how to do home electrical repairs - weatherproof box for outdoor power connections

The plumbing and electrical system in your home may look as different as any two things.
But there are also significant similarities.
Water enters your home under pressure through a pipe, and when you turn on the tap, the water flows at a certain speed (
Gallons per minute).
Also under pressure, electricity enters your home via a wire (
Called voltage, in volts).
When you turn on an electrical device, the current flows at a certain speed (
Current measured in amps or amps).
Unlike water from the faucet, electricity is used to work: it converts success rates from energy, in Watts.
Because the household electricity consumption is relatively high, the most commonly used unit of measurement is kilowatts, equal to 1,000 watts.
The total amount of electricity you use at any time is in kilowatts. hours (kwh).
The instrument that records how much electricity you use is called a meter.
This meter tells the power company how much electricity they need to charge you.
There are two kinds of electricity meters commonly used.
A type displays a row of small dials on its surface with a single indicator.
Register kW per meter dial-
Electricity for a few hours
For example, if you leave a 100-
The electric bulb will burn for 10 hours and the meter will register 1 KW-hour (
10x100 = 1,000 W-Hours, or 1 KW hours).
Register a certain number of kilowatts per dial-
Electricity for a few hours
On most electrical surfaces, from right to left, the far right is to calculate the kilowatts of a single kilowatts
From 1 hour to 10 hours;
The next is 10 to 100 degrees of electricity-hours;
The third dial can reach up to 1,000;
The fourth figure is as high as 10,000;
The leftmost dial is thousands of watts-
Up to 100,000 hours.
If the arrow on the dial is located between two numbers, the lower number should always be read.
The second type of meter has the same function, however, it does not have a separate dial, but instead has numbers in the slot on the surface of the meter, just like the odometer on the car.
The meter is read from left to right and the number indicates total electricity consumption.
Some meters also use multiplying factors--
For example, for the real number of kWh, the number that appears must be multiplied by tenhours.
Once you know how to read the meter, you can verify the cost on the electricity bill and become a better power consumption watchdog at home.
Three main lines (
There may be two old houses)
Responsible for supply 110120/220-240 volts AC (
AC current)to your home.
Depending on several external factors, the exact voltage will vary. This three-
The wire system offers you 110-120-
For lighting, sockets and small appliances and 220-240-
Air conditioning, electric range, clothes dryer, water heater and voltage of electric heating in some homes.
Power enters your home through the service equipment of the power company, which is only a disconnected device installed in the approved housing.
It is used to disconnect the service from the internal wiring system.
Usually referred to as the main fuse, the main circuit breaker, the main disconnect, or usually just the "main", this disconnect may be a set of pulls
Fuse, circuit breaker or large switch.
Although the main disconnects can be installed in an outdoor rain-proof box, they are almost always in a large enclosure in the house, which also contains fuses or circuit breakers, it handles the distribution of electricity throughout the building.
This is called the main entrance panel, the main box, or the entrance box.
Three wires on the meter enter the box. Two of them --
Strongly insulated black and red lines-
The top of a pair of parallel exposed heavy duty copper rods connected to the center of the box is called a bus.
These two lines are "charged" or "hot" wires.
The third wire that is usually bare is "neutral ".
"It's connected to a separate ground strip or bus, it's a silver
Color bars in the main box.
In most households, this ground bus is actually connected to the ground. -the earth --
Made of heavy solid copper wire sandwiched in cold water pipes or underground bars or boards.