12V voltage is massively prone to voltage drop. If you run a 12V wire for 10, 20, 50, 100, or even 200 feet, the voltage drop will be significant (since 12V is one of the lowest voltages; compared to 120V, or 220V, for example). Calculating the 12V voltage drop is not exactly easy, and you … Read more
Alright, figuring out what wire gauge you need for DC current is fairly simple; anybody can do it. We will show you exactly how to figure out DC wire size by the “back of the napkin” calculation. If you don’t have a napkin, don’t worry. To make things simpler, we have created two very useful … Read more
Whenever we need to need how many amps a wire can handle, we turn to the NEC 310.16 table. The 310.16 table is basically an ampacity chart; it tells us what is the ampacity of copper and aluminum wires. The full name for this table is “Table 310.16 Ampacities of Insulated Conductors with Not More … Read more
310.12 NEC table discusses copper and aluminum wire sizes for 100 amp to 400 amp services and feeders. This relates to most households (National Electrical Code refers to homes using these terms: one-family dwellings, 2-family dwellings, and multifamily dwellings). Namely, the NEC section 310.12 includes these 5 distinct parts: Tabel 310.12 Single-Phase Dwelling Services and … Read more
Wire size can be expressed as both gauge number (American Wire Gauge or AWG) or circular mils. In many cases, we will have to convert AWG to circular mils. To help you out, we will look into AWG to circular mils formula to show how the conversion is made. Further on, you will also find … Read more
On many thermostats, you will find a W2 terminal. There is quite a lot of confusion about what is this W2 wire on a thermostat; namely, what is that W2 wire supposed to power. To help everybody out, we are going to explain exactly what the W2 wire thermostat is. Note: You will connect a … Read more
The thermostat wiring is a bit complicated. The 1st thing everybody has to learn is what each thermostat wire color means. To help you get started, we have prepared a full thermostat wiring color code (we’ll go wire-by-wire color-by-color for blue wire or black wire (C wires), orange wire, yellow wire, red wire, white wire, … Read more
“My thermostat says heat on but no heat. What’s the problem? How to get the heat back on?” This is one of the most frustrating thermostat issues in the winter. You do everything right; set the heat “ON” on the thermostat but no heat comes from the furnace. We will look into all 14 common … Read more
These ground wire sizes are notoriously difficult to figure out. If you are looking for the ground wire size for 100 amp service, you may see some conflicting wire sizes; from as little as 10 AWG to as big as 00 AWG. To help everybody out, we are going to show exactly how you can … Read more
All ground wires have to meet minimum ampacity criteria. That, of course, is also true of 200 amp ground wire. We are going to look into what size ground wire you need for a 200 amp service. On top of that, we will show you how you can figure out ground wire size for any … Read more