Switching Circuit

Even in relaively warm Atlanta,Georgia, the local Home Depot carries outdoor fluorescent lights that work to -5 F.

The least power wasting option I've found is to use a LED bulb to provide minimal lighting while waiting for a fluorescent (or CFL - some of them are slow even at 70 F).

I have a fixture in the front entry that will accept two bulbs. There's a CFL in one socket and a 2 watt LED bulb in the other. The LED bulb provides instant response to the light switch and keeps people from flipping the switchrepeatedly because the CFL takes a half-second or more to produce noticeable light.

John

New construction requires neutral, hot and ground (egc) conductors. Metallic raceway is allowed for the egc, so the minimum _wire_ count for any circuit is 2; minimum _conductor_ count is 3. The minimum for the OP's question if it were new construction and to be done with standard wiring is 2 travelers, hot, neutral and egc. If X10 were used, then hot, neutral and egc is the minimum.

Older existing circuits that do not have an egc that were compliant with the code when installed are grandfathered.

The NEC does not prohibit relays.

Receptacles and lights can and do share all of those.

That's the way to wire the OP's situation if it was new construction: hot, neutral, egc and 2 travellers between

Not bad in new construction, where you have to dig anyway. It's just two runs of uf - easy. But with an open trench it would be foolhardy not to plan for the future - you might put some REAL cable in that trench if plans included using the garage as a shop with some heavy duty power machines. :-)

That doesn't work. Your switch circuit would be the #14, and it needs 2 conductors. The power circuit is the #12 and it needs the hot, neutral and ground conductor. Again, this applies to new construction. The OP's situation can be fixed differently.

No, the X10 solution is compliant.

House | Garage ---Hot---------+--[X10]----+ | | | Recpt--+----Light | | | ---Neutral------+-----------+ | ---egc---------------+

The X10 controller on the house side can be plugged in anywhere*; the X10 switch on the garage side must be installed in series with the hot feed to the light. I don't recall if the X10 switch needs to connect to neutral or not.

• = if the X10 is plugged into a circuit on the opposite phase a bridge may be needed.

No way. They don't draw much current at all, maybe 3 amps as a guess.

Ed

In , Greegor wrote in part:

The 2012/2014 USA "bans" of incandescents have exceptions that I consider to be a set of loopholes sufficient to reroute the Mississippi River through:

What I would do is use fluorescent ballasts rated for cold temperatures and compatible 4-foot bulbs in those protective sleeves used in cold temperature duty, or else outdoor-rated CFLs that have outer bulbs over the CFL tubing.

In colder weather, these tend to work, but easily require 5-10 minutes to warm up and then they may be warmed up only most-of-the-way. I would deploy a bit of surplus lighting ability if I had to make major use of fluorescent lighting in far-from-optimum temperatures. Meanwhile, I am very satisfied with the cold-weather performance of Philips SL/O CFLs, especially 18 watt ones.

Over 95% of the population of California has yet to be affected by cold severe enough to be much of a problem for outdoor-rated CFLs and many other CFLs that have outer bulbs over the CFL tubing. Put such CFLs into an an enclosed fixture, let it warm up for 5 or 6 minutes, result is around or over 75% of full light output even if it is cold enough to snow. I have even seen Philips SL/O bare units achieve around or a bit over half of full brightness in single digits degrees F after warming up 6-10 minutes.

Even with San Francisco often being chilly even in early and mid afternoon in July and August, and snow reported in L.A. every several years, mostly in included high elevation points, (more frequently than in SF even including their "Twin Peaks" and "Mount Suttro"), how much, more like how little, of California's population has to deal with so much as a majority of individual years having a single hour colder than 25 F? And I know CFLs that work fairly well in conditions that cold! I mention some of them above.

- Don Klipstein ( snipped-for-privacy@misty.com)

Good. Though I'll have at least 500 spares by then. That should be good for a decade or two. Maybe even some extra retirement income.

How am I going to fit the 4' tube into the spots.

They won't even light at -20F, though I don't intend to see those temperatures again. ;-)

Californica US.

I don't want 75% after 5 minutes. Incandescents give me 100% in zero minutes.

Californica US. Let Californica screw themselves. They're too far gone to save anyway.

The "green police" will get you. The "environmental inspection" of your house will find you in violation of the US signed "carbon tax" treaty (of course unconstitutional, but who really cares anyway?) and you will be heavily fine.

So, get back in line of people happily marching to the glorious future of USSA.

It is not about what your want. It is about what is good for you. And The State being a good parent knows better

You don't think black markets will appear? You believe anyone, besides the loony lefty sheeple, is going to replace all their lighting fixtures?

We're there now. We're on the way to embarrassing even the USSR.

I understand. What's good for me is what Nancy Pelosi tells me is good for me. No thanks; read that book.

Where are they going to hire inspectors stupid enough to go into the homes of people who own guns, and demand a search warrant? They would have to be Europeans to be arrogant enough to think that they can get away with it.

It will be done slowly. Tax on firearms. Mandatory yearly training. Mandatory yearly registration. Tightening requirements for registration. Increased registration fee. increased mandatory insurance. Increase health insurance. Prohibition of "assault" weapons. Widening definitions of "assault" weapon to leave you with bbgun.

And it will *never* be called gun prohibition. It all will be done for the kids and for you, silly gun-loving American.

Gold was confiscated in 1933. Why not confiscate firearms?

Good luck. Too many unregistered guns out there and that's a great way to make more.

No it won't.

Gold doesn't shoot back.

The right to bear gold wasn't guaranteed in our constitution.

True enough, but the power to confiscate it wasn't given to the federal government, either.

Its a lot easier, when it isn't in writing.

It is written that if it's not in writing it's *not* a power of the federal government. If you break one part with impunity the rest is pretty easy too.

They get away with it because too many people are ignorant, and don't care about things that don't affect them, that day.

But it is.

There is no right to seize gold by the federal government in the Constitution.

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people"

Yea, I know, who cares, blah-blah-blah. Then we have what we have because we do not care.

The same may very well happen with firearms.

You don't know many gun owners, do you?

You guys are attempting to discuss this with intelligence and logic. *BZZZT*. Wrong. They already confiscated logic and intelligence with the Nobels to algore&obama :-(

Ed

Sounds strange. Why isn't it allowed to have a light buld share a neutral with an outlet? Running two neutral wires through one conduit doesn't make sense.

If you have the money you could look into proper LED lighting.

I got a 60W replacement for free from these guys:

It is very expensive (about US $45) and it is not as efficient as a fluorescent but it does give a lot of light (about 300 lumen at 6W

-specified- input power). Dunno if it likes cold weather.