Sunday, January 17, 2016

Garage Electrical and Lighting

I saw a deal on an LED strip and decided to add some additional light to our garage, so we could see into our trunks better.


If I were to do this again, I'd probably snap a chalk line as a guide - the LED strip kinda undulates as it is.

I had to add an outlet for this light (and re-purposed a Zwave plug) to power the LED strip. In the process, I definitively verified that the seller was lying about having a 240 volt circuit in the garage - the little sub-panel he installed in the garage is single-phase only, and the supply wiring is only rated for 15 amps! Fortunately, the washer and dryer back up against the garage, and since we switched over to a natural gas dryer, there is an unused 240 volt circuit nearby - the dream of having a high-capacity electric car charger is still alive!

The outlets in the garage all tested as having the hots and neutrals swapped, so I replaced the outlets with tamper-resistant outlets and fixed the hot/neutral issue. When I had everything buttoned up, I tested again and discovered the entire garage isn't grounded properly! Ugh. I'll have to fix that when I have more time.


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