SLIGHT progress on the basement

Posted on April 17, 2012 by littletractorguy
Well, I wound up hanging out down in the proto-mancave Saturday night ’cause LTGal’s laptop hard drive packed and I had to clear off my spare external to restore her backups to, so I had a fair bit of time to ponder the wiring question… And I figured, well, I could probably relocate all the wiring for my man cave on my own… Just moving a switch and pushing two light fixtures back a joist or two… Yeah… I can DO that! So, I suggested it to LTGal, and we made a stop at RONA Sunday  afternoon to pick up the light fixtures she wanted to swap around…

So, off came the panelling where the existing switch was, then nailed down where all my tools were that I needed BEFORE I turned off the breaker… Off with the breaker.. Disconnect the first fixture and pull the wiring back… Well, while I’m doing that, might as well take the rest of the strapping that the wiring was hooked to down, DOH can’t find the wrecking bar in the dark! Finally find it in the bin-o-many tools, 20 minutes beating up on some old strapping. Well, then, you know, I wanna do this move right, so I should really run the wiring through the joists, not surface mounted on the joists like it WAS. So I pull out the big drill and the 1″ spade bit and drill 7 new holes… DANG this old growth Douglas Fir they built my house outta is HARD… Mount the boxes, re-run the wire, break for supper… LTGal says, are you ready to go live yet? Anything you need help with? Well, she COULD pull down the fixture outta the laundry room that she wants me to swap into my space… Okay… Then she comes to help me put up the fixtures, ’cause she’s better on ladders than I am… DOH, I mounted the boxes recessed, and the fixtures require them to be out a half an inch… Down come the boxes, find two other octagonals that have the mount points appropriate for these fixtures… Up go the new boxes… Good thing I wrote down how the wiring went by this point… Just staple up the wire to where I gotta feed the switch down through the wall, we’re gonna leave that for another day, ’cause the two of us AND LTBabe working on electrical is a lotta work…

Took Tuesday morning off work to pull the paneling off the wall, run the switch wire to its spot, mount the box, put the switch in the box, tuck-tape the vapor barrier, cut the hole in the paneling, put the paneling back up, discover that I’m an idiot because the switch should go OUTSIDE the paneling before screwing it into the box, cut the hole bigger so I can get the switch out through it, re-screw the switch onto the box, then finally put the plate back on.

Yes,  it took me the whole morning! I would be one DANG expensive electrician, if I were charging myself! 

(I DID have to tidy so that I’d have enough room to actually work).

And the REAL electrician is showing up at 8 tomorrow morning! Yay! Guess I coulda saved this for him… But, saved a bit of money, got to have some good family electrocution time, there ya go!

Anyways, some pix!

My quarry!

Where it’s SUPPOSED to be!

Naked electrical!

The old fixture on its way down… Notice the box mounted on the surface of the joist, and the wire running along the surface of the joist…

A pic of the wiring, for future reference when I go to hook it back up

Voila! The new fixtures up…

And lookit the NICE holes somebody drilled!

The box mounted, the vapor barrier all nicely tuck-taped, I EVEN got one of those nice hoodie pieces they say to put around your boxes so that it ties into the vapor barrier nicely!

The switch mounted… Just kinda wrong…

Et, tut FINI! Notice, I lined up the screws horizontally on the plate. I hear real electricians are particular about that…

Time to put in some more light bulbs, then have a rum break!
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2 Responses to SLIGHT progress on the basement

  1. LAT says:
    April 19, 2012 at 1:34 pm

    Impressive! Playing with anything electrical scares the living snot out of me. I am a good helper as long as I can avert my eyes and just quietly be prepared to call 911. 😛 Even when a licensed electrician is doing it. Electricity is the DEVIL I tells ya!

    Reply
    • littletractorguy says:
      April 19, 2012 at 2:41 pm

      Well, the electrician came in and looked at what we had for him to do, and said “Geez, you two could probably do that yourselves!”. I said, in the spirit of total honesty, “Well, there’s been some creative wiring done in here in the past, and if someone’s going to get electrocuted, I’d rather it was someone else!”

      Reply

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