Coffee 7-28-12

I missed breakfast yesterday? Instead I went and picked up something new lights for the kitchen. Then spent 1300 till 2000 installing one of them. Only ONE. I've got a peculiar wiring issue that I can't seem to reason out left by the previous owner of this dump. The light is in and works, but it's not wired properly I just needed something so I could see last night. I'll be taking it down again. I'm gonna have to cut all the sheetrock off the ceiling to see what the previous owner had done.

Freddy, your nephew sounds like my son. He was dad's told every day last week to mow the lawn. Still not done he kept saying he was busy. I guess to a 13 year old playing video games is important. Lately he's been telling my wife and I how he wants an iPad and a Kindle and all of these expensive things that a 13 year old has no business owning. My wife keeps saying, 'Maybe for Christmas.' I just keep saying, 'Get a job and earn what you want. It's time you start earning your keep around here.' This usually ends with him whining and storming off screaming, 'It's not fair.' or some other nonsense.

While I worked on the lights in the kitchen my brother in law sparkle my daughter's room. He's supposed to be coming back today but I'm really hoping he doesn't. I'm supposed to be getting my first coal delivery today and maybe doing g some work to the chimney.

Rob R. wrote:The keg still feels pretty heavy, but I don't have any urge for beer right now.

Amateurs

SMITTY wrote:Well finally got another nightmare of a project finished. That would be my brother's DR350.

Hey Smitty, the DR350 is like the best all around dual sport ever built, not too heavy for off road roughing it and yet enough power to hit the pavement. I want one or maybe its big brother, the DR650.

gaw wrote:

Rob R. wrote:The keg still feels pretty heavy, but I don't have any urge for beer right now.

Amateurs

Update - the ice had the keg wedged in the barrel, now that the ice has melted the keg is floating.

I'm On Fire wrote:I've got a peculiar wiring issue that I can't seem to reason out left by the previous owner of this dump.

Hey IOF, how's it going up in Vernon? Really nice up that way. That reminds me of a small old house I worked on years ago,The house was wired with old shielded bx cable, two wires and the cable was the ground. The wires were the fabric covered rubber, pretty ancient. Well, I went around the side of the place to get to the hose faucet, and got hit with house current by it! I found the problem in the old stone basement, somebody had reversed the wires to an outlet. Since the wiring was grounded to the water pipe with a clamp, the hose faucet was outside hot with house current for who knows how long.
I remember that lady showed me an Edison wax cylinder (record player?) machine; really cool, but mice had eaten away at the cylinders.

I guess I can count myself lucky with all this theme of unappreciative kids these days; toys in my day were Lincoln Logs, Tinker Toys, Kenner Girder and Panel Building sets, Vacu-Form Machine, Revell Model Motoring, Jensen Steam Engines.

Dann757 wrote:

I'm On Fire wrote:I've got a peculiar wiring issue that I can't seem to reason out left by the previous owner of this dump.

Hey IOF, how's it going up in Vernon? Really nice up that way. That reminds me of a small old house I worked on years ago,The house was wired with old shielded bx cable, two wires and the cable was the ground. The wires were the fabric covered rubber, pretty ancient. Well, I went around the side of the place to get to the hose faucet, and got hit with house current by it! I found the problem in the old stone basement, somebody had reversed the wires to an outlet. Since the wiring was grounded to the water pipe with a clamp, the hose faucet was outside hot with house current for who knows how long.
I remember that lady showed me an Edison wax cylinder (record player?) machine; really cool, but mice had eaten away at the cylinders.

I guess I can count myself lucky with all this theme of unappreciative kids these days; toys in my day were Lincoln Logs, Tinker Toys, Kenner Girder and Panel Building sets, Vacu-Form Machine, Revell Model Motoring, Jensen Steam Engines.

Vernon is nice, there's a lot of red tape though. This house of mine is a train wreck. There isn't a level wall, ceiling or floor in it. The more I delve into the more *censored* I find leaving me with questions of how anything passed inspection in the 1940's and how no one died building it. I've removed a lot of BX wire, I hate it. I've been running a lot of Romex.

I also find a lot of green rubberized cloth wiring that I remove if I can. I also have discovered a lot of the grounds inside the outlet boxes are phone wire. I'm really surprised this house hasn't burned to the ground. I replaced the service in 2008 and have been slowly replacing all of the wiring.

But, it's getting there. After I finish my daughter's room the kitchen will be attacked. Then we'll finish my son's room;which was supposed to be done last year. Then the living room will get finished. The only room that has been finished was the bathroom,well minus the trim work in it. Sometimes I wish I had the money to do it all at once; but then again, if I had that kind of money I wouldn't of hesitated to just leave this house. But, we've all gotta start out somewhere and one day I'll hopefully have it finished.

I'm On Fire wrote:
Vernon is nice, there's a lot of red tape though. This house of mine is a train wreck. There isn't a level wall, ceiling or floor in it. The more I delve into the more *censored* I find leaving me with questions of how anything passed inspection in the 1940's and how no one died building it. I've removed a lot of BX wire, I hate it. I've been running a lot of Romex.

I also find a lot of green rubberized cloth wiring that I remove if I can. I also have discovered a lot of the grounds inside the outlet boxes are phone wire. I'm really surprised this house hasn't burned to the ground. I replaced the service in 2008 and have been slowly replacing all of the wiring.

You want level walls and floors? Are you special? My house is the showplace of out-of-level and out-of-plumb.
Just remember, mice can chew through Romex, they prefer it over BX. I did a lot of wiring here, I did use Romex, also used BX. The original wiring is #14 BX, but they must have run short, I found about 1/2 of the second floor was running on that cloth covered wire you speak of, 2 conductor, no ground. The kicker was the piece I pulled out of the 1st floor wall, chewed right through to the bare wire.

We only have one braided cloth wire left - goes to the oven. Lucky for me, the previous owner was an electrician ... but why we had a Federal Pacific breaker box I'll never know. Must've been on sale REAL CHEAP!

Forgot I had me a video of the Honda!

Now I'm working out the leaky fork seal issue. Forks have been apart 3 times. Brand new seals AND one brand new fork inner (slider).

Smitty, Ha,ha,ha, that looks like the start of the Isle of Man TT race . Those fork seals can be a true pain on older forks (read worn). I was gonna suggest the slider but you're already there. Good luck on that one.

Way to go Rob! Knew better and that pig sounded great!

Wood'nCoal wrote:

I'm On Fire wrote:
Vernon is nice, there's a lot of red tape though. This house of mine is a train wreck. There isn't a level wall, ceiling or floor in it. The more I delve into the more *censored* I find leaving me with questions of how anything passed inspection in the 1940's and how no one died building it. I've removed a lot of BX wire, I hate it. I've been running a lot of Romex.

I also find a lot of green rubberized cloth wiring that I remove if I can. I also have discovered a lot of the grounds inside the outlet boxes are phone wire. I'm really surprised this house hasn't burned to the ground. I replaced the service in 2008 and have been slowly replacing all of the wiring.

You want level walls and floors? Are you special? My house is the showplace of out-of-level and out-of-plumb.
Just remember, mice can chew through Romex, they prefer it over BX. I did a lot of wiring here, I did use Romex, also used BX. The original wiring is #14 BX, but they must have run short, I found about 1/2 of the second floor was running on that cloth covered wire you speak of, 2 conductor, no ground. The kicker was the piece I pulled out of the 1st floor wall, chewed right through to the bare wire.

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Oh man, I hadn't thought about the mice eating my romex wire. We do have mice too. Luckily the cloth wire I have seems to have a ground wire, but that doesn't say much especially knowing how a lot of these grounds are.

What don't you like about armored cable (bx) ?

When I was an electrical apprentice I just remember that it was such a pain in the ass to work with. Difficult to get into places you want it to go into, difficult to cut (before I learned about the trick to cutting it), rusts and crumbles, cuts you, conducts electricity really well (burned up several pair of dykes with it). A lot of why I don't like it is unfounded though. Except for the difficult to get into places...it'd prove almost impossible to get into a lot of areas in my house. Although, I did have to run BX for my furnace, but it was an easy run. I only had to go from the furnace to the junction box then from there I was able to run Romex back to the generator panel.

The way I do it now is I bend the cable where I want it to be cut until it snaps, then I use a pair of dykes and cut it off where it's still attached. Or, I use a hacksaw to score it where I want to cut it then bend it.