New house part A: geek stuff.
Apr. 11th, 2005 12:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stormdogSo what's the first thing I do after seriously starting our move in at the new house? I rewired it! You'd almost think my brother Tim and I had swapped names or something...
While Andrea and I waited for our friend![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tincrash to show up on Saturday after having unloaded another truck load of boxes of random shtuff, we began work on the futon that I broke a support slat on some months ago. Looking at it closer we realized that it really wasn't my fault; the slat had a huge knot in it and a split that ran the entire length of the board. It's tough to find good lumber these days.
We bought metal reinforcing plates at Menards and, applying four of them and about thirty screws, fixed the futon. We then sat on it and promptly broke it again. The move had pushed one of the front legs off true and the stress on the front board from a weird angle broke it. Andrea ran off to Ace (a little closer) to buy corner braces while I worked on setting up all of our electronics. She also bought a couple of grounded electrical outlets; every outlet in the living room was an old ungrounded two pronger. I was in the midst of figuring out what components to put where and how to wire the mess when she got back and we fixed the futon again.
That done, I finished up with the entertainment center while Andrea straightened up. Finally I had everything connected up and she felt happy with the living room (we aren't even done moving in yet; it's going to be messy and that's ok) and we rushed over to my parent's place to shower. We returned to our house where I planned to replace the outlet and power thing up. I went into the basement, flipped off all of the circuit breakers, pulled the main panels on the buss board (yes, this house has buss fuses and circuit breakers together; rather odd I thought), and unscrewed the outlet cover.
I was met with a sight unchanged since sometime in the '20s. Not only was there no grounding wire on the old cloth insulated wiring behind the wall, but the house is old enough that there was not only no solid conduit in the wall (just armored flexi-conduit), but there was no metal wall box for the outlet; the socket was just screwed into the wooden lathe board with no way to ground it. Whee!
Tin was showing up in fifteen minutes or so, but I left Andrea there to greet him while I drove to several places that might have three conductor in-wall cable but were closed. Finally I drove out to Menards and bought 25 feet of that, a wire cutter/stripper, an extension cord for the stereo equipment, and a circuit tester.
I got home and promptly draftedtincrash, who was a very good sport about it, to help me fish wire through the wall. After some wrestling with cable, we had the line in place. I connected the wires to the socket in the living room and then twisted the basement ends onto the ends of the main circuit. I shortly realized that the wire nuts I bought were next to useless with the solid core wire I had chosen, but I managed anyway, letting the bare ground line stick out of the conduit and clamping it in between the basement junction box and the box cover. Admittedly I have no idea of it's legal for a non-licensed electrician to do that kind of work in Wisconsin, but I won't tell if you won't...
I plugged in panels, switched on breakers, and stuck my tester in the outlet. Not only were the hot and neutral wired correctly, it even had a good ground. I was so proud of myself! I swiftly got all the electronics and sound system hooked up and found that I am very pleased with the sound in the new living room. It must be acoustics; My speakers are inherited from my parents and have certainly seen some wear, but they seem to sound much better at the new place. I just need to get them up off the carpet now; that should improve bass response a bit. I think I may be geeky and post a diagram of the interconnections of my stereo system; I'm proud of it. I've got nearly everything running through my 12 band stereo graphic equalizer and it really makes a difference.
I can't wait to set up my computers next weekend; that will be even more fun. I'm very glad indeed that the outlets upstairs are already grounded though...
While Andrea and I waited for our friend
tincrash to show up on Saturday after having unloaded another truck load of boxes of random shtuff, we began work on the futon that I broke a support slat on some months ago. Looking at it closer we realized that it really wasn't my fault; the slat had a huge knot in it and a split that ran the entire length of the board. It's tough to find good lumber these days.We bought metal reinforcing plates at Menards and, applying four of them and about thirty screws, fixed the futon. We then sat on it and promptly broke it again. The move had pushed one of the front legs off true and the stress on the front board from a weird angle broke it. Andrea ran off to Ace (a little closer) to buy corner braces while I worked on setting up all of our electronics. She also bought a couple of grounded electrical outlets; every outlet in the living room was an old ungrounded two pronger. I was in the midst of figuring out what components to put where and how to wire the mess when she got back and we fixed the futon again.
That done, I finished up with the entertainment center while Andrea straightened up. Finally I had everything connected up and she felt happy with the living room (we aren't even done moving in yet; it's going to be messy and that's ok) and we rushed over to my parent's place to shower. We returned to our house where I planned to replace the outlet and power thing up. I went into the basement, flipped off all of the circuit breakers, pulled the main panels on the buss board (yes, this house has buss fuses and circuit breakers together; rather odd I thought), and unscrewed the outlet cover.
I was met with a sight unchanged since sometime in the '20s. Not only was there no grounding wire on the old cloth insulated wiring behind the wall, but the house is old enough that there was not only no solid conduit in the wall (just armored flexi-conduit), but there was no metal wall box for the outlet; the socket was just screwed into the wooden lathe board with no way to ground it. Whee!
Tin was showing up in fifteen minutes or so, but I left Andrea there to greet him while I drove to several places that might have three conductor in-wall cable but were closed. Finally I drove out to Menards and bought 25 feet of that, a wire cutter/stripper, an extension cord for the stereo equipment, and a circuit tester.
I got home and promptly drafted
tincrash, who was a very good sport about it, to help me fish wire through the wall. After some wrestling with cable, we had the line in place. I connected the wires to the socket in the living room and then twisted the basement ends onto the ends of the main circuit. I shortly realized that the wire nuts I bought were next to useless with the solid core wire I had chosen, but I managed anyway, letting the bare ground line stick out of the conduit and clamping it in between the basement junction box and the box cover. Admittedly I have no idea of it's legal for a non-licensed electrician to do that kind of work in Wisconsin, but I won't tell if you won't...I plugged in panels, switched on breakers, and stuck my tester in the outlet. Not only were the hot and neutral wired correctly, it even had a good ground. I was so proud of myself! I swiftly got all the electronics and sound system hooked up and found that I am very pleased with the sound in the new living room. It must be acoustics; My speakers are inherited from my parents and have certainly seen some wear, but they seem to sound much better at the new place. I just need to get them up off the carpet now; that should improve bass response a bit. I think I may be geeky and post a diagram of the interconnections of my stereo system; I'm proud of it. I've got nearly everything running through my 12 band stereo graphic equalizer and it really makes a difference.
I can't wait to set up my computers next weekend; that will be even more fun. I'm very glad indeed that the outlets upstairs are already grounded though...
