This INCLUDES the electrical! Let me add this DISCLAIMER......MY HUSBAND IS NOT AN ELECTRICIAN!!!! I AM NOT AN ELECTRICIAN!!!! He works doing concrete work, building forms, etc to build foundations for houses, etc. (Something else this house is REALLY lacking...a foundation!) It scares me sometimes to go down to the "basement" and see what little is holding up this house!
Anyways, back to our DIY electrical project. The electrical box on this house, is located outside, and although there are SEVERAL breakers in it, all the electric in the house was running to 2, yes TWO breakers! One for the dryer, and one for the REST OF THE HOUSE!!!! This meant that if the furnace was on, and we turned on the microwave, we blew the breaker! Trips out into the snow to reset it were getting REALLY old, REALLY fast!
So, we bought some more wiring and were going to add some more wiring to the existing, unused breakers, to keep this from happening anymore. The conduit on the house for the electrical wasn't too big, but it was big enough that we were able to pull and feed through some new wiring to hook up the new breakers. Now, I don't know much about electrical, in fact, I do know that I don't want to mess with it at all if I don't have to. It's dangerous if you DO know what you are doing. It's even more, if you don't! Let me add, that this house does NOT have a main SHUT-OFF for the power. Yes, that's right. NO MAIN SHUT OFF! Surely, that would make the house not up to code, right? Again, OLD HOUSE!
So anyways, this is where the hilarity of all of this starts! (Is that an actual word?) My husband got the idea that in order to get the new wiring thru the conduit along with the exising wiring that was going to other breakers, one of us would have to push while the other pulled. But obviously something needed to be attached to the end of the wiring to pull it through. So he started looking for some ROPE that he could attach to the end. He found a LASSO (yes, you read that right) and taped it with electrical tape to the end of the new wiring and proceeded to feed/pull it through. It was a LONG process that I was getting tired of being a part of (especially since the FedEx man showed up with my new table saw during the process and I would have rather been playing with that). Needless to say, we have lots more wiring now going to several more breakers. Not sure Bob Vila would have done it this way, but we got it done!
Oh yeah, and of course...I got my camera out to take pics of this hideous LASSO/wire hook-up protruding out of the conduit, and VOILA! My batteries were DEAD! =(
I hope you at least got a chuckle out of this....we got a few. =)
5 comments:
what a cute house!
wow, you guys are brave! i am the biggest chicken when it comes to electricity. i'm nervous even when the power is shut off. way to go!
Ah, I feel your pain. After a little, um, "incident" my husband is no longer allowed to tinker with our electrical. I say that like he actually listens to that rule but, I assure you, he does not!
By the way, the front of your house is BEAUTIFUL.
Kelly
I LOVE your house! But that said yes be careful with that electrical.
as far as that chimney went, you just have to be really sure that what is above you is secured Where it goes and what not. The top outside portion of ours had been removed, well who really knows when exactly....
Either way if you take it out, you will have to do some major framing to hold the weight of the chimney above, if it is still intact... and you might want to get a few other opinions! GOOD Luck! (I saw it in the kitchen post below)
What a super gorgeous house you have!
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