I recently bought an older home (built in the mid-50's). I'd like to replace some of the light fixtures, but the new light fixtures warn about fire hazards and wire ratings of houses built before 1986 (60deg vs 90deg). Can someone please explain this to me? Do I really need to hire an electrician or is this something I can do with a good step by step explaination? I'd like to save some money and do as much fixing up as I can. Thanks!

I recently bought a house with a garage. The original owner had a line running directly to an air compressor. After he left there were just the bare wires remaining. I decided that I wanted to put an outlet there. I get the box, the outlet and put them all together. I turn the power on plug in a palm sander and the thing goes nuts with power, speeding so fast to the point of overheating. I turn it off, baffeled, I plug in a shop vac. Boom, the same thing. really high revs. I am thinking that the power that is in this line is 220? instead of the regular 110 amp. how do I go about changing this line so that I can use the outlet without frying my powertools? thanks! J Or is there a possibility that I wired the outlet wrong?