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OT: 120th Obsequious Banter Thread: The Fallowing of the Bone Tree

Which would you choose

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Had a faucet cartridge fail, faucet was leaking. Turned off the related valve under the sink. The f***ing valve doesn't fully seal, either. Today the cartridge failed more and a drip became a steady trickle, so I had to replace the thing immediately before work.

Pro plumbing tip: cursing the fat misbegotten soul of the prior installer and then bashing the faucet with a rubber mallet is an important step that fixes any hangups.

Tomorrow an electrician arrives to deal with some shit I have decided is above my pay grade. It's the second time this has happened. It rains outside; then a circuit that includes the basement bathroom, a run of wall outlets, an exterior outlet, and an exterior light goes dead. No breaker, either at the box or the GFCI in the bathroom, is tripped. Day goes by, things presumably dry out...electricity just comes back. The lack of any breaker action involved in an event where it rains and all the power goes elsewhere seems very bad. I could troubleshoot it myself but I think I'll pay the money to have it done right and done immediately.
 
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Beef Invictus said:
Had a faucet cartridge fail, faucet was leaking. Turned off the related valve under the sink. The f***ing valve doesn't fully seal, either. Today the cartridge failed more and a drip became a steady trickle, so I had to replace the thing immediately before work.

Pro plumbing tip: cursing the fat misbegotten soul of the prior installer and then bashing the faucet with a rubber mallet is an important step that fixes any hangups.

Tomorrow an electrician arrives to deal with some shit I have decided is above my pay grade. It's the second time this has happened. It rains outside; then a circuit that includes the basement bathroom, a run of wall outlets, an exterior outlet, and an exterior light goes dead. No breaker, either at the box or the GFCI in the bathroom, is tripped. Day goes by, things presumably dry out...electricity just comes back. The lack of any breaker action involved in an event where it rains and all the power goes elsewhere seems very bad. I could troubleshoot it myself but I think I'll pay the money to have it done right and done immediately.
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I highly recommend doing all your own electrical work to all DIYers. It keeps me in business and culls the population at the same time, thus solving two of the world's biggest challenges simultaneously. I'm all about efficiency.

Seriously though, that is weird. Whoever did some of the wiring on our house put the outdoor (GFCI) outlets on a GFCI breaker. So every winter when our Christmas lights go out after a rain or melty snow, I have the fun of checking both. I would have said maybe there's another GFCI in your circuit somewhere, but it wouldn't come back by itself like that. Definitely going to need some investigating. I highly recommend you do this yourself.
 
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Chicken N Raffls said:
I highly recommend doing all your own electrical work to all DIYers. It keeps me in business and culls the population at the same time, thus solving two of the world's biggest challenges simultaneously. I'm all about efficiency.

Seriously though, that is weird. Whoever did some of the wiring on our house put the outdoor (GFCI) outlets on a GFCI breaker. So every winter when our Christmas lights go out after a rain or melty snow, I have the fun of checking both. I would have said maybe there's another GFCI in your circuit somewhere, but it wouldn't come back by itself like that. Definitely going to need some investigating. I highly recommend you do this yourself.
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lollll

Dude arrives tomorrow. I can handle replacing light fixtures, fans, outlets. Breakers, GFCI? No. I want that done correctly.
 
Beef Invictus said:
lollll

Dude arrives tomorrow. I can handle replacing light fixtures, fans, outlets. Breakers, GFCI? No. I want that done correctly.
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If you can replace an outlet, you can handle a GFCI. It's the same, but with one extra step. And if it's a GFCI swap, it's not really an extra step. You could also handle replacing a breaker if that's all you're doing. Adding a breaker is a different story, because some panels look like a rat's nest when you open them up.
 
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Chicken N Raffls said:
If you can replace an outlet, you can handle a GFCI. It's the same, but with one extra step. And if it's a GFCI swap, it's not really an extra step. You could also handle replacing a breaker if that's all you're doing. Adding a breaker is a different story, because some panels look like a rat's nest when you open them up.
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I once changed my standard bathroom light switch into a combo switch/gfci. If I plugged in a hair dryer, and slid the temperature thing up and down, it operated the bathroom light as if it was a dimmer switch.
I immediately uninstalled that. Electric is foreign magic without any hard rules.
 
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Hollywood Cannon said:
Yes?
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Glitched out...

This is what I was going to tag you in.

Screenshot_20250506-153111.png
 
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Chicken N Raffls said:
If you can replace an outlet, you can handle a GFCI. It's the same, but with one extra step. And if it's a GFCI swap, it's not really an extra step. You could also handle replacing a breaker if that's all you're doing. Adding a breaker is a different story, because some panels look like a rat's nest when you open them up.
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I don't know if this is an older GFCI original to the house or not. They swapped around the connections standards in the last couple decades to deliberately mess with me, and I thwart the conspiracy by not participating. My method of swapping outlets is to match all the old connections in the new unit, and that's not necessarily possible with GFCI depending on age


If I really had to guess there's a loose wire causing this problem. And I think I know what connection it is. The power that had come back is now gone again. This time it didn't rain, so I think moisture is ruled out. And the GFCI outlet functioned and tested normally when power worked this morning. There aren't signs of breaker failure I can spot.

An electrical wizard can mess with this. I'm tapped out.
 
Some GFCI outlets are really fussy. I have a couple in my house that will trip with any blip in power. When I bought the place I replaced every outlet with commercial grade, and put GFCIs where they needed to be. I also redistributed the loads in the breaker panel.

I have one circuit that doesn't have a ground, but that would require me pulling new wire up into the attic....which I'm not going to do. My house was built in 1965. The kitchen circuits are new 12 gauge Romex. The rest of the house has an early version of Romex with cloth sheathing. Most of it has a ground wire, but it's only 18 gauge for 14 gauge hot and neutral. I'm just glad it isn't aluminum. Neutral is kind of a ground wire anyway, since they go to the same place in the panel. A separate ground wire is the fail safe. I'm not concerened with that one circuit without a ground. My Mom's house has some kind of cobbled together knob and tube/Romex deal. That house is 105 years old. Nothing is grounded. It hasn't burned down.

I'm good with mechanical and electrical things. I still suck at carpentry, but I can get it done....eventually.
 
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And I detest backstabbing any outlet. I either wrap around the screw, or use the clamp if it's solid (which most GFCI outlets have).

And nearly every outlet in my house had an ungrounded metal box, which I fixed with jumpers. I don't trust the outlet screws to provide a ground.
 
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Flybynite said:
If it's black, fight back. If it's brown, lay down?
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Every black bear I've ever run across in the woods has run like hell when they saw me. In habituated areas, they're like dogs begging at the kitchen table - but I never treat them as such. Like any person, you never know if they might be having a bad day.

They are tremendously strong and could remove your face with a swat in a heartbeat. They can run like hell too, even though they usually plod along. Don't try to outrun a bear. They are faster than a horse over a short distance.

Grizzly bears, I never spent time out west. I know they aren't as nice as black bears usually tend to be. They say if confronted with an aggressive black bear to yell and make yourself look larger (fan out a coat if wearing one), with Grizzlies, yes, play dead if you are ever in that unfortunate situation. You really aren't going to triumph over either if it comes down to hand to paw combat.
 
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Young Sandwich said:
The Easter weekend bear made a comeback this morning. He's a big boy.


View attachment 1031264
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Trying to judge by the foliage for scale, probably an easy 250-300 already.

Beautiful bear with no tags. Where do you live? Our family has a cabin in the Poconos where they are more of the habituated variety. We'd be outside in the yard at any time of day and then, oh, there's a bear. One started coming up the deck steps once.
 
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And for the uninitiated, GFCI outlets will still work on an ungrounded circuit. If that's the case you should apply the little sticker that usually comes with the GFCI saying it's ungrounded.
 
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