Electrician Coming Over What to Do?

I put wire in pvc or emt so that I can pull future wire if I want to revise later on. I use big J boxes or LB at the bends instead of a bender. I forgo using romex and prefer wire in pipe. It might be a good idea to use a larger than “code minimum” size pipe so that you can pull more circuits later on or replace what is in the pipe easily. I use at least a 1”. If you need to modify later on or add more circuits, this would save some money.

I have a journeyman electrician with a good attitude about my hobby. I recommend you find someone with a good attitude too. That can make all the difference in the world. Not all electricians will hate you because you have the inclination to spend on this hobby. They will not like you if you are an ass.

Most electricians do service work by the hour, instead of by bid, so they really should not mind a little extra wire or grounding in their circuit if they know in advance what the job is about. If you know your electrician, you might be able to get away with just asking him to exceed code and use better products ( wirenuts, panels) etc., otherwise an electrical permit for your locale is in order.

I like the after market line conditioners I have used. I may not need them, but I prefer how any I have used have shaped the sound a little more to my liking. Usually dropping the noise floor and increasing detail is what they do for me. This after-market stuff would not work well if the wiring is not in place. Good luck!

I put two pairs of rg6 and two pairs of cat 5 near every location I have a stereo. They end near the cable or phone enters your building. I put them in a separate pipe.

Glen / Drubin: I ran into a situation where a gentleman had two separate grounds that were no more than about 10 feet apart from each other. The way that things were set up electrically, he had items from both grounds tied into the same system. He had mentioned to me that he was getting "whacked" when touching specific items within the system. I stopped by and took a look at what was going on. I was able to measure 40 volts on the chassis of some of his components due to the ground situation.

Once we tied the two ground rods together, the voltage dropped down to zero as we had minimized the differences in potential between the two grounds. The reason why he was only getting "whacked" on specific components had to do with how they were wired internally or the fact that he had a couple of pieces that were not oriented in the outlet for the proper AC polarity. Once we had gotten all of this straightened out, his components were no longer "hot" and the noise floor had dropped quite a bit.

I have run into other situations that were of similar nature, so i know this to be a somewhat "normal" situation. That is why i suggested keeping the ground rods as close together as is possible. So long as they are within a foot or so, i don't see a problem developing. If it does, one can simply strap the two together and be done with it. Sean
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There seems to be some confusion on isolated ground circuits. I am not implying you should add a second ground rod to obtain an I.G. circuit. Just tie your isolated ground to the ground bar at the meter if possible or to the ground rod itself. Rarly do I add a second ground rod and 99 times out of 100 I bond the two rods together when I do.

Glen: a TRUE "isolated" ground is just that, "isolated" from all other grounds. Having a ground path that runs directly back to the earth ground from the audio circuitry without tying into any other circuits would be called a "dedicated" ground. Obviously, this wording could still get us into trouble and keep us confused. While all of this boils down to a matter of wording and semantics, i think that we are standing on the same basic "ground" and have "common" thoughts about the subject : ) Sean
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I agree Sean but let's not get to carried away. We still need to tie them together at ground level or under the earth. We wouldn't want to go outside the N.E.C. requirments just to make are music sound a little better, Or would we?