I'm far from a country boy, but I did grow up in a rural area with animals, playing in the woods, and cleaning out chicken coops. Like many of you, we would play most of the day outside without our parents knowing or worrying about where we were. Was that an “unsafe” way to grow […]

I see a lot of techs and installers use tape over foam tubing insulation joints (Rubbatex, Armaflex, etc.) rather than using the glue that is designed for it. Some of them use tape because they don't know the glue exists; some use tape because it's what they happen to have on the truck, and others […]

Why is it called single-phase 240 when there are two opposing phases (or legs)? I wondered why we called two 120v opposing legs “single-phase 240” for years. Then someone pointed out to me that a typical “single-phase” pole transformer only has one power leg entering and two coming out. That freaked me out. How can […]