The Front Porch Swing

[Alice28]

what general area are you located Alice?

deb

I'm in northern Humboldt county about an hour and a half from the oregon border on the coast. To bad you don't live closer Deb, my husbands an electrician! He could rewire your kitchen. He took that picture working in Trinidad. Tiny town, but cute and beautiful location.

 

[perchie.girl]

Quote:
Oh Yeah.... pretty pretty country...

Its not just the kitchen the whole house needs to be circuit tested and re grounded.... The original owners built it them selves without permitts. I have two breaker boxes.... One that came with the original tin sized Mobile home that the house was built around and one that was added when they needed external lighting and Pump power... Unfortunately even if one breaker box is off some of the outlets are still Kinda live.... baddd .... I have to turn both breaker boxes off to be certain everything is off.

I did have an electrician out to fix an issue with my power pole... Yep there is a circuit breaker there... and he asked me If I had a house hooked up to the pole. I said.... um... yess.... He chirped up... WELL your service line is only big enough for your well.... NOT a whole house. so since they were messing with my pole I told him to fix that... Whew.

When I mentioned I had some issues with the booster pump up at the house He asked to see the breaker box. the only way to turn the booster pump on was to flip the breaker on. and you had to hold the breaker on till the pump did its major draw on electricity. ONce up and running it mostly will stay on. So he looked at it and told me the breaker was worn out. He fished in my truck and grabbed me a replacement. Then he did a quick test and told me the house was NOT grounded.

I said W.T.F? He said it was grounded somewhat through the power lines that come from the power pole... But it was not a goood or reliable ground. He said first thing should be done is drive a grounding rod here at the house and hook it up properly. I showed him the power lines that serve the house. they come under ground through conduit from th epower pole to the house.... a good thousand feet... And they are aluminum... I was worried that he would say that all should go. but no he said they are hooked up properly.

Whew.

Ihave one room that has no power the living room and the diningroom. outlets began to die one at a time. So I suspect we will have to do surgery to find the wiring or just re wire them.

The kitchen needs to be gutted any way. Down to the studs. I have one wall that has evidence of a flood a very long time ago. Black mold behind the stove.... WEt wall. Water heater is on the other side.

Eventually I would like all the exterior lights to work. on motion detectors. and to be able to flip a switch without worrying I would be killing my refrigerator...

His thumbnail estimate was about five grand... I am sure that is about half what it will cost eventually. I wont hold him to it.

deb

 

[Alice28]

Oh man! Five grad isn't bad though. My husband just went to a house that sounds kind of similar and the estaminet was 20 grand! It sounded like the guy had just bought the house too. Plus before they could do anything the guy had to get all the bats living in the attic out. I guess the guy was pretty upset. He's doing side work fixing up a house for another guy, same story, he just bought the house, the house never should have passed inspection. But my husband is doing it on the side, so that saves the guy about $35 an hour. It's a father of a friend.

 

[perchie.girl]

Oh man! Five grad isn't bad though. My husband just went to a house that sounds kind of similar and the estaminet was 20 grand! It sounded like the guy had just bought the house too. Plus before they could do anything the guy had to get all the bats living in the attic out. I guess the guy was pretty upset. He's doing side work fixing up a house for another guy, same story, he just bought the house, the house never should have passed inspection. But my husband is doing it on the side, so that saves the guy about $35 an hour. It's a father of a friend.

I suspect that five grand would only be for the electrical work. any demo or patching would be up to me unless I hired them to do the whole thing.... I am good at demo... just tell me what to take out and I can do it with a minimum of damage.... Just a one story one bed one bath it started out as a one bed mobile home complete with wheels... they built a house over the top of it.

I would only want it to be inspect-able... not necessarily inspected the house was just "built"... Matter of fact I only bought land when I bought the place.... I only want it safe and functional. My electric guy knows this.

I suspect it would cost me about a hundred grand to bring the house up to code... I have considered this but its not necessary for me. unless I wanted to recoupe any investment... The place is paid for... so I am good to go.

deb

deb

 

[dpenning]

Quote: I'll do a bunch of home improvement stuff myself but electrical scares the bajeebies out of me. I would prefer you are able to flip a switch without killing YOU!

 

[Alice28]

I'll do a bunch of  home improvement stuff myself but electrical scares the bajeebies out of me.  I would prefer you are able to flip a switch without killing YOU!

Oh man, don't do electrical stuff yourself! My husband went to do an emergency job on a Sunday at a friends house (my husband is very popular

lol) the lights in half the house were out and the plugs were overloaded! The house could have burnt down. It's one of those things people think is easy and simple and it's not. I'm scared of electrical stuff too! Shoot, I'm scared watching my husband add plugs and put up lights and he's an electrician and a good one with a good reputation and it still freaks me out. Poor man, he needs a nicer wife!

 

[perchie.girl]

Quote:
I only know enough to change an outlet or fixture.... and to always assume the wires are HOT. But Both sets of breakers go off no matter what I do.

I most definitely want to have a licensed electrician to do the work. The fellow that gave me the thumbnail estimate is working for one of the oldest Electrical contracting company in San diego. Their quote for fixing my rotted off power pole was the most competitive of the ones I had called. I just need the work done right....

deb

 

[Blooie]

Ken is also a professional electrician. He was the Electrical officer on board the battleship USS Wisconsin and the carrier USS Constellation. He helped write the Navy's newer electrician's textbooks, then worked for a electrical company when he first retired. He's flat out good! Around here electricians want the big jobs - remodels, new construction, etc - and good electricians are hard to find. So when somebody just needs a new outlet put in or lights or appliances wired they call him. Most of the time he donates his time and has the people who want his services buy the materials. He tells them up front, "Don't ask for shortcuts - if it's not up to code I'm not doing it, period." We have a lot of shut ins and elderly here and he never charges the anything.

But he drives me crazy when he works power live. He says he had to learn to do it that way because when a ship is out to sea you can't shut down power to systems to fix them. So as long as he has his leather gloves he works live whenever he can. If we ever build our house, nobody will touch the electrical but Ken. So why can't I get him to put a light bulb in the hallway?

 

[perchie.girl]

Quote:
When I bought my last house it was fifty years old.... lath and plaster. when ever i plugged in the vacuum cleaner the TV would go out.... I would smell electical wiring scorch. So I stopped using that wall till I figured it out.

So I had to move the couch during a nesting moment..... I moved the couch and turned the breaker off and unscrewed the outlet.... it had obvious char marks. Baad sign. I pulled it out from the box and found that the box was phenolic.... VERY OLD electrical box. and while the outlet was a three prong plug outlet there was NO ground wire in the box... I pulled a little furhter and the wires litterally pulled out of the outlet. There was old paint on it.... The previous owner was a contractor.... None of the outlets in the house had ground wires... I imagine he did the swap out so peo9ple could use three prong plug appliances.

So in order to match what ever code the house was built with I had to go and find two prong outlets for every outlet in the house. After I changed out the outlets I had no problems. I made sure I didn't overload the circuits either....

More than half of them were in the same condition. Thankfully he had grounded the wet wall and put in GFI any where there was water.
So I ran the Vacuum cleaner from the outlet either in the kitchen or the bathroom.

Thankfully the fellow that bought that house from me was a contractor himself. He flipped it for his family taking it down to the studs mostly and rewired it and put in a master bed and bath and laundry room.... sigh.

deb

 

[Alice28]

Blooie, Ken and Sam would have so much to talk about! It sounds like he would have some crazy stories.