WWTBAM Bored

Yesterday I took off from work to do some minimal shopping and string the rest of the lights. Lights which I discovered up in the attic and that would fill in the black hole produced by the 8000 square foot philodendron in the front of the house.

I checked the lights inside. They worked. I plugged one string into the power strip and nothing happened outside. In fact, none of the previously working lights came on. So, I moved the extension cord to the other outlet. That worked.

So, I stringed me up some more. Only three to a string, mind you, because I'm paranoid. I walked back into the garage to get another batch and smelled smoke. Like wood smoke. Cue nerve endings. It wasn't a large smoke smell, just...there. Inside, no smoke smell. Back out by the garage door a noticeable smoke smell. I bent down and the frickin' duel outlet is hot to the touch and, by golly, smells like smoke!

Well, crap. So, I call the fire department main office because I know them and ask if I should call it in. They say, yeah, call dispatch. So I did. Maybe four minutes later a truck pulls up, and I know some of the guys, one of whom mentioned that they should have refused service since we had an OU flag hanging outside our front door. I hugged him and laughed.

They used their thermal detection thingie to make sure nothing was hot in the wall and flipped the breakers to determine which one attached to the outlet and said, hey, it's common, get an electrician and we can't fix it even though we know how. There was a short or something in the outlet.

So, even though I can't put any more lights up in the tree by the garage, the rest of the lights are operable through cords through the windows. The outside plugs are the only things not working and I wonder who the hell constructed this place to connect such non-adjacent outlets.

Anyway, no fire is a good fire.

But, I still feel like an idiot.

No cause to feel like an idiot.

Just really lucky it wasn't worse Beebs.

Merry Christmas!

kayrharris wrote:Hey, just hang the damn lights up like the ones in that email I
sent you. Seriously, I'm glad you're OK and the house
is OK.

Sweetums, there are sections that ARE like that email. I got so annoyed at trying to separate them (put away so carefully by those whom we will not name right now), that I just splatted them on the dang bushes.

Beebs52 wrote: Anyway, no fire is a good fire.

Indeed. We don't need any more lights like TheConfessor has in his avatar.

Beebs52 wrote: The outside plugs are the only things not working and I wonder who the hell constructed this place to connect such non-adjacent outlets.

Anyway, no fire is a good fire.

But, I still feel like an idiot.

First, don't feel like an idiot. You were just a victim of the other idiot who did the wiring.

You want non-adjacent outlets? Our bathroom consists of an outer area, with sink, linen cabinet and lighted mirror, and an inner area with tub/shower, vent, light and toilet. You'd think the breaker would work for all of these. Nope. Outer area and the socket in the inner area are on one breaker, along with one socket in an adjacent room but not the lights there or the other two sockets. The inner area breaker knocks out the light and vent, and also the light in a bedroom opposite the bathroom, but not the sockets in that room. I think the electrician just grabbed wires at random to connect up our 2nd floor addition. It's a real puzzle figuring out which breaker goes to what electrical connection.

Your house sounds like our house. I still can't figure out what switches work on some things.

I just hope the fence-repairer guys don't require outside outlets. I'll have to thread the extension cords through our windows.

Beebs52 wrote:Your house sounds like our house. I still can't figure out what switches work on some things.

I just hope the fence-repairer guys don't require outside outlets. I'll have to thread the extension cords through our windows.

This was the last post before the Bored broke. WTG Beebs, it was probably the extension cords that did it....

lb13

littlebeast13 wrote:

Beebs52 wrote:Your house sounds like our house. I still can't figure out what switches work on some things.

I just hope the fence-repairer guys don't require outside outlets. I'll have to thread the extension cords through our windows.

This was the last post before the Bored broke. WTG Beebs, it was probably the extension cords that did it....

lb13

Oh! So Rexer re-wired Beebs's house?? Now it all makes sense!

My landlord's solution to "we need more outlets" was to suggest I get their chosen electrician to run a big extension cord around rooms, with an official-looking covering put on it so it doesn't look like, well, a big extension cord, connected to official-looking outlets.

I said "uh, no. We need more actual lines up to our floor". There it stands.

And like everybody else's domicile here, which rooms are connected to which other rooms, breaker-wise, are not logical.

And as for breakers, getting those put in to replace the fuses happenned last year, after many years of promising it was just around the corner. The electrician could have put more lines in at the time, but was not authorized to.


The Iraq war catches up with my landlord; they claim the reason they have stopped using this electrician is that "they came back from Iraq all screwed up & are now an alcoholic". The last time I saw this person, they were fixing the overhead light fixture in my kitchen for the umpteenth time, philosophically saying "when I signed up for the National Guard (many years before), I didn't think I would be sent to Iraq". They are in their 50s.