Scariness

Wally was gone most of the week, so I worked on touching up an old mudding job done by the previous owners (poor job they did), painted molding, caulked, and painted the living room and hall ceiling (Wally so kindly primed these for me), and painted the living room. Kitty deemed it necessary to step on the freshly painted widow sill then walked across a small portion of exposed floor. Grr. I got the paint off the floor and repainted the sill. When Wally came home, he started on dangerous job of electrical work. I was stressed the entire day and prayed the entire time. At one point he came running in and said, "I think I may have blown the fuse at the line!" "Hm", I thought, "that doesn't sound good, but what does it mean?" Then he said, "so, the entire street may be without power". The pliers had gotten jammed between the energized meter clip and meter box. This was not b/c of anything that Wally was doing wrong in practice, it was just one of those things that can happen when you work on such things. The pliers got fried, thankfully, Wally did not. And we later found out that it was grounded, so we didn't blow the fuse on the power line either. Thankfully, he is done with the meter work, so we think the most dangerous part is done. The new panel board is connected to the old and will trip first before the old, and, therefore, there is less possibility of a fire than using the old box alone. He has to start switching circuits to the new box before we can get completely rid of the old one, which may take some time. I HATE this work, and covet your prayers. When he is doing it, I spend all day alternately thinking of exit routes from a fire and wondering where all of the broomsticks and pieces of wood are so that I can knock him off of an open current. Maybe it's not as bad as I think it is, but none the less, I am stressed!



New panel board is energized.


Fried pliers (see the holes in the metal under the tips especially on the right).


Freshly painted ceiling and walls and molding in living room.


Doorway to dining/kitchen from living room (molding still needs to be repainted, but I like the green with the leaf motif...makes me think of a forest).

7 comments:

Anonymous September 30, 2007 at 7:12 PM  

The utility fuse did not blow because it takes anywhere from 2s - 15 min. So, it is definitely by God's grace that I was not a part of that circuit to ground (only the pliers). (Practically: rubber handles, gloved hands, and rubber soles, have a lot to do with that.)

Unrelated to the utility fuse operation, is the good news that I located the ground wire (it goes from the panelboard, through the attic, down the inside of the kitchen wall, into the crawlspace, and into the ground!!) and have been able to successfully ground several new (and existing) circuits, including the GFCI outlets in the kitchen.

Unknown September 30, 2007 at 7:14 PM  

Ha! that shows you how much I know about his field. All I know is I am scared.

nannykim September 30, 2007 at 7:55 PM  

sheeeze--none of that is encouraging to moi! I always pray for the safety of ya'll--I always worry about electrical stuff. One funny thing here--we did find that the line to the broken ceiling fan was copper, but when Dad went to replace it with a nice light he accidently cut the wire too short and it will not reach--so he capped it off and now we have an ornamental ceiling light (that is just an ornament! ;-)

Davis October 3, 2007 at 6:17 PM  

Guess I've watched my brothers and dad jump too much doing electrical work to worry much.
But on a different note. I really like the living room molding and paint color. They are really nice looking!

Anonymous October 5, 2007 at 12:58 PM  

wally, are you an electrical engineer or something????

Anonymous April 16, 2008 at 5:35 AM  

I always like working with Electricity! :-) Good job on everything! I like the Paper Towel dispenser!

Cache Tea Party August 15, 2023 at 11:41 AM  

Hi ggreat reading your post

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