Have you ever wondered whether you should push an electrical wire through the little connector holes in the back of an electrical outlet, or tighten that wire under the screw head? Keith Dusome is an electrician from Accurate Electrical in Aurora, Ontario who got me to take a couple of outlets a...
We all invent things in our heads: "I which I had a gadget that would?." Then every once in a while we discover that someone has invented it.I live in Montreal. Winter is cold in Montreal and we are familiar with outdoor electrical outlets all over to keep our cars running. I always wanted an...
In this TV show I showed off two great electrical detective devices.The first is called an Inductive Voltage Detector and can be found at automobile supply stores. The one I showed had the trade name Circuit Alert and was made by GB Instruments. Somehow it knows if a wire is connected to the ho...
When you want to put a lighting sconce on a wall, there is always the question of how to get the electrical wires to that location. Often it is possible to carry wires up from an electrical outlet, or down from the attic -- now how to hide them.If you are working on the surface, as you are oblig...
Electrical wires are usually screwed onto the terminals of outlets and fixtures. If you pull on that wire, you could pull the electrical connection loose. That is why in household wiring, all wires coming out of junction boxes must be stapled down to the house framing within 6 inches of the box...
When most people think about having the computer, the TV, the audio and such being run out of a central hub, they usually only think about distribution. Those units do exist. But you can go a step further and get a central hub that filters and conditions the electricity and the signals to separ...
One viewer asked if they could convert one of the two lamps in a double outdoor light into a socket?If all you want to do is to run Christmas lights that do not have a ground plug, you can simply screw in a two prong outlet into the light socket. If your total wattage does not exceed the wattage...
One viewer caught our camera in a renovation store and asked why he saw electrical cheater plugs in Quebec but can't find them in Ontario?First, what is a "cheater plug"? That is the little gadget that was so common when we first changed from two prong outlets to three prong outlets. The idea wa...
