Sparky fun
Visits from tradesmen are always interesting, in the Chinese curse sense. Today's electrician's visit was rather information dense so I thought it best to record it here. And, you know, complain a little.
First of all I bypassed the whole getting quotes business and went straight to Alinta Assist. I don't care if they're not the cheapest - I've tried cheap and it's just not worth the trouble. These guys operate to the letter of the law, and that doesn't bother me one bit. (Although now I'm wondering if the last guy did something he shouldn't have, in the spirit of helpfulness.)
The booking was easily made just yesterday - the lass on the phone seemed to understand what the job was all about, and I got an appointment for the following day, albeit at the usual hang-about time of 12-4pm, with 30 minute warning phone call.
The job as I understood it was thus:
1. Replace lounge light fitting with fan/light combination - will need additional wiring for fan control.
2. Install ex-lounge oyster light fitting in entry hall. Say goodbye to The World's Ugliest Light Fitting forever. (TWULF soon to appear on eBay as "Classic vintage 1970's design masterpiece").
3. Investigate failure of all three outdoor lights.
4. Replace front door light fitting.
5. Replace side porch light fitting.
Labour only, all hardware supplied.
This is not what happened.
The day began with a call at 8:00am from the supervisor asking me what kind of ceiling fan I had in mind. Did it have a heater? No, I replied, it's in the loungeroom nt the bathroom, and again explained that extra wiring would be required for the fan control. "That's great," he said. "What colour do you want?"
Eh? Somewhat puzzled I said that it was white, and that it came with all fittings so they wouldn't need to match anything. "Eh?" he responded, sounding equally puzzled (don't you love those kind of conversations?) A great light dawned (appropriately) and I explained/repeated that we had all the hardware. His "Eh?" turned into an "Ah!" and all was well. I thought.
Fast forward to just after 12pm and I thought to open a book on Facebook for people to guess the actual arrival time. At 12:09pm the electrician arrived, unheralded. He apologised for the lack of warning, but head office had failed to give him my number. Oh well, at least I was home, although I hadn't had a chance to lay everything out.
To the meter box. We were missing a safety switch for the lights, he said. I know, I said. The last sparky said we'd need to install one before we could sell the house, but that it wasn't urgent. It turns out that he last sparky was wrong in a number of different ways. The first problem this threw up was that today's sparky couldn't do any work that involved wiring changes until the switch had been upgraded. Consequence: the lounge has no fan, and the entry hall still sports TWULF.
To the fault-finding. The most likely candidate for a failed outdoor light was a blocked gutter, but this was not the case - there's a design flaw in Sector 7's roof that caused a backwash. This surprises me not one little bit, as we've had to do a lot of work on the roof over the years.. It seems that the light by the front door was (a) full of water, and (b) not earthed. This was discovered when Mr Sparky unscrewed the fitting and released a torrent of water, some of which found him. Good thing he was already a bit damp from the weather.
He suggested relocating the front light to the vertical and I agreed. At least there it would be safe from the rain. It's not quite reassembled, because when the nice lady at the light shop said that the globes were included, she lied. And of course we had no compatible globes in the cupboard, nor were there any in the truck. And were there any at the supermarket I went to this evening? No, of course not. I'm assured that the fitting does indeed work but I won't know for sure until tomorrow.
I'm annoyed about this non-trivial safety issue (the words "death trap" and "fire hazard" were mentioned), because the house wiring had been cleared in multiple previous paranoia-inspired electrical safety checks. I have this Thing, you see, about electrical fires. Sometimes paranoia is appropriate.
Just for a bit of variety it seems that the second and much newer front light had failed not because of water but because its frighteningly small and pissy-looking transformer was overloaded. Looks like the fitting was sold to us with overrated globes, and as required we simply replaced them with the same. It lasted a couple of years, but eventually it said no more. This was fixed by installing a more grunty transformer in the roof space, well out of reach of any water that might find it. The sparky also suggested moving this fitting to the wall rather than the ceiling, but I was just too tired to agree. The replacement transformer was actually free - it was second hand but removed after only 3 months of service in the sparky's BIL's house. I was happy to give it a home. He also offered to drill a hole in the gutter, but I'm not sure if that happened in the end.
Finally, the third outdoor light was rather more straightforward. Granted it was also not earthed, but at least it wasn't full of water. It's now been replaced by a 2 globe spotlight affair which may or may not be blinding the neighbours right now. I'll have to get out there in daylight with a screwdriver to correct this.
So all this cost just $200 or so, but I have a quote to correct the safety switch (which means the replacement of most of the meter box), complete the fan installation and changeovers that couldn't be done today, and get mains-powered smoke alarms put in (guarranteed to not go off due to cooking). This quote: $1200. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
I couldn't quite bring myself to make the booking today. Tomorrow is another day.
First of all I bypassed the whole getting quotes business and went straight to Alinta Assist. I don't care if they're not the cheapest - I've tried cheap and it's just not worth the trouble. These guys operate to the letter of the law, and that doesn't bother me one bit. (Although now I'm wondering if the last guy did something he shouldn't have, in the spirit of helpfulness.)
The booking was easily made just yesterday - the lass on the phone seemed to understand what the job was all about, and I got an appointment for the following day, albeit at the usual hang-about time of 12-4pm, with 30 minute warning phone call.
The job as I understood it was thus:
1. Replace lounge light fitting with fan/light combination - will need additional wiring for fan control.
2. Install ex-lounge oyster light fitting in entry hall. Say goodbye to The World's Ugliest Light Fitting forever. (TWULF soon to appear on eBay as "Classic vintage 1970's design masterpiece").
3. Investigate failure of all three outdoor lights.
4. Replace front door light fitting.
5. Replace side porch light fitting.
Labour only, all hardware supplied.
This is not what happened.
The day began with a call at 8:00am from the supervisor asking me what kind of ceiling fan I had in mind. Did it have a heater? No, I replied, it's in the loungeroom nt the bathroom, and again explained that extra wiring would be required for the fan control. "That's great," he said. "What colour do you want?"
Eh? Somewhat puzzled I said that it was white, and that it came with all fittings so they wouldn't need to match anything. "Eh?" he responded, sounding equally puzzled (don't you love those kind of conversations?) A great light dawned (appropriately) and I explained/repeated that we had all the hardware. His "Eh?" turned into an "Ah!" and all was well. I thought.
Fast forward to just after 12pm and I thought to open a book on Facebook for people to guess the actual arrival time. At 12:09pm the electrician arrived, unheralded. He apologised for the lack of warning, but head office had failed to give him my number. Oh well, at least I was home, although I hadn't had a chance to lay everything out.
To the meter box. We were missing a safety switch for the lights, he said. I know, I said. The last sparky said we'd need to install one before we could sell the house, but that it wasn't urgent. It turns out that he last sparky was wrong in a number of different ways. The first problem this threw up was that today's sparky couldn't do any work that involved wiring changes until the switch had been upgraded. Consequence: the lounge has no fan, and the entry hall still sports TWULF.
To the fault-finding. The most likely candidate for a failed outdoor light was a blocked gutter, but this was not the case - there's a design flaw in Sector 7's roof that caused a backwash. This surprises me not one little bit, as we've had to do a lot of work on the roof over the years.. It seems that the light by the front door was (a) full of water, and (b) not earthed. This was discovered when Mr Sparky unscrewed the fitting and released a torrent of water, some of which found him. Good thing he was already a bit damp from the weather.
He suggested relocating the front light to the vertical and I agreed. At least there it would be safe from the rain. It's not quite reassembled, because when the nice lady at the light shop said that the globes were included, she lied. And of course we had no compatible globes in the cupboard, nor were there any in the truck. And were there any at the supermarket I went to this evening? No, of course not. I'm assured that the fitting does indeed work but I won't know for sure until tomorrow.
I'm annoyed about this non-trivial safety issue (the words "death trap" and "fire hazard" were mentioned), because the house wiring had been cleared in multiple previous paranoia-inspired electrical safety checks. I have this Thing, you see, about electrical fires. Sometimes paranoia is appropriate.
Just for a bit of variety it seems that the second and much newer front light had failed not because of water but because its frighteningly small and pissy-looking transformer was overloaded. Looks like the fitting was sold to us with overrated globes, and as required we simply replaced them with the same. It lasted a couple of years, but eventually it said no more. This was fixed by installing a more grunty transformer in the roof space, well out of reach of any water that might find it. The sparky also suggested moving this fitting to the wall rather than the ceiling, but I was just too tired to agree. The replacement transformer was actually free - it was second hand but removed after only 3 months of service in the sparky's BIL's house. I was happy to give it a home. He also offered to drill a hole in the gutter, but I'm not sure if that happened in the end.
Finally, the third outdoor light was rather more straightforward. Granted it was also not earthed, but at least it wasn't full of water. It's now been replaced by a 2 globe spotlight affair which may or may not be blinding the neighbours right now. I'll have to get out there in daylight with a screwdriver to correct this.
So all this cost just $200 or so, but I have a quote to correct the safety switch (which means the replacement of most of the meter box), complete the fan installation and changeovers that couldn't be done today, and get mains-powered smoke alarms put in (guarranteed to not go off due to cooking). This quote: $1200. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
I couldn't quite bring myself to make the booking today. Tomorrow is another day.