I just finished repairs for a shower stem that broke behind the wall and leaked down into our kitchen.

Upon inspection, it looked like the pipe finally gave out after flexing with the hot/cold water. As it flexed, it was pushing against the hole in the wall (the tile and drywall) because the copper pipe from the valve was just a smidge too long. Eventually (30 years) of metal fatigue finally broke it off completely, but you could see that it had been leaking for some time - just not enough to 'notice' until it finally completely separated.

So make sure to take a good look at where the shower stem connects to the pipe behind the wall.

Siphon is the part that prevents air from the sewage coming inside the house. Would be best if You googled it as I would have a hard time describing it in English today. Look for a shower siphon.

My grand grandma used to say "better be an idiot for five minutes than whole life". Asking questions to learn is not idiocy ;)

I've worked on tubs that had tile and grout over drywall that was leaking. When I removed the tile I saw where the water had been soaking the drywall and running down below the tub.

I’m going to be an idiot here…is the siphon the hardware on the front side of the tub above the drain and below the tub spout that prevents overflow?

I'd take a closer look at the drain/siphon and check if the gaskets hold. Had the same issue, redid all supply pipe connections like a mad man (to no effect) just to find out it was a faulty siphon (screw holding it to the tub was too loose and I couldn't tighten it because of a broken thread).

Just to clarify, when I've had problems, it wasn't the connections of the pipes. It was the water running down the wall, then between the fixture and the wall. Plumbers putty/caulk for the Escutcheons Plates. Silicone caulk for the faucet

I've had leaks at the tub penetrations before. Check the penetration for the showerhead, mixing valve, and spout

The shower arm/pipe that comes out of the wall is usually screwed into the plumbing. You could try unscrewing it and resealing the connection with teflon tape.

Always have to eliminate human error first. Run the shower with no one in it to see if the leaking still happens.

Technically it might also show grounded if it's touching a metal box that also is metal all the way back to the panel, or if it's tied into a neutral prior to getting back to the panel.

I would personally stick with the plan of making the first outlet in the circuit a GFCI. You can still tie into the wire that may be ground, and if it's wrong, the GFCI will still attempt to protect you.

The GFI will protect your equipment by killing power if any voltage leaks to ground. The ground wire is just an alternative patch back to the main board bonded to the neutral. Thus its not "grounded", but will be disconnected in the event any leak to ground is detected.

thanks ill look into this

Yes. If the box is grounded either through conduit or older wiring. You can check by installing a two to three adapter, making sure to put the screw through the tab, and then use a "circuit analyzer", also called an outlet tester, to see if there is a ground.

ok, is there anything i can do to check if the outlet is grounded? i will talk to the landlord to see what he thinks

It is framed. But it has two triangle hooks on a hinge on the sides. It says do not use wire on back.

If the current paint is solid and not peeling or bubbling a standard thorough clean, maybe a light sand if really glossy and primer should be fine.

It says do not use wire on the back. But hmm okay I was at Walmart and didn't see any. Maybe I'll check Hone Depot or Amazon.

There are companies that make crown molding specifically for LED strips in all kinds of different shapes. Just Google "led crown molding" and it should be obvious

Check your countries national electric code for what is safe and legal. I recommend consulting an electrician.

Keep in mind that if you have a house with two prong outlets, you may run into something called shared neutrals as well. Coming from someone who has the exact same issue as you.. I would do some research. This is more of a notice if you are doing the work yourself. You may find that many of the outlets share a neutral. GFCI on one outlet may trip something all the way across the house.. etc.

I re-ran many of our outlets, GFCI on some of them, but not on one's I care about.

I also recommend doing research on GFCI in general. GFCI is mechanical. It fails sometimes. It takes time (while brief) to interrupt that circuit. In many cases GFCI is up to code without a ground, and it works. But there is no true substitute to doing it the right way.

Safety could definitely be an issue here as well. Depending on age this could be knob and tube wiring which is unsafe and a pain to work with.

Agreed, whatever is going on here is gonna require a professional to probe out and sort. There's likely a bypass or some other weird splice going on, but where and what else is going on with the circuit? Only God knows till someone is able to probe out the whole run.

Is there any voltage between those wires, what's the voltage between the red and neutral, and whats the voltage between the black and neutral?

I've got a last resort for you. I've lived in a couple houses with no grounded outlets. I plug my UPS into one of those 3 prong adapters then run a #12 wire from that loop that's on the adapter to a water pipe. This will not guarantee a ground but it's your best best. If you're on or near the ground floor run it out a window to an outside pipe or drive a metal spike into the ground and connect to that. I once used a metal coat hanger as a rod and it was sufficient enough to ground a trailer. I stopped melting extension cords.

The reason I say a water pipe will not be a guarantee is because if there's plastic pipe anywhere in the line it will break the circuit. Hot water pipe might be best as the water heater will definitely be grounded. A cold water line is the typical ground point but it's more likely to have plastic from repairs.

"Ground" literally means that circuit is connected to the ground somewhere. If you are in something like a basement apartment in a house look in the flower bed outside for an existing ground rod. Quite often you'll find them near telephone / cable TV hookups.

I have lived a year in my current place where I have not had grounded plugs or the option of running my own ground and I've already lost one hard drive to a simple power outage.

By all means have a discussion, just don't post off topic threads to do it. Whether it was me or another mod this post was always going to be removed.

Anyway, from the link you posted:

> A condenser draws heat out of the air by condensing it into a liquid. The resulting liquid is significantly cooler than the air it started as. This process results in condensation on the condenser, which is then sent down a drain.

The condenser is the cold side of a heat pump. In cooling mode that's the indoor unit, in heating mode it's the outdoor unit.

Heat pumps, refrigerators, traditional air conditioning units and compressor dehumidifiers all work the same way. They circulate refrigerant gas through a pair of radiators, one gets cold (condenser) while the other gets hot (evaporator). The only difference is that heap pumps can reverse the direction so that the hot and cold sides swap over.

Dehumidifying happens when moisture in the air condenses on the cold side and is drained away as water. In heating mode the cold side is the outdoor unit, which is why you'll see a puddle of water under the outdoor unit when it's cooling. So there is no way for the heat pump to dehumidify indoor air when in heating mode.

> Drying mode maintains the humidity level in your home by switching between heating and cooling modes while maintaining the desired temperature.

That's what I said in the other post. They alternate between cooling which dehumidifies the air and heating so that the room doesn't cool down.

To expand.

Voltage is a relative measurement - think of it as "what is the difference in electrical pressure between these two points".

If you measured two ends of the same wire, no matter what else is happening on that wire, voltage will read close to 0, unless the wire is extremely long (150 ft or longer). Most of the time when we say "oh that's a hot. It's 120v" we're using a reference that is always constant - the ground. Like the literal ground beneath your feet (or the ground wire, which eventually goes into the actual earth outside your home). Because that measurement tells us how likely (and painful) it's gonna be to get a shock from it. More volts = more pressure = more likely and more pain.

When the switch closes (aka in the "on" position), it's the same as having one long chunk of wire rather than two chunk, when it's open (aka in the off position), it's separated agian. So when it's open there is a difference in electrical pressure - one side has 120v (referenced to ground) and the other side has 0v (agian, as referenced to ground) as they are now two separate wires, one with a connection to the panel, the other with a connection to the lights.

so is it not possible that a two prong outlet is grounded, regardless if the house was ever rewired for ground?