Member
^ What Mike said.
A tool will require a minimum breaker, but it doesn't have a maximum rating, because the breaker rating is matched to the WIRING. The panel breaker's job is to keep the in-wall wiring from overheating, not your motor. Besides, any properly designed tool over 15a should have it's own thermal protection.
Member
Almost spit out my coffee. HahahaOriginally Posted by Deb Clarkson
Contributor
My experiences at any of the Borgs are similar to most others, though I will say that about 20% of the time I can get some solid advice from people that know what they are talking about, whether in plumbing, electrical, etc. About 50% of the time, I ask a question and instantly regret it as the person 'helping' doesn't have a clue but wants to help. I find myself trying to run away as quickly as I can. Often in those instances, I find that I know a great deal more than they do, which is frankly a scary thought.
When I want something a bit more specialized, say screws, connectors, mostly hardware, I go to my local Ace Hardware. They stock 5-6 times the number of skus as compared to HD, Lowe's, etc.
As for electrical work, I have been told repeatedly, by a good friend who is an electrician, that any monkey can be taught to wire. Of course he tried to explain, for better than an hour, how to wire a two-way switch. He finally gave up and went to find a smarter monkey than me.
Guest
I had occasion to be in a HD this afternoon, in the plumbing isles again (ugh, why do I keep losing the plumbing lottery).
So I'm looking for a replacement hose for a kitchen sink sprayer and the guy in the HD employee is giving me soooo much crap. They have two different hoses and another hose for faucet wands and I'm looking at all of them, comparing the parts. I don't have clearance for a quick disconnect and I'm just looking and learning and he keeps telling me crap like "you're going to buy the wrong thing, you don't need to look at the faucet wand hose kits, yada yada yada."
I remained pleasant but felt like unloading on the guy.
Member
Julie nailed it on both counts. When I enter any Home Depot there is always three to six people within the first 50 feet who ask if I need help. When I get to my aisle and have a problem I need to activate the HD LoJack system to try and find ANYONE! Regarding the electrical she is right again. The circuit breaker/fuse is sized to protect the circuit wiring to a safe capacity, NOT any equipment. It is always a good idea to buy tools with motors that have thermal protection which cuts out the motor generally before any damage due to drawing more power than is safe. If this is not present then a magnetic starter with properly sized "heaters" will give the same protection. This could make the difference between a minor repair and a new/rebuilt motor. Actually there are motor rated switches which use the protective devices also if you can match your current draw of the motor to it.I was walking through HD last week, heading for the lumber department. On the way there, 3 guys said hello and 2 asked if I needed any help finding something. I said no and kept walking. Once in the lumber department, I grabbed a cart and rolled it over to the rack where the 2x12x10' boards are. As I picked through them, one HD worker walked by, looked at me and kept walking. After I found a decent board, I picked up one end to slide on the cart. I looked up as another HD worker had just passed by.
I guess you could call that a "Home Depot Workers make me shake my head" experience.
As for the tool fusing debate, most stationery tools have overcurrent protection on their motors. That will most likely trip before any fire hazard is created. Smaller tools, like drill motors, will probably burn out the motor before it catches fire. Even if the tool caught fire, the cure is to immediately unplug it and douse the fire. You're there, using the tool. It's not going to catch fire if you're not using it.
As far as the wiring within your home, if the breakers are sized properly, to protect the wire they serve, there should be no issue with fires unless the breaker fails. If you are concerned that will happen, remove your breaker panel and install a fuse panel. Fuses are more reliable than breakers. But changing out the breakers to a reduced size to match the connected load is unnecessary and a waste of time and money. This fusing debate has gone orbital.
Last edited by Tony Cognato; 05-27-2015 at 7:12 AM.
Guest
nice!
There are two employees at our local HD that are pretty good.
The one electrical guy is a retired electrician who was more or less forcefully retired when the local aluminium plant shut down (I haven't seen him lately so maybe he got a better job hopefully). He'd tell you what you needed to know but you had to listen to a 5 minute talk about the unfairness of life, how working at HD sucks and the general lack of knowledge exhibited by the local populace first.
The one guy in plumbing is also pretty good. He'll ask what I'm doing, explain that they don't actually stock the proper parts and then ask why I'm not just buying my stuff at the local "has everything" shop (Reds Trading Post) - invariably this is because its on Sunday and Reds is closed and I need to get the toilet/sink/whatever working today at which point he'll sigh and go "yeah... you can cobble it together with this junk over here, but you really ought to go down to Reds on Monday and get the right parts" (which I usually do).
Member
I used to work at Eagle Hardware (later gobbled up by Lowes) in college in the summer as a cashier. I absolutely dreaded walking through the store because I knew nothing about where things were in the store, let alone anything about plumbing, electrical, etc. I was a deer in the headlights when a customer stopped me. Usually they were already frustrated that they had trouble finding somebody in the first place, let alone a pimply-faced 19 year old who knew nothing. Then I'd have to look around for a coworker who knew what they were doing and steam would start blowing out of the customer's ears.
That job made me realize how important it was to study hard and get a professional job. It changed my life completely and drove me to ace my college courses. It also means that I give the people who work there the benefit of the doubt.
Member
I was in HD years ago and needed a few sheets of plywood rough cut. I walked around for about 10 minutes, but the few employees who could be found successfully escaped before I was within talking range. I finally went to the customer service desk and requested someone to run the panel saw. The woman there said that required special training, and only the lumber guy could do that, and then paged him. After about 20 minutes of more waiting, I fire up the "passcode protected" (most 4 digit passcodes shared by many people are one of 5 different combinations) panel saw and went on the final approach to make the initial cut. Suddenly, the woman from the customer service desk appeared out of nowhere and insisted that she had to do the cutting for me. I told her, "Thanks for offering, but I'm good. It's no problem really." But she still insisted, so I let her since it was her store and didn't want to be rude. She also made the cuts more precisely than most of the "lumber guys."
Posting Permissions
