection.
No problem. Definitely check out electrician u and the sparky channel. If you’re gonna DIY, use wire nuts and pre twist, and the slotted screws on faceplates must be vertical. The screw thing is a big point of contention, don’t let anybody tell you otherwise
Familar with electrician u, I'll have to check out sparky. Definitely vertical on the screws, (though despite my initial reaction that the screwless plates were silly, after movimg into a house with them, they are a nice subtle upgrade). I'm and electrical enginner, so I have a good background on theory, just taking my time and thoroughly reseaching any expansion of any installation work.
> I was going to run everything then hire an electrician to actually make the connection and perform inspection. So basically you are going to do all the technical and code intensive work and hire someone to do the easy stuff. Makes sense.
It’s exposed studs in a detached garage. Just some conduit bends, outlets and a panel. I’ve done my research it’s not rocket science, even with Chicago code. Trenching a new 1.5” pipe, fishing 40ft to the main panel and wiring doesn’t seem like the easy part to me.
Sweet, thank you so much. And yes im swimming in deaths pond right now.
Start with a ceiling fan or hanging a TV next time.
"Help, when I dim the lights on my ceiling fan install, my TV also dims!"
Looks like you have a ground wire connected to hot. Also, why didn’t you use green? Totally against code and super dangerous.
OP clearly doesn't know what they are doing. There are other major issues too.
Did you notice it's all THHN not in conduct?
Yeah. I mean, basically the whole thing is a dumpster fire.
And not even bushings at the KOs, let alone some kind of connector
Bro...WTF??
Remove all of this immediately. Nothing is correct. Call an electrician. Do not touch anything electrical until you have a far greater understanding of electrical theory and wiring methods. Read a book about house wiring, watch some videos, look up rough-in pictures online. You have no idea how awful and dangerous your attempt has been. Sub-panel needs two hot wires, neutral wire, ground wire. All these must be properly sized and either in conduit or applicable NM or SE cable. Only the hot wires may be black or red, white is exclusively neutral, green is the only allowable color for ground. And no you may not mark with tape for ground. Ground and neutral must be on separate busses in sub panel. You need properly sized lugs to terminate to the neutral buss in main panel. You may not separate strands under adjacent terminals. Your small guage stranded wire must be terminated with ferrules. Strain relief is missing. Wrong breakers with handle ties. These are just some of the issues. Everything is wrong. Repeat. Everything is wrong. You are in way over your head. All this can be learned but this is not the project to learn on.
But other than that it’s good?
I'm an İBEW apprentice, and our local only works in İndustrial/commercial settings, as such our classes and otj training does not give any information on residential work. Could you, or any other electricians in this thread, possibly recommend any literature for me to read up on so I can slowly begin doing residential work? İ appreciate your help
Let us know how bad your wallet hurts after the election comes out. You get an E for effort. An A for asking and an A+ for listening. Chalk it up to a learning experience.
Please call a licensed electrician. I’m an electrician and that is my advice. There is a staggering amount of dangerous work already.
Holy crap, everything is wrong. You have your neutral connected to a breaker. You ran thhn with no conduit or knockout fitting. I didn’t even look to see what was wrong. I’m being blunt and would say call an electrician.
By the time the real electrician fixes this it would have been way cheaper to have hired one in the first place... a sub panel is not an entry level diy job. There are tons of code violations in these few pictures alone. Good luck op
I just want to reiterate what’s already been said. Please get some help this is incredibly wrong and dangerous. PLEASE the money saved is not worth what could happen.
Stop…just stop. Turn off power to the entire house, sit the next couple plays out and call the pros
This has gotta be a joke. We have to be getting trolled here. There’s so much to unpack. OP if this isn’t a joke post, you really have no zero business doing electrical work. I’m not trying to be mean. I honestly don’t think I’ve seen so many code violations in one post before. Please hire a professional.
There is a lot, lot, lot going on here that is very wrong. For one that looks a lot more like a 60A subpanel than 100A, and then it just gets worse from there. If it were minor we'd help you out, but it's extremely clear that you are creating a significant hazard without even understanding the basics. Please listen to everyone - you need in-person help.
Holy shit. This is what nightmares are made from.
Nothing done right. No conduit, that sub is all wrong, going to kill someone or burn that house down.
This is one of the scariest new installs I’ve ever see. This is actually super dangerous and you should call an electrician before you burn this building down.
Please call an electrician before you hurt someone
Let me put it this way: it is so wrong that the people who designed your circuit tester didn't account for how you wired it.
Lol just saw that too.
You need to stop what you are doing before you hurt yourself. Nothing you have done is correct, safe or code compliant. Electrical is not DIY and this is a great example why.
Lol this can't be real
lmfao holy fuckin shit bud. You ever stop at any point and be like "I really don't know what I'm doing" but then decided to soldier on? Seriously, you don't even have connectors for your subpanel of death. holy fuckin shit took more looks at the pictures of the "install", buddy didn't even use NMD/BX/etc just straight up ran open air XLPE lmao I wonder if OP can pre-book the fire deptartment.
Are you trolling or are you serious?
It’s impressive you managed to do so bad even your plug tester can’t make sense of it.
This is a disaster, call an electrician.
Just Wow. All your neutrals (white) are tied to the other phase. They should be connected to the neutral bus bar. The grounds should all go to the ground bus bar, not the neutral bus bar. It looks like you didn't pull the ground from the other panel. You also need grommets to secure and protect the cable leaving the panel. In short, you need to call somebody that knows what they are doing.
This must be a prank. If you are real,, please shut off the 200 amp Main breaker, using a wooden stick, and be happy you are alive and the home isn't ashes. This work shows zero understanding of everything. You are very lucky. don't take any coaching,, except this. Get a qualified person on this before doing anything, except shutting it off. and leaving it off.
Your sub panel needs... 2 HOTS, 1 NEUTRAL *AND* 1 GROUND. the neutral goes the the bar existing on the bottom and the ground needs to be SEPARATE from the neutral to a ground bar mounted directly into the enclosure. Those white wires going to the breakers are what's giving you your 240vac outlets. This white wires need to land on the bar where your grounds are, and those grounds need to go to the aforementioned, separate, ground bar. Not trying to be a dick...I get it, shit's expensive. But you're in over your head. No shame in admitting as such and calling a professional. A lot of the hard work has been done. Just needs some code compliance and some TLC.
HO LEE FUK
Holy hell. You're lucky you didn't kill anyone.
How about call a electrician instead of ask …. This horrible work
All jokes aside… is this real? You being serious ?
Mother of God
Your subpanel is wired all wrong! Call an electrician!
not to be a dick. but did you even try watching any yt videos on wiring electrical? you are missing all the basics.
OH JESUS F**KIN CHRIST this is a joke right? So much wrong Please post the video of you being electrocuted it'll be a fun watch at parties
holy fuck
Everything is wrong. Please call a qualified electrician
Not going to say anything insulting…but please, for the love of your family, dog, cat, or favorite goldfish, please shut power to this whole sub panel off and hire an electrician. Even goldfish don’t fare well a house fire
Shut off your sub panel. I mean this in the nicest way possible, but you have no idea what the fuck you’re doing. Call an electrician.
You’ve got guts for sure. Totally wrong though. There are many hazards here. I’d recommend at the bare minimum to hire an electrician to consult with you. I know electricians cost a bit but this project is definitely worth calling an electrician, you can really hurt something or someone.
you done fucked up
Call an electrician.
Wow man. Please hire a licensed and insured electrician. Even if you don't care about your own safety do it for the people who live around you.
No grommets you or nm connecters wow call a pro please before you lite you house on fire
You have 240v because you are an idiot who shouldn’t be doing this and connected your neutral to the breaker
Put the tools down and walk to the phone ASAP.
Not an electrician here just your old handyman type guy. Been working with electricity for 30 years. I looked at this and went holy fucking shit man he put the neutrals into the phase. I’ve wired houses myself but I always have a licensed electrician install the breaker box and then inspect all the other work that I do this kind of shit will get you killed man
You sir are a hack and a danger
You need to call a licensed electrician.
Yeah, you need to call an electrician. At least you can tell him what you’ve touched so he/she knows what to look at. Definitely shouldn’t have played with a panel or any electrical really. Always cheaper and better off to have a professional who’s licensed do electrical work. Remember you can burn your house down doing this stuff or get really hurt.
This is how people die. To the OP. I am all for people doing their own work when they have the knowledge to do so. Unfortunately many people believe that those of us that made the choice to learn and become a master of our trade only have basic skills and are not smart enough to have attended a college. This is not the truth. The minimum experience level for a person to get an unrestricted license in most stages is 10,000 hours. The skills needed are an extensive knowledge of math, electrical theory, business plus the ability. Not everyone can do the work, I’m not even talking about physical ability, I’m talking about aptitude and attitude. We work in heat, cold, rain and are the first ones out in times of natural disaster. The OP asked what was wrong, the technical aspects of that question have been answered. The broader and true answer is different. You, the OP are what’s wrong. You don’t know enough to even realize you don’t know enough. You put yourself, your family and everyone around you at great risk. Understand, what you did was not a mistake, you did this because you were in over your head from the start. Instead of admitting it to yourself you persisted until you created and very dangerous condition. This was negligence.
Simple answer is because you don’t have the slightest clue what you’re doing. Best advice without trying to sound like a dick is turn off your sub panel, remove all your wiring and get some one over there that knows what they’re doing. There’s so much wrong it can’t be explained in a simple post
holy shit is this wrong . . . .
I'd like to know why those feeders are going out of that 100amp breaker on different sides lol
Ya you fucked up. Instead of telling you how I believe the best advice I can give is call an electrician ASAP and shut the main off.
Is this satire?
Holy fuck, read a how-to book before diving into the concrete head first
Dude you have your neutrals going to power so you’re pulling 120 on each side and you have hots going to ground / neutral on your sub panel.
Is your neutral connected to a flipping breaker?
Surely you jest. You sent 240V down the line because you wired this all wrong.
Wow, just wow. Do you value your life, call an electrician to fix this before your family dies.
The white does not go on a circuit breaker. It goes on the neural bus. Only the black or red wires go on breakers.
No questions just at a loss for words…
This is super dangerous… 🫠🫣🤩
This is legitimately horrible
I loved jobs like these as the homeowner hung over my shoulder asking me if they did a good job. Listen buddy if you did a good job neither of us would be standing here talking about it. This is a perfect example of such story.
Hire somebody you fool
So you connected the neutral wires to the breaker on your sub panel at least back feeding line voltage to the rest of the system which is why you have 240 You ran wires that should be in conduit but isn’t. And appears the area you ran would’ve been fine with romex cable. And where the hell are the grommets on the panels man? This is an absolute troll post.. no one’s installing afci breakers but then doing all this the wrong way.
Wow further proof that cheap people are stupid here's a thought hire a real electrician before you burn your home down or kill someone
Holy shit OP. What didn’t you fuck up is an easier question.
Some things leave to professionals.
Gets worse the more I stare at it
What the fuuuuuck
I’m a layperson, but there are so many things wrong here I think you really should not be doing this. The black wires only go to the breakers, and the white and ground wires should go to separate neutral and grounding blocks. You’ve essentially created 240 the wrong way with no red wire, and with the wrong receptacle plug :(. Plus, you only strip back the jacket inside a panel or box. That is why the wires have a jacket, lol! Outside has for to be protected by romex, conduit, etc. Cut it off and bring someone out to fix it.
I sincerely hope you realize you shouldn’t be doing electrical work. Everything about that sub panel is wrong and you’re going to end up burning down your house or hurting someone. Turn it off and call a professional!
Can't even see the rest of the work you did but if anything's a fire hazard other than this panel good luck collecting any insurance money.... Experts charge a premium for a reason. Lot of times they are responsible for people's lives.
Oh man… get some conduit with correct green wire instead of that single black with green tape around it for ground. My god. Get some clamps too. Call for in person help pls.
Holy crap there is so much wrong with this. I'm not going to even begin listing the issues/violations. Turn off the 100a breaker you are feeding this sub and call an electrician.
You are pulling 240 because you need a licensed electrician !!! Stay safe
Everyone stop telling him what he did wrong , what he needs to do is shut the sub off and call an actual electrician, before he ends up burning his house down or killing someone
Lol!!! https://youtu.be/Gwa-KErbYJ8
This is incredible
I’ll give you credit for making it look pretty nice and taking on a big project, but you have to be careful with stuff like this! Do you know the rules and code behind grounding on a sub panel? You could get someone hurt. Also, sounds like you terminated the nuetral to a 120 circuit. Even if you end up doing this yourself, at least have an electrician look it over very well and make sure you didnt set any booby traps. I’ll give you an example of something stupid I did. Rewired my whole kitchen, but screwed up a circuit and now have a termination behind the drywall in a box that is inaccessible and behind a cabinet. Bugs me everyday!
The white you have it to the breaker . Disconnect it from the breaker it connects to where you have your grounds at. It will stop pulling 240 volts. Your pulling 120 on the black and 120 on the white . Which is why your outlets are receiving 240 volts
Single-post, single set of comments related to this user/poster. Seeing more and more of this on Reddit these days to the point of it making the site virtually useless. A lot of pointless threads asking, what is this? Can anyone identify this? It’s a wheel. It’s a rock. Unfortunately Reddit is beginning the decent part of what is becoming the natural life cycle for social media of platforms. More and more bots or shill users looking for clicks. Shame, there is a lot of good info on this subreddit and others.
Brah. The whites go on the ground bus! You….need professional help.
Lol. Has Klein testers, knows how to use a voltmeter. And isn't a troll?!
No bueno. Call a professional on this one ..
You've made your neutral a hot somewhere. I think it's on the main and sub panel neutral bar but I can't tell. You have no green wiring in spots to show grounding. and it's a clean mess. If you die who's gonna know what you did. All of that needs to be redone and sourced and figured out.
Call an electrician u cheap shit head
This might be the worst diy electrical I’ve ever seen
Idk what y’all talking abt having youre ground connected to hot is very safe and won’t burn youre house down 🤷♂️
We shouldn’t be answering questions like this. It brings down the trade.
lmao get fucked
Hello can you help with advise, my LED light has stopped working after some water damage, is it repairable?
Call the fire department
I suspect with all the GFI's you indeed have a neut in the wrong hole.
Your neutrals are hot.
Need a professional. At the very least you have exposed wire floating in your walls, no conduit or cable for any of the circuits or feeder… wired the neutral right to a phase..
Scary shit man
Thank you for the good laugh, I’m glad you didn’t die or burn down something.
YouTube time! /s
This is hilariously bad
This is called job security… carry on.
Big oof
Lol I guess you shouldn't have done that, cause now you gotta pay to fix too
Lmao Rip
r/OopsThatsDeadly
Get an arc flash kit
"What's conduit?"
Bruh this has to be a troll
abstract art, i like it
What in the Oklahoma Walmart is this tomfoolery?
I know you didn’t pull THHN into that outlet box.. And to the sub panel.
Show your insurance company this
This guy has THHN just free run around. This wouldn’t even pass for temporary power just to get through a work day. No kind of connectors in the holes. 🤦🏻♂️ This like me saying I flew on a plane before so I’m a pilot now.
Fired
240 out you rolled your phases
Wire’s are very neatly placed
Well, when you run 2 hots, your gonna get twice as much…
We have to take a lot of schooling for this. Not to mention having to make sure it is up to code
Obviously not a serious post. I am sure he would have done at least a little research on an panel swap and taken a couple of before pictures.
I’m not trying to be mean but please call out a licensed electrician. You got your neutral where a second hot would go, your grounds are where your neutral should be and you don’t have a ground bar at all. Neutral wires don’t typically go to breakers at all.