Electric Blues
We've known for a while that 2007 would be "The Year The Aussies Visit Us For A Change". But somehow, it didn't really sink in until a few weeks ago, after we had purchased a new bed for our room, and moved the old one into the guest bedroom. One good way to make sure guests don't overstay their welcome is to make sure the bed is less comfortable than home, after all. So why did we get rid of the sofa sleeper? That was a record-setter in that department . . .
But other changes had to be made around the house, as well. For reasons known only to the original builder, who also remodeled the house after the previous owner (his cousin) died, there was no exhaust fan in the guest bathroom. And next weekend, two adults and two children will be using that bathroom. Something had to be done.
Other electrical problems had surfaced in recent months, er, years, as well. I was able to attack some of these problems, with mixed results. I think I did a pretty good job replacing that Ground Fault Interruptor in 1999, for instance, because the house has not burned down yet. But the floodlight by the garage? I tried to replace it with one equipped with a motion sensor. It worked great for three or four months, then suddenly stopped. Could've been a power surge. Could've been a vandal. Could've been too many cats and possums playing games with the sensor at 3 AM.
When we had the house repainted in October, November, and December of 2005, other electrical items needed to be performed in the aftermath. The walls went from a dark beige to a more cheery "eggshell cream", which was much closer to white and brightened up the house a fair amount. But all of the electrical outlets were still a dark, dull, OLD tan, like old computer monitors get when they don't age well. We replaced the covers with something closer to the paint, but the outlets themselves were still dark tan. So we have two-tone outlets in much of the house. And two-tone switches. I kind of like it that way, but potential buyers someday probably won't. And outlets and switches do fail, eventually.
A friend helped me swap the dimmer switch in the living room with the flip switch in the dining room. I'm not really sure why the builder thought that was a good idea, either. I guess the original owner wanted a sitting room, where he could adjust the lights to taste when he wanted to read, run a book club, or whatever. And he probably had no need for mood lighting at the table when he was living alone. The friend also helped change the color of some of the switches in the kitchen, which didn't go very well with the new yellow paint in there, in place of the old "Olive Garden" wallpaper. But one of the switches was a three-way, so it was left in the old color, to be replaced another day.
Over a month ago, the light over the kitchen sink decided to spontaneously drop and dangle about a foot. A screw somehow dislodged itself, and probably went down the sink drain. A few weeks ago, we had storm doors installed. For the first time, a front door on the house would open outward. But there are some dangling carriage lights hanging a bit low, and one was directly in the path of the door.
Okay, enough was enough. We needed to hire an electrician. My friends were unavailable, and some of the things we needed to have done were a little out of their league anyway.
Bev and I have a bad track record when it comes to finding handyfolks to work on the house. For instance, there's the aforementioned housepainter. There's no way that job should have taken as long as it did. The painter we hired was used to painting new construction, but not accustomed to working around furniture in a lived-in space. And of course, the final bill was much higher than the estimate, but that's been dealt with, and there are no liens to worry about. Our laminate flooring had a problem a few weeks after that installation was completed. A huge bubble formed in the front entry near the entrance to the living room. We had to have the crew come back out and put in a little strip and gap between the two rooms, and the bubble went away. Plumbers have been an adventure too, particularly with regard to the kitchen sink, the dishwasher, and a hot water line. In short, we were not looking forward to this experience.
First, we tried a church bulletin. Holy Cross off Chamblee-Tucker had a name advertised, so we called. He was supposed to come out on the evening of February 23rd to work up an estimate. He didn't show. 45 minutes after he was supposed to arrive, we called him. He claimed to have had a car accident and was "just about" to call us. We gave him the benefit of the doubt, rescheduled for Monday, and went to Florida for the weekend. Monday came, and he was waiting for us in the driveway. He looked around, said he'd work up a written estimate, and get it to us in a day or two, knowing fully well that we wanted to do the work on March 3rd (today).
Tuesday and Wednesday came and went, with no estimate. Thursday came, and nearly went. Bev called him again, and he said he'd leave it in our mailbox. Thursday, as the locals know, was the day that a huge storm system swept across the eastern US, dumping tons of snow near the Great Lakes, and spawning tornadoes in southern/Central Alabama and Georgia. While we were spared from the tornadoes, it rained all day, and my mailbox is not watertight. We now had less than 36 hours to decide if we wanted to go with this guy. We decided we'd just about had enough, and went to kudzu.com to compairson shop and see if the estimate was a good one. We called two more companies, plus someone our realtor recommended a while ago. None of them were available.
Belco was able to provide a rough estimate over the phone that was over twice the original. It sounded as though our original guy was neglecting something in the estimate. But Belco wasn't available to do the work.
So we called Mr. Sparky on Friday. They advertise heavily on the radio, so we had a feeling that this wasn't going to be cheap. We were right, but we told ourselves that we could always trim some items off the list if he didn't have time or we didn't have money. Our guests were the primary concern, both for bathroom comfort, and to impress them. Okay, 'impress' isn't the right word. 'Not disgust' is too strong. I guess we're just hoping to avoid the electrical equivalent of a mother-in-law sliding a finger across a windowsill and finding a lot of dust there. Anyone know a word for that?
The eight items we wanted to get done, in order of priority:
1. Install an exhaust fan in the guest bathroom.
2. Fix the dangling light over the kitchen sink.
3. Change the three-way switch in the kitchen.
4. Re-wire the living room so that the TV is no longer on a light switch.
5. Install a light in the crawl space, to bring it up to current code.
6. Raise the dangling lights on the front porch, or replace them with something else.
7. Diagnose the problem with the front floodlight, and repair/replace.
8. Install a brand new floodlight for the backyard, because blinding my neighbors and attracting moths is fun.
We were told that they would visit between 10 and 1. At 9, they called to let us know they were running EARLY, and would be there at 9:30. He arrived at 9:20. By 10, we had a complete estimate which was about $400 more than Belco's blind phone estimate, and could not be completed in one day.
We felt enough was enough, in a different way. Time was running short. The guests would be here on the 9th. We decided to attack items 1, 2, 3, and 6 this time, and come back to the others at some later date. The front porch was done first, with outdoor recessed lighting, after his one and only trip to Home Depot, in about an hour. The kitchen items were done about thirty minutes later. The bathroom exhaust fan took about 2.5 hours, but was a success as well. We're very pleased, and we would use them again in a heartbeat. He didn't track dirt in from the outside, and he cleaned up after himself immaculately. Thanks, Mickey! Thanks, Mr. Sparky. Total cost? A little over a grand for 1-3 and 6. $200 more than the original guy's estimate for everything. But we're pleased.
Inspired by having someone working hard around the house, Bev ran some errands she didn't really feel like doing, and I reorganized the CD collection. Our music collections have finally merged together. It's weird seeing her Celine Dion next to my Depeche Mode, but what're you going to do? "You've got your peanut butter in my chocolate!"?
Eventually, after Mickey had left, I decided I needed to tackle an electrical issue of my own. Bev noticed the other night that my right brake light wasn't working anymore. I didn't want to take it to the Saturn dealer on Thursday or Friday, but I had resolved to do something about it this weekend. I went to AutoZone, and looked up my model year in one of the many hanging booklets they have everywhere. Found the bulb number, grabbed it, paid them, and went home to install it in the garage.
There are no obvious screws on the light covers. So I opened the trunk and found them. Step 1 complete. The screws weren't flathead or Phillps, but some weird six-pointed thing. So I grabbed my other heads, found the Torx something-or-other, and removed them. Step 2 complete. I slid the cover back, and found two bulbs. One for red, one for yellow. Step 3 complete. I managed to remove the 'red' one from the housing in the cover. Step 4 complete. I looked at the bulb I needed to remove. I looked at the bulb I had just purchased. Back and forth. I looked in the manual for my car, and learned that I had indeed purchased the bulb I was supposed to. But the bulb I had to remove looked nothing like the one I had bought.
Step 5 incomplete.
In order to remove the bulb, the manual said, I need to depress the bulb, then give it a 1/8 turn counter-clockwise. I tried, but nothing happened. Several times. I even tried pulling directly out, but nothing happened, and I was afraid I would break bulb. In frustration, I tried one more 1/8 turn, and the bulb did indeed break a tiny bit and make crunching noises. I didn't notice the tiny amount of blood on my finger until later, but I knew I had a problem on my hands with the car.
Step 5, F.U.B.A.R.
So I went back to AutoZone, walked in, and announced:
I . . . AM NOT . . . SMARTER THAN A FIFTH GRADER!
Reaction was mixed, but a clerk who wasn't busy did agree to come out to the car and help me.
"Oh, it's a pop out bulb. See this serial number here?" *pop*
No, in fact, I hadn't. A magnifying glass might have helped. So would trying to do the work in sunlight, instead of the relative shade of my garage. And I did try to pull it out directly once, but I guess my thumb and forefinger weren't quite manly enough, or something.
So we went back inside and I bought a bulb my manual knew nothing about, and even got a refund for the bulbs their book and my manual agreed should have worked. One minute later, I got it in, and everything was screwed back into place. In a good way. And even better, the brake light actually worked when I pulled into the garage, shut off the engine, put the door down, and tapped my brake while watching the rear-view. Mission accomplished.
There are reasons we hire other people to do things we theoretically know how to do. Lack of confidence is the biggest deterrent. Am I cutting this hole in the ceiling for the fixture correctly? Am I connecting this wire to the correct OUCH no I guess not? Am I destroying my DustBuster by sucking up this ceiling dust? (Yes, you are.) We tell ourselves that these things are hard, and that it's not worth our time to try. But sometimes, it can be really satisfying to do it yourself, and not screw it up. You just have to know your limits. I tested mine today, with only a cut to show for it.
Not a bad day at all.
But other changes had to be made around the house, as well. For reasons known only to the original builder, who also remodeled the house after the previous owner (his cousin) died, there was no exhaust fan in the guest bathroom. And next weekend, two adults and two children will be using that bathroom. Something had to be done.
Other electrical problems had surfaced in recent months, er, years, as well. I was able to attack some of these problems, with mixed results. I think I did a pretty good job replacing that Ground Fault Interruptor in 1999, for instance, because the house has not burned down yet. But the floodlight by the garage? I tried to replace it with one equipped with a motion sensor. It worked great for three or four months, then suddenly stopped. Could've been a power surge. Could've been a vandal. Could've been too many cats and possums playing games with the sensor at 3 AM.
When we had the house repainted in October, November, and December of 2005, other electrical items needed to be performed in the aftermath. The walls went from a dark beige to a more cheery "eggshell cream", which was much closer to white and brightened up the house a fair amount. But all of the electrical outlets were still a dark, dull, OLD tan, like old computer monitors get when they don't age well. We replaced the covers with something closer to the paint, but the outlets themselves were still dark tan. So we have two-tone outlets in much of the house. And two-tone switches. I kind of like it that way, but potential buyers someday probably won't. And outlets and switches do fail, eventually.
A friend helped me swap the dimmer switch in the living room with the flip switch in the dining room. I'm not really sure why the builder thought that was a good idea, either. I guess the original owner wanted a sitting room, where he could adjust the lights to taste when he wanted to read, run a book club, or whatever. And he probably had no need for mood lighting at the table when he was living alone. The friend also helped change the color of some of the switches in the kitchen, which didn't go very well with the new yellow paint in there, in place of the old "Olive Garden" wallpaper. But one of the switches was a three-way, so it was left in the old color, to be replaced another day.
Over a month ago, the light over the kitchen sink decided to spontaneously drop and dangle about a foot. A screw somehow dislodged itself, and probably went down the sink drain. A few weeks ago, we had storm doors installed. For the first time, a front door on the house would open outward. But there are some dangling carriage lights hanging a bit low, and one was directly in the path of the door.
Okay, enough was enough. We needed to hire an electrician. My friends were unavailable, and some of the things we needed to have done were a little out of their league anyway.
Bev and I have a bad track record when it comes to finding handyfolks to work on the house. For instance, there's the aforementioned housepainter. There's no way that job should have taken as long as it did. The painter we hired was used to painting new construction, but not accustomed to working around furniture in a lived-in space. And of course, the final bill was much higher than the estimate, but that's been dealt with, and there are no liens to worry about. Our laminate flooring had a problem a few weeks after that installation was completed. A huge bubble formed in the front entry near the entrance to the living room. We had to have the crew come back out and put in a little strip and gap between the two rooms, and the bubble went away. Plumbers have been an adventure too, particularly with regard to the kitchen sink, the dishwasher, and a hot water line. In short, we were not looking forward to this experience.
First, we tried a church bulletin. Holy Cross off Chamblee-Tucker had a name advertised, so we called. He was supposed to come out on the evening of February 23rd to work up an estimate. He didn't show. 45 minutes after he was supposed to arrive, we called him. He claimed to have had a car accident and was "just about" to call us. We gave him the benefit of the doubt, rescheduled for Monday, and went to Florida for the weekend. Monday came, and he was waiting for us in the driveway. He looked around, said he'd work up a written estimate, and get it to us in a day or two, knowing fully well that we wanted to do the work on March 3rd (today).
Tuesday and Wednesday came and went, with no estimate. Thursday came, and nearly went. Bev called him again, and he said he'd leave it in our mailbox. Thursday, as the locals know, was the day that a huge storm system swept across the eastern US, dumping tons of snow near the Great Lakes, and spawning tornadoes in southern/Central Alabama and Georgia. While we were spared from the tornadoes, it rained all day, and my mailbox is not watertight. We now had less than 36 hours to decide if we wanted to go with this guy. We decided we'd just about had enough, and went to kudzu.com to compairson shop and see if the estimate was a good one. We called two more companies, plus someone our realtor recommended a while ago. None of them were available.
Belco was able to provide a rough estimate over the phone that was over twice the original. It sounded as though our original guy was neglecting something in the estimate. But Belco wasn't available to do the work.
So we called Mr. Sparky on Friday. They advertise heavily on the radio, so we had a feeling that this wasn't going to be cheap. We were right, but we told ourselves that we could always trim some items off the list if he didn't have time or we didn't have money. Our guests were the primary concern, both for bathroom comfort, and to impress them. Okay, 'impress' isn't the right word. 'Not disgust' is too strong. I guess we're just hoping to avoid the electrical equivalent of a mother-in-law sliding a finger across a windowsill and finding a lot of dust there. Anyone know a word for that?
The eight items we wanted to get done, in order of priority:
1. Install an exhaust fan in the guest bathroom.
2. Fix the dangling light over the kitchen sink.
3. Change the three-way switch in the kitchen.
4. Re-wire the living room so that the TV is no longer on a light switch.
5. Install a light in the crawl space, to bring it up to current code.
6. Raise the dangling lights on the front porch, or replace them with something else.
7. Diagnose the problem with the front floodlight, and repair/replace.
8. Install a brand new floodlight for the backyard, because blinding my neighbors and attracting moths is fun.
We were told that they would visit between 10 and 1. At 9, they called to let us know they were running EARLY, and would be there at 9:30. He arrived at 9:20. By 10, we had a complete estimate which was about $400 more than Belco's blind phone estimate, and could not be completed in one day.
We felt enough was enough, in a different way. Time was running short. The guests would be here on the 9th. We decided to attack items 1, 2, 3, and 6 this time, and come back to the others at some later date. The front porch was done first, with outdoor recessed lighting, after his one and only trip to Home Depot, in about an hour. The kitchen items were done about thirty minutes later. The bathroom exhaust fan took about 2.5 hours, but was a success as well. We're very pleased, and we would use them again in a heartbeat. He didn't track dirt in from the outside, and he cleaned up after himself immaculately. Thanks, Mickey! Thanks, Mr. Sparky. Total cost? A little over a grand for 1-3 and 6. $200 more than the original guy's estimate for everything. But we're pleased.
Inspired by having someone working hard around the house, Bev ran some errands she didn't really feel like doing, and I reorganized the CD collection. Our music collections have finally merged together. It's weird seeing her Celine Dion next to my Depeche Mode, but what're you going to do? "You've got your peanut butter in my chocolate!"?
Eventually, after Mickey had left, I decided I needed to tackle an electrical issue of my own. Bev noticed the other night that my right brake light wasn't working anymore. I didn't want to take it to the Saturn dealer on Thursday or Friday, but I had resolved to do something about it this weekend. I went to AutoZone, and looked up my model year in one of the many hanging booklets they have everywhere. Found the bulb number, grabbed it, paid them, and went home to install it in the garage.
There are no obvious screws on the light covers. So I opened the trunk and found them. Step 1 complete. The screws weren't flathead or Phillps, but some weird six-pointed thing. So I grabbed my other heads, found the Torx something-or-other, and removed them. Step 2 complete. I slid the cover back, and found two bulbs. One for red, one for yellow. Step 3 complete. I managed to remove the 'red' one from the housing in the cover. Step 4 complete. I looked at the bulb I needed to remove. I looked at the bulb I had just purchased. Back and forth. I looked in the manual for my car, and learned that I had indeed purchased the bulb I was supposed to. But the bulb I had to remove looked nothing like the one I had bought.
Step 5 incomplete.
In order to remove the bulb, the manual said, I need to depress the bulb, then give it a 1/8 turn counter-clockwise. I tried, but nothing happened. Several times. I even tried pulling directly out, but nothing happened, and I was afraid I would break bulb. In frustration, I tried one more 1/8 turn, and the bulb did indeed break a tiny bit and make crunching noises. I didn't notice the tiny amount of blood on my finger until later, but I knew I had a problem on my hands with the car.
Step 5, F.U.B.A.R.
So I went back to AutoZone, walked in, and announced:
I . . . AM NOT . . . SMARTER THAN A FIFTH GRADER!
Reaction was mixed, but a clerk who wasn't busy did agree to come out to the car and help me.
"Oh, it's a pop out bulb. See this serial number here?" *pop*
No, in fact, I hadn't. A magnifying glass might have helped. So would trying to do the work in sunlight, instead of the relative shade of my garage. And I did try to pull it out directly once, but I guess my thumb and forefinger weren't quite manly enough, or something.
So we went back inside and I bought a bulb my manual knew nothing about, and even got a refund for the bulbs their book and my manual agreed should have worked. One minute later, I got it in, and everything was screwed back into place. In a good way. And even better, the brake light actually worked when I pulled into the garage, shut off the engine, put the door down, and tapped my brake while watching the rear-view. Mission accomplished.
There are reasons we hire other people to do things we theoretically know how to do. Lack of confidence is the biggest deterrent. Am I cutting this hole in the ceiling for the fixture correctly? Am I connecting this wire to the correct OUCH no I guess not? Am I destroying my DustBuster by sucking up this ceiling dust? (Yes, you are.) We tell ourselves that these things are hard, and that it's not worth our time to try. But sometimes, it can be really satisfying to do it yourself, and not screw it up. You just have to know your limits. I tested mine today, with only a cut to show for it.
Not a bad day at all.