Electricity is fun!
posted by Tom at 7:38 PM
My parents are visiting for the weekend and my dad is practically a Master Electrician so I decided to put him to work. We spent all day in the basement checking out all the interesting ways people decide to move electricity from one place to another. Let me tell you, people have some strange ideas.
Our house was built in 1959. The wiring is old, but sound. I know most people probably haven't seen a main panel before, but ours uses fuses instead of breakers. It looks ancient.
It looks much worse right now with the panel cover off. All those satellite panels are add-ons that control various add-on circuits that wouldn't fit in the main panel. People's interesting ways of moving electricity. We actually had to search for an insurance agency that would cover this. But it all works pretty well.
Our whole purpose for this study in wiring was to install a switch to control the three lights in the utility area of the basement. We started at about noon and ended somewhere around 10:30pm. We found and rerouted three different circuits. We installed a grounded outlet for the washer, an outlet for our "beer fridge" and our deep freeze and then half the outlets and light switches for our newly painted living room. I started tracing the circuits to see which fuse controlled what. It was quite the game of hide and go seek with all the new additions people have put in over the years. We found and corrected two circuits that not only went into one box, but were run through one 220v wire! We also made our obligatory three runs to Menards and one run to the Wal-Mart.
As an added bonus, my dad gave a hands-on safety demonstration! Make sure the hand that might get the shock is grounded so the DEADLY POWER doesn't have a path across your body. He knows what he's doing, so he's quite ok. But I am going to say main panels are dangerous and screwdrivers melt sometimes.
The final result?
Our house was built in 1959. The wiring is old, but sound. I know most people probably haven't seen a main panel before, but ours uses fuses instead of breakers. It looks ancient.
It looks much worse right now with the panel cover off. All those satellite panels are add-ons that control various add-on circuits that wouldn't fit in the main panel. People's interesting ways of moving electricity. We actually had to search for an insurance agency that would cover this. But it all works pretty well.
Our whole purpose for this study in wiring was to install a switch to control the three lights in the utility area of the basement. We started at about noon and ended somewhere around 10:30pm. We found and rerouted three different circuits. We installed a grounded outlet for the washer, an outlet for our "beer fridge" and our deep freeze and then half the outlets and light switches for our newly painted living room. I started tracing the circuits to see which fuse controlled what. It was quite the game of hide and go seek with all the new additions people have put in over the years. We found and corrected two circuits that not only went into one box, but were run through one 220v wire! We also made our obligatory three runs to Menards and one run to the Wal-Mart.
As an added bonus, my dad gave a hands-on safety demonstration! Make sure the hand that might get the shock is grounded so the DEADLY POWER doesn't have a path across your body. He knows what he's doing, so he's quite ok. But I am going to say main panels are dangerous and screwdrivers melt sometimes.
The final result?
Labels: homeimprovement
1 Comments:
Ancient? Ya think THAT wiring is ancient???
Take a look at this....
http://www.oldhousegazette.com/house/8.php
:p Now THAT is ancient. ROFL! Electricity is fun.
Post a Comment
<< Home