Electricity Updates

Though I should have been keeping current with the progress, I haven't so now I'm playing catch-up.

We hired a local electrician to upgrade our service from 60 to 100 amps. That portion of the work went fairly well. But the house still needed rewiring to take advantage of the upgrade.

The electrician started on one of the bedrooms, so when the baby arrived that room should have been done. Unfortunately, it wasn't, and it seemed to be taking an inordinately long time for a simple bedroom rewire.

Finally though, that room got done. We decided that the kitchen needed to be the next room done. First, since we couldn't run the microwave without fear of popping fuses or overloading the poor wires. Second, since after I tried changing a light bulb for the kitchen overhead light, the light sparked and stopped working. Here's my "fix" for that problem, to the right. And third, the refrigerator (brand new) weirdly started turning on and off. So did one of our phone's handsets. Both were plugged into the same outlet (only one of two in the kitchen).

The first day of the kitchen rewire went slow but steady, and I helped knock out some holes in the wall for new outlets. I had hoped progress would be quicker though. Since our guy only works on the weekend for us, I decided to prepare all the outlet holes required, find the right spots to drill through the basement ands walls for the wiring, and run some wire. The electrician sure was surprised when he came out next, and the kitchen and breakfast nook are just about finished! Only the lights have to be done, which is fine because I have no desire to walk in the unfloored attic (where the knobs and tubes are not logically laid out at all unlike in the basement). Especially nice that most of the kitchen's done, right before Thanksgiving.

Tool tip: the Bosch 14.4V compact/brute tough line of drills got excellent reviews from a consumer magazine, and good reviews on amazon.com as well. That's what I ended up buying, and it's done a great job at drilling through the studs/floor in the basement (which are apparently made of petrified wood).