It's a miracle!

[jsbowden]

Ar at least, it's an amazing case of luck that the house we live in didn't burn to the ground long before we bought it.

Between the dryer exhaust which turned out to be stuffed from end to end with lint, and the amazing ability of one of the prior owners wire things up however they felt on that particular day without caring about minor things like safety or building codes, the house should long since have become a pile of cinders.

I replaced the fixtures in the kitchen and breakfast nook last night. The main kitchen fixture had the insulation burned through on the hot feed, and the fiberglass heat sheilding was nice and black. The fixture above the sink didn't have the ground wired up. The fixture in the breakfast nook was apparently original to the house, as it was both wired and hung properly.

I wish I knew which of the prior owners were responsible for what, so I'd know exactly which parts of the house to rip out and replace Right Fucking Now (TM), but since I don't, I have to treat all of the fixtures, ceiling fans, and recessed lights in the house as suspect.

The fixture in the dining room should have set off alarm bells. One of the prior owners liked to think s/he was a competent handyman. If there is any justice in the universe, this idiot has inadvertantly committed suicide painfully with electricity by now, but more than likely they're still out there making life interesting for those who have to clean up after them.

EDIT: Oh, and I said 'Let there be light,' and lo, the kitchen was bright.

Comments

[missysedai.livejournal.com]

Ungh. So with you on hatred of previous owners. Seems like we find something else that needs to be re-done properly every single day. Our previous owners were complete shitheads.

[robeli.livejournal.com]

As soon as you can get into Raythen's system, we can look at going back to Hampton Roads, and with the money we should be making on the house we'll be able to build a nice one down there.

[locumtenens.livejournal.com]

I thought my house's prior owner was bad - even though she was stupid, at least she didn't put our lives in danger.

Case #1 "I don't know why this light switch doesn't work, it just never has." We unscrewed the switch plate to find that the switch was not actually attached to any wire whatsoever. It was just... there.

Case #2 Yes, she painted all of the doorframes, but only 2/3 of the sides... because you can't see 1/3 of the frame when the door is open, so why bother? (No, really, she did this to all of our doors on the 2nd floor.)

Case #3 L. and I quickly realize that we cannot run our TV & internet cable at the same time without one or the other losing juice. Why? A quick search under our house shows that she, instead of getting a professional, has roped yards of cable to and fro trying to reach every room in the house. I cannot begin to describe the tangle or the jacked up connections she had attempted.

And so on, and so forth...

I think you might...

[paoconnell.livejournal.com]

need to contact a reliable electrician to inspect your wiring, especially if you have aluminum wire. If it's copper wire, it may be undersized. If, as you seem to think, the previous owners did therir own wiring and didn't do it right, your house could burn down. It's possible that these are defects from when the house was built.
If there are more problems, expect to spend a lot on rewiring the house to bring it up to code.

Incidentally, I do know an electrician (commercial construction), but he lives in Indiana, and has a job for the next month or two.