Adventures in Electricity

Sunday, Ian came over and we set about having adventures in homeowner electricity. There were a bunch of things I wanted to get done, and I know that they were simple enough tasks, but I just didn't have the confidence to tackle them myself.
There aren't a lot of pictures, because I was busy learning, helping and doing. But this one makes me happy.

This is the new GFCI outlet in the kitchen. The one that was there would trip when I'd turn off the light over the kitchen sink. When we pulled the old one out to look at what was going on, we discovered some questionable wiring practices, and also that the outlet was a little older than I'd have liked. We re-did the wiring and replaced the outlet. I LOVE the little indicator light. It turns red if it trips. So far, no tripping!
We fixed the outlet in the den that got smashed to smithereens when a large picture fell off the wall. That was uneventful. We ran a line down from the second floor that will eventually go to a roof vent fan - also, relatively uneventful. We also ran a line over to the scary corner of the basement, which was a bit more eventful and frustrating than it should have been, but in the end we overcame, and now I have 4 working outlets - 1 for the LED strip light and 3 for tools and/or a dehumidifier.
It was a long day, I learned a lot, and now I'm a little more comfortable fixing outlets and switches. Many thanks for Ian for holding my hand through it.

Moving on.

I have talked to a few landscapers, and most of them deal with poison ivy infestations with the liberal use of chemicals.
Since my well is right in my front yard, I want to use as few hazardous chemicals as possible, so this isn't going to work.
I was in Home Depot last night, and may have found an answer though!

Sure, I'll cook, but at least I won't itch.

I've been trying to get away from disposable goods because filling landfills and oceans with our garbage is bad, but in this case, I'm making an exception.


Last night I wandered around upstairs and tried to force the sack of prednasone ferrets living in my brain to pay attention and make sense of the hardware and electricity situation.
A lot of doors were reconfigured on the front (oldest) part of the house. There's Norfolk latches on a few bedroom and closet doors that look identical to this example (taken from an Ebay auction out of Maine).

Eventually they will all be stripped of their generations of paint and look like this.

On those doors, there's lift off hinges that look a lot like these examples from Horton Brasses. At least, this is what I imagine they look like, under the paint. I haven't attempted to get any of these off to strip. On the doors with the lift off hinges, but no Norfolk latch, there's often a turnbuckle latch that looks an awful lot like this:

But in my case, covered in layers of paint.

In some cases, the turnbuckle has been replaces with a little Victorian spring assisted catch. Eventually, I'd like to get all the ones with evidence of a turnbuckle back to that - they are lower profile than the Victorian catches, and make more sense with the Norfolk latches and iron lift-off hinges.

I looked and looked at the wires, and have come to the conclusion that there's probably 2 electrical feeds to the second floor - a white cable that services the master bedroom, and a big thick black cable that services the rest of the rooms. I'm hesitant to start working on the rooms, because I'd really like the snake wires for switches, even if I leave the original pull chain fixtures where they are for now. I think that's going to take some more reading and noodling around in my head.
Probably best left to dealing with post-prednisone.

Energy Audit Day

Yesterday was Energy Audit Day! It was kind of a bust.

I got some free LED light bulbs, a power strip, and a programmable thermostat for my time.
I was hoping for rebates to help with the very small pretty old fridge and the very old range.
Neither item qualified for anything.
I did qualify for a rebate on updating the furnace that is only a few years old, and the hot water tank that only about a year old, though! It all boiled down to how many kilowatt hours things use. Since small fridge is small; it uses about the same hours as a new normal size fridge, so they won't help me replace it. It's "efficient" because of it's size, not it's age. They don't even care about ranges, apparently. The furnace and hot water tank incentives are to jump to more efficient devices - heat pumps and the like.
Energy Guy Nick tested the furnace for CO2 and carbon monoxide, and it was well in the safety ranges. I did confirm that there is 0 insulation in the walls, and only about 6" of insulation in the roof. MassSave likes to see about 12". The cost to me after they do it was quite tolerable, and something I'm likely to do. They also wanted to see insulation on the rim joists, but with all the sill issues, that's not something I'm going to do.
What Nick did find that needs to be dealt with quite soon is mold in the attic. This didn't turn up on my home inspection, (there was staining, but it wasn't active then). MassSave won't put in insulation until it's cleaned up. This was pretty unexpected. Two quotes are being collected next Wednesday. I have no idea how much something like this is going to cost.

Pole Switches and a Space Age Basement

The neat thing about this house is that I can do projects when the time presents it's self or the whim strikes. Last night I wandered around putting foam insulation gaskets behind light switches. I took the plate off the pole switch upstairs, took a picture, and will add it to the list of things Electrician Wayne can address the next time I feel like bankrolling his electrical Honey-Do list.*

I think this should probably be updated.

The nice thing is that you can get modern reproduction pole switches that look the same, but are probably a heck of a lot safer.
"Why have Wayne do it?" you ask. "It's just a switch, and that's easy enough to swap out." It's true. And if this was a regular old light switch, I might be tempted to watch half a dozen YouTube videos, read a book about it, throw the breaker and give it a go. I still might do that for a switch in the kitchen. But in this case, I have no idea what the condition of the wires are behind it. If things start crumbling to dust, or something is super wrong once I get in there... well, I'd have to call Wayne anyway, and he's a busy guy.
I've put the plate back over it and walked away for now.

I insulated the basement door too. I'd picked up a roll of this fun silver bubble wrap and just stapled it to the back of the door that goes up to the bulkhead. I may still pick up a piece of board insulation and screw it on over the back, but for now? Shiny.

The staple gun was a good investment 10 years ago.

I'm not holding my breath for epic energy savings from this blanket and the little foam gaskets, but every little bit helps. The oil tank is at around 5/8ths, but I'm still doing anything I can to slow it's roll. I signed up for automatic fill from the folks that have been servicing the system for the previous owner.
Speaking of furnace systems and chimneys, I've discovered the ash out door is only held on with tape, and there's some concerning cracks that ought to be dealt with. Onward, to masonry! (Eventually)

Hrmm. No bueno.

The more I putter in circles, the more things I notice. Which is fine, it all just gets added to the list.





*Addition - Fun thing I figured out while insulating outlets is that "Bedroom 1" (the funny little room that's hiding behind the stair landing) has no electrical outlets. It won't even function as an office right now. That has to be changed, or it really is just a glorified closet.

More on electrical

Wayne was here on Friday (1/4). The drops have been made for the radon system, the furnace wire has been rerouted, the well pump has been given it's own line, the water heater has the correctly weighted wire to it now, the master bedroom outlets have been fixed, and he even gave me a new light at the foot of the basement stairs. It's not exciting for anyone but me, I know.

Well pump has a switch now! And it's own circuit!

Outlet waiting for a radon system.

Fancy new wire to the hot water heater.

Exciting electricity

One of the first things I knew I was going to have to do, upon taking the very first tour, was update the electric service. This is what was there:

Not the worst I've seen, but sketchy.

Inspector Guy Bill wouldn't even open the furthest panel to the right. Wouldn't even touch it. But he knew that my price reflected it's replacement.
After very minor consideration, I decided to jump it up from the 60 amp service it had to a 200 amp service. I finally found an electrician in Wayne, who'd done the service update for my former landlords, Dick and Jane Perkins. Wrangling the time and everyone into the right place took some effort, as an engineer had to get involved. But by early January, I had this shiny new beauty in the basement.

So pretty and new.

It's so nice to plug in my vacuum and not have the whole house dim now!