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I thought 3/0 copper service required #4 GEC. I'm probably reading the wrong table again, though...

As a DIYer:
- for the big stuff I vote for any decent hand saw, as they do the job in a few seconds once you get the hang of it. A chop saw is nice, if handy.
- I never could cut very straight with...

For the irrigation, unless you have a large lot, adding a circuit or two to reduce the flow may be cheaper and easier than bothering with the meter. At my house in the city, the irrigation draws...

Correct, of course.

Here (in northern California) the "irrigation systems" are usually protected only by the control valves being mounted up a foot or two above the ground. We don't have to worry...

Something like this. Some seem to be check valves and others vacuum breakers. I never paid much attention to them. You can also just get the proper valve, although the inspectors here had never seen...

Don't know about the LA area, but here in the bay area residential backflow prevention seems to be usually done in two ways.

1) An in-line screw-on backflow preventer is screwed onto the hose...

There is a common belief out there that the building codes are overly convoluted, bureaucratic, archaic, novels meant to keep the elite few in business.

Of course, after bothering to actually...

Is the noise "on" 100% of the time? My wild guess is the neighbor's refrigerator.

Yep, I saw three small ones at the same time in Des Moines WA in early 1970.

Another way to look at it (a pretty good approximation at reasonable flow rates) is that a restriction like a valve is equivalent to some length of the pipe you are using. The same goes for...

I did that here and it passed -- but the inspector didn't look that closely in every box. Here they seem to be looking for things that stick out like wires cut really short or a box crammed full of...

I saw it written somewhere that it is no longer allowed to build a sheetrock (tm?) enclosure around non-IC fixtures. Can't remember where, though...

You can cut down on the number of wires in the switch box by going with 14-3 to one device box with two switched hots and then continuing on with 14-2 to another.

Hope that makes sense...

Are you using feed-through emitters, or end emitters?

Although not a pro, I'm not a fan of PEX either.

One thing to consider -- even though fewer joints is less to go wrong, you can always prefabricate sections before installation to get the in-place...

Now I feel much better. I figured that one out by myself some time ago.

Of course, I'm still embarrassed about it taking me so many years to figure out something even simpler: When I moved to...

If you are going to go with some PEX, why not just go with PEX. Once you get supplies to hot & cold manifolds, you can stub off and replace one run at a time -- at any pace you want...

I agree, except that the few dozen I've had to deal with were all full of water.

Also, the NEC treats outdoor or buried PVC conduit as a "wet location" (not trying to say NEC applies to this...

Sounds like you got it. In general, different circuits should not share neutrals.

Do you have kids? It could have gone down the toilet recently.

I've never seen an underground conduit that wasn't full of water -- maybe hj has :cool:

Also, if you have a sub-panel, make sure the neutral is not bonded...

OK, assuming #12 with no internal clamps:
2 - white
2 - black
1 - red
1 - ground
2 - switch
-------------
8 conductors X 2.25 ==> 18 cubic in box minimum

For me, thats just too...

Unhook the neutral and hot (load side) from the GFCI breaker and measure the resistance (VOM and/or megger) between the neutral wire and the neutral bar -- it should be open.

In my limited...

Another thing to consider is box fill. It is based on the size and number of wires entering the box plus the volume taken by the device. Many single-gang boxes are too small to do a a switched+hot...

On the neutral side, a high resistance could cause problems only under load -- at least in theory.

Without a lot of digging into the details myself first, I can't really say much more without...