Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2015 November 16

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November 16

Wire labeling.

We're in the process of selling our house (which is in Texas). The house was inspected - and in the report, there is a fault noted alongside a photo of the electrical wiring in the air conditioner condenser unit. The report says "White wires in the Condenser disconnect box being used as a hot lead should be properly identified as such."...and indeed, there are some white wires inside that box.

The A/C is running just fine - so I don't think this is anything particularly serious - but I'd like to get a 'clean' inspection report - so I'd like to fix it.

The question is - how SHOULD those wires be identified? Are they just the wrong color? Can I maybe fix that with some heatshrink tubing of the appropriate color?

TIA. SteveBaker (talk) 00:37, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

I'm assuming it's a US standard 110 volt Alternating Current system. For the electric supply, white is usually used for the "common" or "neutral" wire, black is for "hot" and green is for earth ground. These conventions are usually carried over to the inside of the appliances/components as well. Local codes probably vary in that regard. Sometimes circuits (like three-way switches, for example) only have a white wire available for use as "hot" and sometimes appliance manufacturers just use whatever color they want for the inside. In my area, a simple cardboard/manila/etc. tag twist-tied or zip-tied to the wire indicating it is "hot" suffices for proper labeling. For reference: Electrical wiring in North America--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 04:02, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Yeah - it's 110v US standard. This unit is outdoors - and although the control box is supposedly not going to get wet, I doubt that a cardboard tag would last very long - so I doubt that would be OK with the inspection guy. Unfortunately, he's paid by the house buyers - not by me - so I can't ask him how he'd like to see it labelled. SteveBaker (talk) 14:41, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

This is from about.com, but it's still good advice and a method that I've also used before. You can use black electrical tape to mark a "traveler" (white wire used as hot, as in my three-way switch example above) as "hot".--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 04:13, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Well, that's what I'm wondering. Wrapping a bit of black tape over the wire seems like a bit of a kludge - it would be easy to assume that the tape was there for some other reason. My thought was that maybe heat-shrinking some black insulation over the hot wire would be clearer identification - it seems more "intentional" somehow. But I'm wondering what identification is "officially" sanctioned? It seems to me that if the inspector could figure out that this is the hot wire - then so should anyone else who is qualified to work on the thing - so why bother to mark it at all? But then there are building-code standards that have to be adhered to...and that's what concerns me. SteveBaker (talk) 14:41, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

• Please consult with a licensed professional. We cannot give such advice. μηδείς (talk) 04:16, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Don't we only say that for doctors and lawyers? InedibleHulk (talk) 10:49, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Yeah we do...otherwise there would be very few questions we'd be allowed to answer. Plus, a minimum call-out fee for a "licensed professional" around here runs to $125 - and I'm certainly not going to pay that much to stick some kind of identification onto a wire that in all likelyhood nobody will ever care about! The last licensed professional electrician I called out - to add a breaker onto our box and hook up power to our new workshop - decided to save the cost of that breaker and add the extra wire to an existing breaker selected more or less at random - the one for our dining room lighting circuit, as it happens - and that's been the OTHER cause of grief during this house inspection! SteveBaker (talk) 14:41, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

I think I would ask the guy who did the inspection what he would regard as satisfactory to pass a follow-up.--Phil Holmes (talk) 15:42, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Read the disclaimer at the bottom of this page:

Not professional advice

If you need specific advice (for example, medical, legal, financial or risk management), please seek a professional who is licensed or knowledgeable in that area.

Note that doctors and lawyers are examples of the sort of licensed professionals we are not supposed to be impersonating. μηδείς (talk) 18:05, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

source

876555MLX (talk) 03:13, 16 November 2015 (UTC)This Illustration in link below is on a Wikipedia page titled "Pine Tree Flag" inserted by user "Dbnull" first, or https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Alex:D

The Growth of Our National Flag

I know it comes from a fine 1885 School Book "History of the US", but is there any credit to the illustrator on record or in the book? Anywhere? Was it possibly illustrated by someone just for the book?

A quick Google brought up America's Four Republics: The More Or Less United States which has a version of that image on its front cover. The "acknowledgements" page carries this message: "...Logo adapted from The Growth of Our National Flag illustration, A.S. Barnes, A Brief History of the United States, A.S. Barnes & Company, New York, 1885, pages 136-137". However, A.S. Barnes seems to be the publisher rather than the artist. Alansplodge (talk) 14:00, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

The good old Internet Archive has a copy of this book here including the illustration in question, but alas, I couldn't find any credits for the illustrator(s), which is sadly not uncommon in 19th century books. None of the images are signed or initialled. The copyright of the book is in the name of the printer, "A.S. Barnes & Co" although the publisher is the "American Book Company". The authors are Joel Dorman Steele and his wife Esther; this biography has no suggestion that they might have been responsible for the illustrations. Alansplodge (talk) 17:23, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Car tyres

Is it an issue to have slightly differing tyre side wall profiles, by say 5mm. Hypothetical car has 50 nearside, and 55 on the other? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.195.27.47 (talk) 13:50, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

On a normal, 4-wheel passenger car, it is advised that all 4 tires are matched and identical. See [1] and [2] and [3]. The only exceptions are when the manufacturer recommends specifically different tires for the front and rear axle. I can find no advice recommending mismatched tires on left- and right-side tires, excepting for racing cars where, for example, Oval track racing would cause differing wear patterns. For every day, citizen commuting, follow your manufacturer's recommendations, and left and right tires should always be matched. --Jayron32 13:55, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Short answer: Yes, it is enough to cause problems...don't do that.

That said, the "skinny spare" tyres provided with many modern cars have a much greater than 5mm difference in diameter from the standard tyres - and you're supposed to be able to drive on them at speeds up to 55mph "for short distances". Most car manuals will tell you to disable traction and stability controls when you do this. The low tyre pressure warning system in some cars (the kind that count the number of wheel rotations on opposite sides of the car to get an estimate of the tyre diameter - and therefore pressure) will produce incorrect tyre pressure warnings for sure.

Overall, this sounds like a rather dangerous thing to do - especially if your car has a bunch of fancy electronics - or if you plan on driving it at highway speeds. SteveBaker (talk) 14:54, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Article subject suitable?

Hello there,

I am interested in writing an article but I wanted to check whether my subject was suitable first. I would like to submit a piece about workshops, not a manufacturers workshop, but those traditionally used in the business world. A workshop is a collaborative working session in which a team achieves an agreed goal together. The goal could be to solve a problem, create ideas, work through an issue or find agreement between team members. Workshops differ from conventional meetings because they use a structured creative approach, and so have a different type of agenda and behaviours.

I work in the industry and people often struggle to know what session they will be attending when we say 'workshop' so I feel it would be beneficial for collective intelligence if people could find out by simply consulting Wikipedia. I understand that this is an encyclopedia and so there will be no mention of our brand or any promotional writing.

Look forward to hearing from you, Anna Annaworkshopcookbook (talk) 17:49, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Absolutely the subject is appropriate for Wikipedia, but chances are there is already an article on that. For example, does brainstorming cover it ? Brainstorming#See_also lists some related concepts. StuRat (talk) 17:52, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Does any of the articles noted at Workshop (disambiguation) already cover your topic? If it does, you could see if you can expand any of those to contain the information you find missing. If not, see that you can gather independent source material about the subject, and if you can, go ahead and create the article. If you're unsure if it would be deleted, you can use the WP:DRAFT process to create a draft article, and submit it for review through Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation before it becomes a full-fledged article. --Jayron32 17:53, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

We have creative problem-solving and training workshop articles, both could do with improvement. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 18:01, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

If you do write, either a new article or additions to an existing one, please bear in mind that Wikipedia articles summarise what reliable published sources say about the subject. Original research and synthesis (including drawing conclusion or comparisons which are not in the sources) are forbidden. --ColinFine (talk) 19:28, 16 November 2015 (UTC)