Working With Home Electricity

[EzyStvy]

Working With Home Electricity how I hate the – Let me count the ways….

I need to replace my attic fan and thermostat with basically an identical combo without killing myself or burning the house down. I’ve replaced many light switches/wall plugs over the years….But, over the years I’ve melted a few screw drivers and blown a few fusses. Even if I knew which breaker to turn off, it really isn’t an option since I would lose the lights in the attic and not be able to see to work.

The thermostat is pre-wired to the fan.
The thermostat has a Black and a White wire with bare ends coming out of it.
These wires connect to a “standard” wall mounted on/off light switch that has two terminals.

The Black wire from the thermostat connects directly to the top terminal on the switch.

The Plastic-Sheathed Cable coming from the breaker box has three wires. One connects to the other terminal on the switch. (I don’t have to unscrew this wire) The other two wires connect to the White wire on the thermostat.

In theory, this change out should be a piece of cake. On the other hand, I’m nervous/chicken about proceeding.

Any words of wisdom?
Would wearing latex gloves like you use for dishwashing help keep me from electrocuting myself?

Thanks in advance.

[HAL9000]

Yes, turn off the breaker and use either a flashlight or a portable trouble light to plug into a different circuit... or if you're that nervous about it, bite the bullet on expense and pay somebody to do it.

[EzyStvy]

Yep....Have experienced friend coming over in the morning.

Buddy on another site suggested cutting the plug off a home am/fm radio...Hooking it up to the switch in the attic...Theory being that I could then tell which breaker to trun off....I FRIED the radio

Note to self-> STEVE - don't quit your day job

[rjfvillarosa]

I am not an electrician Stvy, but I do have a lot of experience with house and commercial premises wiring from my years in the building/renovation business.
As a rule of thumb and as you can never be sure what someone has done before you, it is far safer to turn it all off in the situation you are in there, because you will be working by torchlight anyway.
I have seen many times where a circuit is partially live after knocking off the breaker simply because a piece of equipment is in some way connected to two different circuits. A commercial refidgerator is a typical example when the compressor is on one circuit and the lighting on another.
What about the hall, stairs and landing lights? you know you can switch the upstairs landing light on and off from down stairs and vice versa with the down stairs hall light, but which lighting circuit are they connected to? the upstairs lighting circuit or the downstairs lighting circuit?
The best thing to do is knock it all off, install the new fan and thermostat but only connect one wire, turn it all back on and listen for the bang. If there is no bang switch it all off again and connect the other wire. If it goes bang when you switch it back on at least you will be able to tell the doctor which colour wire blew you up!!!!.........

[edfair]

You might try cutting everything off long enough to cut the wire to the therm/fan and tape up the line side while you are doing the therm/fan work. Then install a junction box or switch box with some new romex and tie it in to the cut part with everything off once again.

I had the same layout but ended up putting a switch in the attic so I could turn off the fans from there and not affect any thing else.

This is going to require two additional trips up and down the stairs but better for peace of mind.

[EzyStvy]

Well by golly – I took off my wimp hat and put on a brass one and installed the darn thing. (turned off all breakers)

Got jammed up and had to replace the new mounting brackets with the ones off the old fan.

Got really jammed up when I realized I could use another pair of hands to hold the darn thing up so I could put screws through the brackets into the wall….I improvised by propping it up with a pc case box….

Got really freaked out when I flipped all the circuit breakers back on – gosh darn home alarm system that’s plugged in but not being used started screaming….

Only lost five pounds of sweat....and that's doing it before it broke 90º F outside...

Thanks to all that chimed in

[David M]

From a legal perspective and a selling your house sometime in the future perspective, you need a building permit to do this if you are going to run new wire. I'm glad it worked out.

I always pop the master breaker to the entire house before doing electrical work..and yeah, I have done minor electrical work without a permit, but always to code.