electrical

Rewiring of the box beams and central fixture in the dining room. Two lessons were learned in this project:

1) Don’t take apart the box beams. When we did this for the living room, we came up with the much better method of drilling all the way up into the joist cavity and just feeding the wires through to the attic spaces upstairs.

2) Don’t permit work like this. This was the first time we ever got a building permit, and we came to regret it. The inspector was unhappy that the wires came through holes in the wood and did not terminate in a box. While I definitely believe that building codes are a good thing, there are times where the letter of the law conflicts with something that would still be safe. Obviously, very little in an old house would meet code, so any remodeling is an exercise in finding the right compromise between codes and aesthetics.

After a lot of effort, we were able to solve the problem by buying the smallest possible “pancake” boxes and painting them to match the beam stain. We were fortunate that the 3 1/2″ size was very close to the diameter of the fixtures bases, so they basically act as spacers between the fixture and the beam. If you didn’t know to look for them, you’d never notice them.

While gutting the main room upstairs, we unearthed this very strange light fixture. It had 24 little bulbs arranged in a rectangle. It had been plastered over at some point, so we never knew that it was there. And, needless to say given our other experiences in the house, it was still connected to live wires. Before this point, we had already given up on the houses’ wiring and had made the decision to rewire the whole thing. While it took a lot of time, rewiring was one of the best decisions we made during this project.

If anyone has ever seen a fixture like this or knows anything about it, we’d be interested in hearing from you. Thanks.

Rather than run a few extra feet of wire, they had sealed up this splice in the wall. While it’s doubtful that it actually would’ve caused any problems, it’s not a good practice (nor does it meet code) to seal up a splice in a wall cavity.

Although this wasn’t as bad as the wire that was routed into the bathroom plaster (and skim coated over), it was one of many finds that led us to the decision to rewire the entire house. Since wiring is one of Julio’s strong suits, it was much more of a time issue than a money one. And in the early stages of the project, time seemed infinite. Months later, that sentiment would change..