Miracle Electric

Working in the house has come to a complete halt. Last week we had a conference in Vail and this week the electricians finally had some time for our little projects. Things actually look worse than they ever had, but I have faith that the house will be beautiful when it is finished. Probably not before I lose my mind, but at some future point...

The electrical work is probably the only project that I am not comfortable doing myself. A lot of what they are doing is putting in new outlets and some lighting, but I also asked to make sure that the old knob and tube wiring was removed, and any safety issues addressed. Although the old owners has put some work into the electricity, not much of it made sense. We had outlets in the closet, porch lights in the bedroom, and many extra switches that as far as we can tell went to nothing. The biggest problem in the house is the absence of outlets. With all the appliances and electronics in use today, a lot more outlets are required for the modern man. Since the exterior wall is brick with a layer of plaster over it, it is virtually impossible to put any outlets on those walls. We opted for a few floor outlets, since we didn't want to drag extension cords across the rooms or overload the existing outlet in each room.

It was also recommended that we just remove the old baseboards and replace them. Although that is not the most cost efficient way of doing things, now that we have secured a miter saw, it does appear more intriguing to me every day. Surely it is better than trying to strip all the wood work, which is most likely not even the original. Today I will head over to the Home Depot and try to get some costs on that project.

It's Electric! Boogie woogie woogie woogie...

The only thing that scared me about buying this house was the presence of old knob and tube wiring from the roaring twenties. When I got the inspection, everything went well, but the inspector suggested removing the remaining wiring, even though the house has a modern breaker box and mostly new wiring coming from it.

I called a "Tom Martino" electrician and had them look at the house. I won't discuss dollars here, but the estimate would have put a halt in all future remodeling plans. I was crushed. So I called for other estimates.

It turns out, the problem wasn't nearly as bad as the first electrician wanted us to believe. At the closing I found out that the previous owners had done some work to the electricity, but they used an electrical engineer friend. The wiring was probably not dangerous, but was not done like a electrician would do. Thus the outlets in the closets and the porch light switch in the spare bedroom. The smaller family company and a independent contractor both agreed that the wiring was almost completely updated and only a few safety problems should be addressed. I decided to go with the family owned company, because they said they could come and ground the important outlets, add some more outlets, put switches in logical places, and remove all the old wiring for the least amount of time and cost to me. Fantastic! Though I must say that I hate being at someone else's mercy.