i have a bit of an issue. I live in a 2 story house and I'd like to run 2 ethernet cables down to the first floor from my room. The issue is that when I drilled the hole, i drilled it diagonally through the joist and it eventually punctured my family room wall. Would it be alright to drill a hole in the joist from the bottom hole that would eventually meet the puncture hole halfway and create an opening for the cables?  Or would that destroy the structural integrity of the joist?  The drawing depicts a side view of the joist and drywall. The red is the wood joist. The purple is the diagonal puncture I foolishly made. And the blue is the hole I'm thinking about making. But I need advice on if it's the best option. I don't want my room crumbling..
122432
I just bought a new house and I'm looking to run some cables. One of the areas I would like to run it to would require drilling through a 2x10 sistered joist. Realizing that going through the joist should be a last resort, if the hole is 1/4" and in the middle of one of the joists will this weaken the integrity?  I have seen lots of articles about drilling through the depth of a joist, but very few regarding drilling vertically.
91505
I'm thinking of installing laminate flooring and have a question: If I'm installing laminate throughout the house, should ALL of it be going in the same direction?   Say for example, let's say I have a hallway that is perpendicular to a large living room.    --------------- |             | |             | |             | |             |-------------------- | | |             |--------------------  |             | |             | ---------------   In the layout above, would all of the laminate be installed "left to right" for both the living room and hallway? Or could it be installed in one direction for one room and installed in a different direction for the other room?
14127
The outlet for my range hood was misplaced. It needs to be 4 inches to the side. I can make the junction and move the wiring to the new location but I really don't want to have the empty plate exposed.   The wire is not long enough to reach the required location, so I will make a junction in the existing box, and add a new box at the correct location.  Is there any acceptable circumstance where I could tile over the "old" in-wall junction box?  I'm guessing not, but I figured I'd ask.  EDIT: I should clarify, based on the answers below... I know for a fact that this outlet is the only line on this entire circuit, all the way back to the panel. I am asking explicitly if there is any way to acceptably splice the wiring without exposing a junction box.
7659
My house has electric outlets in both orientations.  Which one is correct?  Should the ground hole be at the bottom or the top?    OR
80804
I am planning to build a new Computer table and a book shelf by myself. I will require a drill machine that can drill a hole into wood and that can also drive a screw into this hole (using the drill, not manually). Would I require an Impact drill / Hammer drill / any other type of drill machine?  I would also occasionally use it for drilling into brick (not concrete). I have created a filter based on budget and Brand in the shop where I would be buying. A suggestion of the product here would be even more helpful:
19227
I'm wondering how to approach duct work, piping, and wiring? In the past, I have used the spin tool to make corners, but I find it very cumbersome. How do you do duct work and piping? I have seen people use curves, but I find it's hard to get straight 90 degree angles or just uniform angling across the whole model. It's also hard connecting piping together if they started from different locations. Here's some reference:
89261
My primary router has trouble extending wifi coverage to some bedrooms in the house so I am planning to add a second router to extend the wifi network using the wired Ethernet ports in one of the areas of poor coverage. Basic layout -   The ISP's router is in my family room downstairs (fiber connection) and the internet connects to the fiber via a box in an upstairs closet.   I purchased and installed an unmanaged Ethernet switch/splitter. In the upstairs closet where all of the Ethernet wires meet, the family room Ethernet cable was plugged into the ISP's box. I disconnected this wire and replaced it with a CAT5 cable running from the ISP's box in the closet to the Ethernet switch's port 1.  I think connected the family room Ethernet cable to port 2 and did the same in order for all the remaining Ethernet cables to various bedrooms.   So far, the switch is working fine.  I have wifi working with internet coming off of the router in the living room so I believe the switch is installed correctly otherwise that wifi should not have internet coming off of the living room jack.   Here is where things go awry - I took my second wifi router and connected the WAN/Yellow port to the Ethernet wall jack in another bedroom.  I then connected a lap top to one of the Ethernet ports on this router and found "no internet" after connecting.  On a whim, I changed the connection so that the router was connected to the Ethernet wall jack in one of the white ports but with the same results.   I don't think this counts as cascading and I don't really need a new network since I do not share the connection with any non-family members.  The router has been reset to factory settings to clear out any old instructions - but I still can't get it to connect to the internet or access the router to change the settings even - it's a netgear and the routerlogin.net will not let me access the router even when I am on the working WIFI for internet and have a cable running from the laptop to the netgear router.   I could use some help - just trying to extend the wifi range and it seems like it should be much less complicated. Tried following instructions in several other posts and they did not work for me - because I cannot access the router to change any settings.
86994
I know it's not NEC and far from the right thing to do.  I need 30 amps at the garage.  I already have two unused 12/2 cables (w/ground) running to the garage. I was thinking to use one 12/2 cable, combine the black and white from one, put it on one phase and use another 12/2 wire, combine the black and white from that one, and put it on the other phase. The grounds of both would be tied to neutral.  In the garage I'd make a breakout box and attach each 12/2 to a wire of a 6/3. Each 12/2 would be a hot, 120VAC of a leg of the 2 double circuit breaker.   I'd be pulling about 30 amps for an electric car charger.  Please give me all the reasons why NOT to do this, and that it's a bad idea.  12/2 - Black &amp; White - Phase 1, 120VAC   > Black wire on 6/3  12/2 - Black &amp; White - Phase 2, 120VAC   > Red wire on 6/3 Ground > White on 6/3  Grounds of each would be tied to neutral/ground.
25017
My new home is almost done being built, and one of the extras I asked for was for two of the rooms to have junction boxes in the ceiling suitable for hanging a ceiling fan in the future.  The light fixtures haven't been installed yet so I can see inside the junction boxes but can't really distinguish between the braced boxes and the regular boxes.  The attic is extremely limited access so I want to avoid crawling around up there to look for a brace.  Is there a quick or easy way to distinguish between a junction box that is able to carry the weight of a ceiling fan safely versus one that is not?  I could just take their word for it but they haven't had a very reliable track record so far when it comes to following through with my requests even when they tell me they will do it.
50505
I am looking at replacing a couple of old, porcelain style single bulb fixtures in my basement with some 4 lamp fluorescent fixtures.  I am actually running new wire to the fluorescent fixtures from a 100amp sub panel in the basement, and not reusing then existing wiring that goes to the current light.  As I was taking the porcelain fixture down I discovered that there is 14 gauge wire going to it - ok.  There are 3 such fixtures in the basement.  There are also other things on this same breaker upstairs in the main living part of the house - 3 or 4 outlets that are on 12 gauge wire.  The breaker is a 20 amp breaker for all of these.  Is this ok to mix 14 &amp; gauge wire like this?  If not, why did they do it?
67587
Lots of home projects involve cutting or drilling through walls (everything from nails, screws, or hooks to mount things to cutting through drywall and drilling through studs to run wire).  In general, how do you know what's safe to break through and what isn't? In other words, when can you just start drilling through a wall and when do you need to be worried about hitting electrical lines, plumbing, etc.
106279
My wife and I are preparing to sell our home and are discovering some weird things. Our home was built in 1958, so it is older. We found this in a corner that had some furniture in front of it.   We are wondering    What kind of wiring is this?  Is it safe to handle or remove?
64324
I have an older home where some of the house has updated electrical and some doesn't.  In a few rooms I still have several of the 2 prong outlets with no ground wire in the box and I want to replace them with 3 prong tamper proof outlets with proper grounding.  If I had an easy way to run a new line from the panel I would not be wasting your time, but I live in a split level home and several of these rooms have their lines fed from below, in-between floors, so I don't have any way to run a new line easily.   I know I can add GFCI outlets for some human protection but I want to do better.   I need to know if it is safe and/or legal to run a ground wire from a junction box in my attic (there are several) down the wall to use as ground when I replace the 2 prong with a 3 prong.  The junction box likely leads back to a different circuit but it is all originating from the same panel (I only have 1)
117976
How far from the end of a 2x12 or 2x10 floor joist can I drill a hole?  NEC 502.8 does not give this answer, only that you have to be 2" above or below the edges, not in what part of the span it has to be in.
89111
I'm trying to come up with a WiFi solution for an industrial building, 100 ft long by 50 ft wide, with 3 main areas. See image below  Concrete walls separate the rooms, and the one long room is a semi-corrosive wash-down area. Staff use mobile devices that require a strong, uninterrupted WiFi connection, and they are often moving throughout the building while using the devices. I don't want repeaters or extenders or any other mechanism that would result in multiple SSID or channel connections for a tablet to contend with (dropouts for reconnection, or failure to switch to a stronger signal, etc). I just want to use one access point, but just with better coverage. Instead of trying to buy the most powerful access point on the planet, using brute force to blast through those walls, I was thinking of using extension antennas. So I'd take a consumer-grade access point with 3 standard antennas, remove 2 of them and replace with coax extension cable (green in the image) and keep 1 original antenna (blue). Especially for the wash-down room, I was envisioning drilling a hole in the concrete wall and slipping the antenna cable through, so in the end, only an antenna would be exposed to the corrosive environment, and still provide good signal strength to staff in that room. My ultimate question is: will this work? Is there something I'm not aware of, like perhaps that access points with multiple antennas aren't designed to work with their antennas separated by 10-20 ft? Thanks
14489
My father manually screwed in two self-tapping screws into drywall that most likely contains asbestos in the compound. It was in a garage in a house built in 1976. It was actually those hooks that you screw into the wall to hang stuff off of. He did not use any power drill. Is the risk of asbestos exposure low? I understand the drywall usually doesn't contain asbestos but the compound usually did. No idea where he screwed it in.
120246
Ripping up 3/4" particle board underlayment over 1/2" plywood subfloor. Running with the joists the floor is flat and level. But running perpendicular to the joists I have high spots every six to seven feet creating a sway of 2 to 3 eighths at its lowest point.   My question is, to level or more importantly flatten the floor, can I lay shingles and 30lb felt the length of the low spots, then screw down 3/4" ply on top in prep for vinyl plank flooring?