The questions
you should be asking.

Yes. An outlet should be room temperature. Warm means a loose connection, an overloaded circuit, or a device that's already started to arc internally. Any of those will eventually scorch the wire and then a wall.

What to do right now: unplug everything from that outlet. Don't put anything back in. Find that breaker in the panel and turn it off. Don't try to "test" the outlet — every test you'd run from outside the wall costs less than the inspection that follows.

This one is almost always cheap to fix and expensive to ignore.

Probably not. Not because the wiring is mysterious — it isn't — but because there are six places this goes wrong and we see all of them: undersized breaker, undersized conductor, conduit fill, missing disconnect, no GFCI where there should be one, and a service load calc that says your 100A panel can't take it.

A homeowner can pull a permit for their own electrical work in California (CA Business and Professions Code §7044.1) if the home is their primary residence. So it's legal. We just don't recommend it for EV circuits specifically — the sustained 80% load is unforgiving, and the failure mode is "garage fire."

Sometimes yes, often no. Tandem breakers (two breakers in a single slot) are allowed in panels that are listed for them, in specific slots only — the ones with rejection slots in the bus. Putting a tandem in a slot that wasn't designed for it is one of the most common violations we find.

Look at the inside of your panel door. If the legend doesn't say tandems are allowed in that position, they aren't. If the legend's missing, photograph the bus and the dead-front and send it to Snap Identify. We'll tell you whether you can do it without re-feeding the panel.

Often, but not always. The honest answer depends on (1) your existing service size, (2) what else is on it, and (3) the heat pump's nameplate minimum-circuit-ampacity. We've installed plenty of heat pumps on 100A services with no upgrade. We've also seen 200A panels that genuinely couldn't take one more thing.

An NEC Article 220 service load calc takes us about 15 minutes. We do them for free as part of a bid. If you've been told "you need a 200A panel" without a load calc — that's a sales answer, not an engineering answer.

The breaker is doing its job. Three causes, in order of how common we see them:

(1) Overload. Too many watts on one circuit. A space heater and a hair dryer on the same 15A is a hard no.
(2) Short circuit. Hot touching neutral or ground somewhere. Could be a nicked wire in the wall, a failing device, or something plugged in that's failed internally.
(3) Ground fault. Current returning through somewhere it shouldn't. GFCI/AFCI breakers trip on much smaller faults than standard breakers.

Reset it once. If it trips again immediately, leave it off and call us. Don't put a bigger breaker in to "stop it from tripping." That's how houses burn down.

No. Solar DC doesn't turn off when you flip a breaker. The strings are energized whenever the sun is on the panels. Combiner boxes carry 600V DC on residential systems and up to 1500V DC commercial. There is no consumer-grade safe way to open one hot.

Note the error code, photograph the inverter screen, and send it to us. Most solar errors are software-side or environmental and don't need anyone on the roof.

It depends on which kind. Modern aluminum SE feeders on a service entrance are fine and standard. Aluminum branch-circuit wiring (the kind used roughly 1965–1973 in residential) is what people are usually worried about — and yes, it carries a higher fire risk than copper, primarily at the terminations.

The remediation isn't always "rip it out." Often it's COPALUM crimps or AlumiConn connectors at every termination, performed under permit and inspection. We've done a few hundred of these. We don't recommend the cheaper retrofits.

Probably not dangerous; probably a sign of something to fix. Common causes: lights and a heavy motor load on the same circuit, a loose connection at the service entrance or at the neutral lug, or an undersized service feeder.

Listen for buzzing at the panel. If you hear anything coming from the meter base or the main lug, that goes from "annoying" to "call somebody soon."

No. Never. Not under any circumstance.

A back-fed outlet sends 240V back up through the panel and out through the service drop. The utility line that you think is dead becomes hot — and a lineman 200 feet away gets killed. There is no scenario in which this is acceptable, and it's a felony in California.

What to do instead: an interlock kit on the panel ($350–$600 installed) or a manual transfer switch ($800–$1,500 installed). Both are legal, safe, and easy to use.

Yes — and increasingly, everywhere kitchen, garage, basement, outdoor, and laundry too. NEC 210.8 has been expanding every cycle. As of NEC 2023, virtually every receptacle outside a bedroom or living room needs GFCI protection.

It can be done either at the device or at the breaker. Breaker is cleaner and protects everything downstream; device is cheaper and protects from that outlet down.

In California: every licensed electrical contractor has a C-10 license. Look them up at cslb.ca.gov. The lookup will show the license status, the bond, the workers' comp, and any complaints.

If somebody is bidding work and won't put their license number on the bid, that's the entire conversation. Walk away. The license is the protection — not for them, for you.

Because that's the honest answer. AI is good at seeing what's in a photo. It's not on the job site. It can't smell ozone, hear a buzz, test a continuity, or stick a meter on a conductor. The 1 time out of 100 it doesn't say "call somebody" is the situation where the photo shows something cleanly resolved — a tripped breaker, a labeled disconnect, an obvious GFCI reset.

Most electrical questions look simple from the outside and aren't. That's the whole reason the trade exists. The tool's job is to give you the lay of the land — not to replace forty years of journeyman experience.