New House Blog: Episode XXXVII - More Water And Electricity

This Episode deals with both planned and unplanned repair work in and around the New House, and it also deals with updating our continuing feature, Back Yard Archaeology.  But first an update on our small garden.  We planted a few varieties of lettuce and mixed greens a couple of weeks ago, but so far we are only seeing growth from one of the varieties.  All of the other plants, except for one pepper plant which is still pale and wan, are thriving, however.  The catnip is really flourishing in the new soil, and the cats are benefitting from this.  Shamrock plants are also flourishing in our garden, thanks to their seed's apparent ability to lie dormant for long periods of time and to fool naive gardeners into not picking them out of the dirt when said dirt is being tilled and turned over.

Water Part I

The shutoff valve for our garden's hose hookup was old and sometimes leaky - I think its seals had simply worn out from age and use.  You may recall from this Episode that we had to repair the punctured PVC pipe that carries water to our garden's hose hookup.  Since this water line was already drained and dry, due to the leak and repair, it seemed like a good time to replace this valve and its associated PVC pipe.  Here is a picture of the old spigot.  Note its old, leaky appearance.

This view shows the spigot and the PVC piping that was replaced.












This repair was pretty straightforward and it went relatively smoothly.

The new shutoff valve, in the off position.

Here is the overview of the new valve and piping.  Way back in May, when we bought our New House, the house inspector recommended that we paint any outside exposed PVC to protect it from sun damage.  We (I, Bish) chose a nice shade of green.

Yes, this picture was taken at night.

Here is a picture of the whole assemblage after painting and filling in the hole where the PVC goes into the ground.







Electricity Part I

There was a splice job in the attic that our house inspector recommended we correct.  He even provided a picture of it, and it looked like it would be no big deal, except that it would mean going into the attic, or suckering an electrician brother into going into the attic and doing the job for us.  I don't recall the name of our house inspector.  It's probably somewhere on the inspection report, but I'm not sure where that is at the moment.  That splice job has been corrected.  A big part of the reason for the delay in repairing it was that it was out of sight and we didn't often think of it.  As it turns out, suckering a brother into doing this repair for us was harder than we thought, so we decided we had waited long enough and the job had to be done.  This was to be a two-person job: one person would go into the attic and do the work and the other person would be nearby, ready to do whatever the person in the attic needed done - fetching tools, insulting the pre-Bishopians, etc.  Since the attic is a dark, dusty, grimy, insulationy place we decided to take a vote on who would do which job.  They vote was 4 to 1 in favor of me being the one to go into the attic and do the work (the cats were unanimous on this issue).  I gathered everything I thought I would need and put it in my orange Home Depot bucket, put on some clothes I could get dirty and grimy, put on a hat and respirator, put the orange bucket up into the attic, and climbed up into the attic, which is accessed through my office.  Before going further with the narrative, here's a picture of the offending splice job.

What a mess!

As bad as it looks in this picture, it was worse in-person.  What our house inspector failed to mention is  that this splice job was above the furnace, where footholds are few and open spaces below are many; the cables are on the other side of the furnace intake pipe; and the wire coming in from the right side was not long enough and had no slack.  Long story short - what I thought would be an easy job of re-splicing some wires inside a j-box turned into a several-hour job involving multiple j-boxes and a trip to Home Depot.

Did I mention that I naively wore a short-sleeve shirt in the attic during this repair?  Did I also mention that we had to turn off most of the breakers before starting this repair?

Now for the longer version of the story.  I climbed into the attic and experienced annoyance and irritation when I saw the actual splice job and its location.  At first I wasn't even sure I could maneuver around the furnace intake pipe (which is wrapped with insulation, by the way) or reach far enough to attach a j-box to the stud.  But I knew it had to be done, so I slowly shifted myself into the open space above the furnace and found some good footholds.  It was hot up in the attic.  I took a closer look at the situation and realized that it was worse than I had thought when I first entered the attic.  There were two cables on one wall, one coming up from below and one coming down from above, connected to a third cable on a different wall, and the third cable had no slack and not enough length to rout it properly around the corner to meet up with the other two cables.  I would need a second j-box and a length of romex.  Additionally, the ground wires did not have a wirenut or electrical tape - they were just kind of twisted together.

I had the romex with me, but I had only brought one j-box into the attic, so I called Becky and she retrieved the j-box for me, along with a second faceplate (it's a good thing we have some spares).  Just a quick note to those who may be wondering - we did not use any of the romex we dug up in the back yard.  We only use new romex that was bought at Home Depot.  The back yard romex has been sitting underground for years, in some cases it has been sitting in conduit filled with water.  Some of it might be ok, but we're not taking that chance.

I cut and stripped the new length of romex, mounted the first j-box, ran the cables into it, spliced them all together with wirenuts, and got ready to tape them up.  Hmmm...  Where's my yellow electrical tape?  I don't feel it in the bucket.  Let me look in the bucket.  Hmmm...  I don't see it, either.  Time for another call to Becky!  She couldn't find my yellow electrical tape in the garage, in my office, or anywhere.  She couldn't find any other electrical tape in the house, either.  D'oh!  I squeezed myself past the intake pipe and climbed down into the house.  I couldn't find any electrical tape, either.  Where had it all gone?  I know we had some.  I used my yellow electrical tape just recently, in this Episode, but it seems to have disappeared into thin air.  No electrical tape in the house at all, and none in the cars, either.  I changed out of my grungy attic clothes (and into clean clothes) and made a Home Depot run.  I got a few rolls of electrical tape - 2 yellow, 1 green, 1 orange.

Back up into the attic, and back into the space above the furnace.  One splice taped, two splices taped, tape falls down below where I can reach it.  I called to Becky and she kindly handed up the other new yellow roll.  Three splices taped and 1 faceplate attached.

One down, one to go, or so I thought.  The second j-box mounting and romex splicing went smoothly and I thought I was done when I screwed on the second faceplate.

A lovely splice

Tucked into the box

Newly faceplated

After adding the faceplate to the second j-box I looked up above the first j-box and discovered another exposed splice job.  As with the original botched splice job, the ground wires had no wirenut or electrical tape.  Another call to Becky brought me another j-box and faceplate.  Finally I was done.  This repair job can't be seen, and won't likely affect our electricity experience in any way, but it did address a potential fire hazard.




The picture below, composed of two pictures, shows the three new j-boxes and their positions relative to each other.  The insulation-covered pipe in the center is much wider in-person, and it was quite difficult to navigate around.

Electricity Part II

There is no Part II.

Water Part II

This project combines repair work with Back Yard Archaeology.  While attempting to break-up and remove The Monolith, first seen in this Episode, I discovered that our garden hose connection's water pipe was embedded in the concrete of The Monolith.  It appeared as though someone had laid the water pipe and then at a later date had poured the concrete, completely disregarding the presence of the water pipe.  What to do?  Should I leave The Monolith in the ground and hope it didn't annoy me in the future, or should I cut the pipe, remove The Monolith, and patch the pipe?  I chose the latter course of action.  The Monolith's continued presence in the back yard would surely have annoyed me quite a bit.  Pictures.

The repaired pipe

Concrete Mining Update

Our concrete mine has run dry.  All of the concrete has been mined, but you can still get your very own piece(s) of genuine mined concrete for the low low price of just $5.00 per pound.  Act now before prices skyrocket!

This is the mining site after all of the concrete was extracted.  It has since been filled in with dirt, and possibly a few rocks.







While mining the concrete, I uncovered and extracted a strange object.  It is a length of what appears to be a whitish-silverish metal.  This metal is not corroded or rusted, but it is dirty and grungy.  It may be the same type of metal that was sticking up out of The Monolith.  Here is a picture, with Pick included to show scale.

Bonus Update

We now know which light switch turns the back yard light on and off.  Until now it was a mystery.  The light fixture is there, and it has a new bulb, but we did not know how to activate it.  Now we know.  There are two light switches near the kitchen sink, and one of them is known to control the garbage disposal.  The other switch is the one for the back yard light.

Mystery solved.

We are happy to report that the light lights up the entire back yard very satisfactorily, and we should have no trouble spotting any more opossums that wander through.

You should learn something new every
   bIsh