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Dad was no electrician

AaronRosenthal | Posted in Energy, Heating & Insulation on December 20, 2006 08:42am

Sigh.
Another heart-stopping discovery yuesterday.
Duplex plug kept on shorting out (reports the DW) so I look. Very old modern style duplex plug, but the top plug was broken in a way that blew the breaker when anything was plugged into it.
Killed the breaker, removed the offending plug. Sigh. Dad.
He got the polarity right. Right sized Marrettes
The box is not fixed in place, it’s held by the drywall mud. The pigtails would be OK if he had cut them a little shorter so we could’nt see the copper.
Tied in with the pigtails were 2 little wires, I’d say about the size of the wires you see coming off a cell phone charger. No way they were 14 ga., so I remove & taped them off. Connected everything else & flipped the breaker back on.
Disposal unit works. Hmmmmm?
Found put this AM that the 2 22 gauge wires fed the instant hot water system. It was cold.
Oh, Lord!

Quality repairs for your home.

AaronR Construction
Vancouver, Canada

 

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  1. DonK | Dec 20, 2006 04:22pm | #1

    My Dad was pretty good at what he did, be it plumbing, electric or gen't carpentry. But his own house never got finished and as he got older he was less interested in taking on new stuff. His favorite quote was along the lines of "That's been good enough for the last 40 years, now you had to go screw it up." Your Pop is probably looking down from above, shaking his head, saying, "The kid finally found the right wire  for that thing. I was going to get to it..."

    Nobody got hurt. It's fixed. Put it in your repetoire of Dad stories.

    Don K.

    EJG Homes      Renovations - New Construction - Rentals

  2. JohnT8 | Dec 20, 2006 08:22pm | #2

    I always love it when I find some codger used lamp cord instead of 12ga. 

    But I supposed 40-50 years ago, there was less demand on those wires.

     

    jt8

    "When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us." -- Alexander Graham Bell

    1. dedubya | Dec 21, 2006 01:44am | #3

      kinda highjack alert-- funny story anyway-25 yrs. ago went

      to vist the ole man in cinncinnatti pulled up innthe driveway

      seen my pop up in the eveves of his just built new home.

      Biceps bulging,his forearms rippling"  my ole man was still quite

      a stud back then" he commenced to ruin anouther tube of

      caulk by squeezeing the caulking gun till eeaither the tube

      ruptured out the back,or the gun bent up like a noodle--DAD WHAT

      THE H_LL YA DOING-- he looked down at me like I was the durn

      caulking gun,eyes all glased over, caulking in his eyebrows, in every

      bit of chestrug he had,  his index fingers where twice their normal

      size with build up of half dried caulk man he was the epedomy of a

      primordal man.   hey pop I says did you punture the seal in the end

      the tube---I cut the da-m end off the sob he yells back-- what you take

      me for!? afriggen idiot . By this time I'm doing the ole "Ward Cleaver"

      face rub with the open hand thang trying not to get mad - trying not

      to laugh. reach down pull a twig from some bush he had nearby and

      pushed it into a fresh tube of caulk and told him to humor me and try

      this new tube of of caulk,sheeesh it worked , well you know how father

      son relationships go I told him a teetee and said I had went though

      5or6 tubes before I had gotten it right also ,so he wouldnt feel all that

      dumb.he wasnt no electrician,painter.carp,or mason  but he allways putvittles on the table and rain off our families butts.

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