Gas Dryer Electrical Outlet

Ya know when your g/f or wife says, 'Don't you DARE talk down to me?'... well, I AIN'T your g/f or wife but what i IS is so DYI challenged that anything but the most basic explanation will cause my brain to short circuit.



To prove how DYI-tarded I am, I bought a used staking washer/dryer because it was what I could afford.. but now I can't plug it in. The plug is a large crows-foot deal but my outlets are standard USA deals.



I know it can't be as simple as changing the cord to a standard 3-prong.





KENMORE STACKING WASHER/DRYER  MODEL NO:  417.90802992

WASHER 120/240V

DRYER   240V

APPROX 4 YEARS OLD

EXCELLENT CONDITION



... the part number on the plug is E11808



Any suggestions (unless i starts with 'shove it up your') are appreciated.



Thank you - Mick
      

How high does a dryer outlet have to b from the ground?
      

I'm new to this site.  But would appreciate some troubleshooting.  I just renovated my kitchen, gutted and all, finished in the Fall.  I did not replace wiring to the dryer, nor tamper with it, to my knowledge.  We did have an electrician add a small fuse panel.  We did not add more appliances then before, added some lights, but mostly used the room to separate things out.  Had a mentor do the wiring, many years of experience, very tidy and careful work, though not electrician by trade.  We have a standard 200 amp box as far as i know.  The house is 100 years old, but the wiring isn't.



In October my mother in law heard a very loud bang.  The electric dryer had been running.  She smelled smoke.  At the dryer receptacle was molten plastic sprayed onto the wall, caused by overheating at that point, due to I don't know what.  I thought maybe I had knocked something loose in the receptacle when i was drywalling around it.  I can't remember now if the breaker had tripped.  The receptacle and plug were toast. 



I replaced the receptacle, I replaced the dryer cord, not the breaker.   The dryer worked fine until february, when it stopped heating.  I found a bad thermal fuse and replaced it, the very common two pronged white one. 



The dryer worked fine until early April when it stopped heating again.  I checked all the fuses/thermostats on the back and the heating element, as I had done the first time.  Nothing was bad.  I checked the voltage coming out of the wall, as I had done the first time, only this time I did it correctly and got a reading that told me to check the breaker in the panel, which had not thrown.  When I checked the voltage between the Nuetral Bus and the two terminals on the Dryer's 30 amp breaker I only got a good reading on one of them, telling me that the breaker was bad.  While at the box, i noticed that to the main breaker, from where the conduit comes into the box from outside, the nuetral wires are bare all the way up, no insulation, and at the terminal of the main breaker they appear to have all melted together, even a couple small pieces have melted off of the "bundle." 



Switched the range 50 amp breaker with the dryer, dryer worked fine, nothing was back fed either.  Bought a new 30 amp breaker for the dryer and installed it on Saturday.  Also on Saturday we were given a dryer, about 4 years old, same as ours, so i hooked it up and saved ours for a spare, which I deemed still good since it seemed the breaker was the issue.  New Dryer worked fine from saturday until today.  Now it won't turn on, though it didn't cut out mid load yesterday either.  The breaker did not trip.  I repeat, no tripped breaker.  I just checked the voltage at the wall and it seems to have that same problem where one side of the receptacle gets a reading of 120, and the other a reading of about 5.  The problem must be bigger than the breaker.  I am not an electrician, I am a welder.  I have gone as far as I could on my own.  Thank you.
      

We are just beginning to start with our kitchen remodel. Today, I mapped out all the circuits and this is what I found.



Circuit # 7 - 20 amp circuit to 1 back splash outlet then to 3 kitchen wall outlets, then to a closet outlet and closet ceiling light and then to a side  porch light!



Circuit # 8 - 20 amp to Dishwasher and Disposal



Circuit # 9 - 20 amp circuit to microwave and kitchen ceiling lights. 2 patio recessed lights and dining room ceiling light.



Circuit # 12 - 20 amp circuit to another back splash outlet then to 2 dining room wall outlets.



Circuit # 14 - 20 amp to Refrigerator only



Circuit # 18 - 15 amp to GFCI outlet in garage then that feeds 3 outlets for 3 bathroom outlets and 1 outside patio outlet.



I going to have to add 1 more back splash outlet due to increase in counter space. I'll put the microwave on a dedicated circuit. So I need 2 additional breakers but I only have 1 blank spot in the breaker panel. I guess I can add one of those slim tandem breakers.



So my question, is it ok to have additional wall outlets on the same circuit as a back splash outlet?  If it's ok I'll lighten up circuit # 7 by putting some of those wall outlets on the additional back splash outlet.

Oh, I have 2 20 amp circuits I did not get identified yet! I'll get to those tomorrow.



thanks!
      

OK, I'm an electrical dummy ...



I have finished basement w/a bathroom. We have an ejector pump off the bathroom that has been plugged into an outlet w/gfi since I've owned the house (10 years). There is also a booster fan for my electric dryer plugged into the outlet (has been the same for 10 years).  The only thing that has ever tripped up that outlet is using a hair buzzer in another outlet within the bathroom (but once you hit the reset its fine).

   

  This morning I realize the ejector pump was not sucking down the water from the drains. I looked at the outlet and realized it needed to be reset. When I reset it, the pump would run for a few seconds and the outlet would trip up again. Tried this a few times. Thought maybe it was an issue w/the outlet altogether. Neighbor suggested maybe it was an issue with the pump. Went thru various scenarios and bottom line is when I plug the pump into other outlets it works totally fine and once I do that and reset the outlet it was on, the booster fan works fine and the outlet does not trip. So, basically this outlet is tripping when the pump is on it but the pump is not tripping other outlets and the outlet works fine as long as the pump is not on it.

   

  What could be causing this? Why would an outlet that housed the two things on it all of a sudden continue to trip when the pump is on it but the pump is fine on its own in another outlet and the outlet is fine on its own w/o the pump?
      

I have a 220v Microwave, and a 220v dryer, that came with a four prong plug cords attached (they were used in newer homes).



The current outlets are three prong outlets and there is absolutely no way to run new wiring.





Just need to change the cords on the microwave and dryer to the old style three prong ones?









Opinions?
      

Hi, I have a problem where if I turn off my light switch on one side of the  room, it turns off anything plugged into the electrical outlet on the  other side of the room. For some reason, they originally wired that  outlet on the same circuit as the light switch. I would like to wire the  outlet so that it does not switch off whenever you switch off the light  on the opposite wall.



How do I go about doing that? Thanks.



(p.s. There are just the basic three wires in the electrical outlet; black/white/bare copper ground).
      

I completed my whole house rewire last Fall (took 2 years and severely tested my wife's patience). I read 5 wiring books in the early stages but read Rex Cauldwell's Wiring a House with his above code suggestions near the end of the project and now im obsessing about some of the stuff I didnt do. What do you guys think of some of the suggestions, specifically,



1. Driving 8 ground rods and the wire must be continuous (I drove 4 but the #6 copper wire from the panel to rod 1 is 1 wire and the #6 wire from rod 1 through rod 4 is another wire but both are properly clampled to rod 1 with an acord clamp). Funny, even with 4 rods there is almost no current through the rods versus 2-3 amps through the traditional cold water pipe ground



2. 1 circuit for each duplex receptacle in bathrooms. Since I have a quad in each of the batchrooms, that would be 4 circuits instead of 1 (code allows an unlimited number of bathroom receptacles on one circuit which does seem odd)



3. Nothing shared with kitchen counter receptacles (ie kitchen wall and dining room on their own)



4. Dedicated circuits for everything - I added dedicted circuit for fridge, microwave and dishwasher/disposer, but did not separate the dishwasher disposer onto 2 circuits. There used to be what I called "Circuit X" which did kitchen counter, microwave, dishwasher, disposer, fridge, 2 kitchen counter outlets, dining room and 1 outside outlet. Wife frequently blew that one. Circuit X was divided into at least 5 circuits during the rewire



5. No switch loops - did 5 of these to save on carpentry/avoid certain box fill problems. Now 2011 code says no switch loops without a neutral. Oops?



Just wondering what you guys think.
      

I only have one outlet in my living room and I need another one for sure. What are some ways I can do this?  There is not another outlet on the other side of the wall, we had a electrician come add a light with switch and he said something about closing off a line behind the switch box.  Is it possible to re-open that line? We also have a attic which I was told at homedepot is easy to do if you have another outlet in the next room you don't use. Any help is greatly appreciated!!
      

I live in a 5 unit single story condo in Florida. I want to run 100ft of 12 /2 cable in a coomon low attic. This is a flat roof with roughly 3 ft high roof truss support. This will end as outlet for a golf cart.



Almost impossible to drag this wire along, How can i get this 100ft to the outlet? Yes it will cross over the other 4 units.



Thanks