An Electrifying Project

My how times flies…. I have been so damn busy with various projects that I have not had much of a free moment or two to put anything down, besides now obviously.  My main project right now is the electrical system in my house. The warm weather has allowed me to work on the electrical system and finish it up before my permit runs out.

The electrical system in the house is a nightmare and has been since my sisters bought it years back.  Although they had no idea how bad it was until a few years ago I went to renovate their kitchen.  In fact, the electrical is the easiest part of the whole thing, but it is among the bigger pieces of the pie.  We are unsure when the kitchen was originally added to the house since this house originally had a separate kitchen space.  By separate I mean the house next door was the original kitchen to this house.  Sounds funny, I know, but this house is over a 100 years old  The  kitchen-house had been added onto since its original design purpose.  Anyway, whoever built the kitchen and any alleged subsequent remodeling that was done did not grasp even the simplest idea of what a load bearing wall was or any wall was supposed to actually look like, nevermind what a minimum building code is.   To give an example of what I mean, the wall studs were scrap lumber no longer than 30-inches, one on top of another and often intersected by a horizontal piece of the same length.  In fact, the headers that goes above a door or window was literally wedged in place. Yes, wedged.  When I saw this, I lost it.  My mom and sisters could not flee fast enough from the impending and imminent thermonuclear detonation that I was about to produce.  I say this because the wall studs were nothing compared to when I got to the flooring.  The floor joists ran 20-inches center-ish, had nearly 2-1/2 inches of particle board and plywood flooring add on top of it including its original 1-by-6’s subfloor, sometimes met the mudsill and/or beam at either end, and lastly but not least at some point someone formed up a concrete base for the brick chimney (not plumb!) but could not be bothered to route & form the joist around it.  My sisters always knew the kitchen was a bit soft, but they had no idea how bad it was.  So much shit was so cleverly hidden that is fooled many a professional.  Adding on top of all of that very poor electrical wiring and types along with mixed electrical standards all the way back to knob & tube stuff, it was a nightmare.  The house basically ran off of two breakers: the living room which actually powered three-quarters of the house & the cellar light which ran the “cellar light” – a light that was underneath the house in which is not a basement, but a crawl space -- and master bedroom including master bath.   The electrical ran both below the house and above the ceilings in the attic space.  Instead of using junction boxes to … well, junction wires and terminate disused ones, they just electrical taped it all up or just left it up in the air. LoL! I am not joking, it was that bad.  My sisters at one point got someone to  “fix” what they could, however, we later found out that they did not actually correct anything except for the obvious electrical uncapped wired

The electrical system in the house is a nightmare and has been since my sisters bought it years back.  Although they had no idea how bad it was until a few years ago I went to renovate their kitchen.  In fact, the electrical is the easiest part of the whole thing, but it is among the bigger pieces of the pie.  We are unsure when the kitchen was originally added to the house since this house originally had a separate kitchen space.  By separate I mean the house next door was the original kitchen to this house.  Sounds funny, I know, but this house is over a 100 years old  The  kitchen-house had been added onto since its original design purpose.  Anyway, whoever built the kitchen and any alleged subsequent remodeling that was done did not grasp even the simplest idea of what a load bearing wall was or any wall was supposed to actually look like, nevermind what a minimum building code is.   To give an example of what I mean, the wall studs were scrap lumber no longer than 30-inches, one on top of another and often intersected by a horizontal piece of the same length.  In fact, the headers that goes above a door or window was literally wedged in place. Yes, wedged.  When I saw this, I lost it.  My mom and sisters could not flee fast enough from the impending and imminent thermonuclear detonation that I was about to produce.  I say this because the wall studs were nothing compared to when I got to the flooring.  The floor joists ran 20-inches center-ish, had nearly 2-1/2 inches of particle board and plywood flooring add on top of it including its original 1-by-6’s subfloor, sometimes met the mudsill and/or beam at either end, and lastly but not least at some point someone formed up a concrete base for the brick chimney (not plumb!) but could not be bothered to route & form the joist around it.  My sisters always knew the kitchen was a bit soft, but they had no idea how bad it was.  So much shit was so cleverly hidden that is fooled many a professional.  Adding on top of all of that very poor electrical wiring and types along with mixed electrical standards all the way back to knob & tube stuff, it was a nightmare.  The house basically ran off of two breakers: the living room which actually powered three-quarters of the house & the cellar light which ran the “cellar light” – a light that was underneath the house in which is not a basement, but a crawl space -- and master bedroom including master bath.   The electrical ran both below the house and above the ceilings in the attic space.  Instead of using junction boxes to … well, junction wires and terminate disused ones, they just electrical taped it all up or just left it up in the air. LoL! I am not joking, it was that bad.  My sisters at one point got someone to  “fix” what they could, however, we later found out that they did not actually correct anything except for the obvious electrical uncapped wired

So that is just a little run down to have I have been doing lately.  Sure, it does not sound like much, but it really is.  With that said, my vegetable garden is doing fine as is the comfrey plants.  I should take a few pictures and post them up here.  One of the comfrey plants has huge, huge leaves. I almost cannot believe it, they are freaking huge.  I am looking forward to next year when they are even more established because I am going to dehydrate most of it.  Especially since my current source of Russian Comfrey up the road from me in a field that is waiting to be a house development may not be their next year.  I am having to wait until it grows back before harvesting more of it. I hope I can get a little bit more of a stock pile before the season is over so I have a reserve of dried comfrey leaves for the fall & winter.  I have found that comfrey tea works wonders for my sore muscles and has even increased my stamina in my gym routine.   I really cannot give enough praise about comfrey and how it has really helped me over the last few months.  Anyway, this is where I will end this entry.