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Not Your Handyman
I'm not handy.
My father is. He's handy as hell. He even did it professionally for a while after he retired. That's just one of a remarkable number of skills that he has.
But I didn't inherit it.
So I've always felt rather inadequate in that department, naturally enough. I know computers, of course, but for almost anything handy, well, I'm not your go-to guy. In fact, when we have problems of that sort in the house, we call my dad.
Fast-forward to two days ago.
The ceiling fan in our kitchen has always been a little screwed up. The on/off chain sometimes sticks, and often when it was pulled the lights wouldn't go on - or they wouldn't all go on. Or one would go on, and then the other two would go on a few seconds later.
Two days ago Teri pulled the chain and it simply went to maximum extension and stuck there without turning the light on. No matter what I did (that is, hit it), the chain stayed stuck and the lights stayed off. There were no other lights in that room, which was annoying.
The fixture itself seemed to be okay; the fan part worked, anyway. But no lights.
So today Teri drove us over to Lowes and we picked up a couple of chain switches, a two-wire one and a three-wire one, since we didn't know which kind we had. I was very reluctant; I've never done any electrical work, because I've always kinda suspected that I would end up electrocuting myself. To be honest, I worry about that every time I change a light bulb, too.
But Teri really wanted light in there for the party tomorrow (there are going to be 17 people in the house), so I had no choice. I went down to the circuit-breaker box while Teri checked to see if the power was on for the lamp (by checking the fan, if you were wondering); eventually we found the right circuit and killed the power. Then I went upstairs, detatched the lights section, and found that there were a bunch of wires connecting the lights to the fan housing.
But the fan had been well-designed, I'll say that: all of the wires ran through a single plug-in connected which was easy to pull apart. Soon I had the crucial part down on the table.
It was pretty obvious what the problem was. The plastic case of the chain mechanism was broken out in the middle, and the spring was literally sticking out of the middle of it. I was able to detach the mechanism easily.
But there was a problem. There were two wires coming out of the old mechanism; one spliced into another using a little electrical cap, which I could handle. The other, though, used one of those handy plug-in connecters. The problem was that the wire of the broken chain could not be simply detached from the connecter; that would almost certainly make the connecter not work. It seemed clear that I'd need to cut the wire that connected the broken chain to the connecter, and then splice that wire with the analogous wire from the new chain mechanism.
Teri was a little dubious, so I called my father to double-check. He backed me up on my guess, fortunately. So I dug out some electrical tape, cut the wire and stripped it, then twisted the two wires together. Wrapped them carefully with a three-inch length of electrical tape, made sure that all of the wire was completely covered, squeezed the taped connection with the pliers to make sure that the connection was solid (while not squeezing so hard as to break or cut the tape), and put everything back together. Went downstairs, flipped the circuit.
And I'm pleased to say that it worked! In fact, it's a pleasure to turn that light on and off now. The chain pulls smoothly, all the lights go on or off instantly and simultaneously...a small thing, I guess, but I'm really pleased with it.
My first real electrical work, minor though it was.
On an unrelated note, where the hell is everybody?
My father is. He's handy as hell. He even did it professionally for a while after he retired. That's just one of a remarkable number of skills that he has.
But I didn't inherit it.
So I've always felt rather inadequate in that department, naturally enough. I know computers, of course, but for almost anything handy, well, I'm not your go-to guy. In fact, when we have problems of that sort in the house, we call my dad.
Fast-forward to two days ago.
The ceiling fan in our kitchen has always been a little screwed up. The on/off chain sometimes sticks, and often when it was pulled the lights wouldn't go on - or they wouldn't all go on. Or one would go on, and then the other two would go on a few seconds later.
Two days ago Teri pulled the chain and it simply went to maximum extension and stuck there without turning the light on. No matter what I did (that is, hit it), the chain stayed stuck and the lights stayed off. There were no other lights in that room, which was annoying.
The fixture itself seemed to be okay; the fan part worked, anyway. But no lights.
So today Teri drove us over to Lowes and we picked up a couple of chain switches, a two-wire one and a three-wire one, since we didn't know which kind we had. I was very reluctant; I've never done any electrical work, because I've always kinda suspected that I would end up electrocuting myself. To be honest, I worry about that every time I change a light bulb, too.
But Teri really wanted light in there for the party tomorrow (there are going to be 17 people in the house), so I had no choice. I went down to the circuit-breaker box while Teri checked to see if the power was on for the lamp (by checking the fan, if you were wondering); eventually we found the right circuit and killed the power. Then I went upstairs, detatched the lights section, and found that there were a bunch of wires connecting the lights to the fan housing.
But the fan had been well-designed, I'll say that: all of the wires ran through a single plug-in connected which was easy to pull apart. Soon I had the crucial part down on the table.
It was pretty obvious what the problem was. The plastic case of the chain mechanism was broken out in the middle, and the spring was literally sticking out of the middle of it. I was able to detach the mechanism easily.
But there was a problem. There were two wires coming out of the old mechanism; one spliced into another using a little electrical cap, which I could handle. The other, though, used one of those handy plug-in connecters. The problem was that the wire of the broken chain could not be simply detached from the connecter; that would almost certainly make the connecter not work. It seemed clear that I'd need to cut the wire that connected the broken chain to the connecter, and then splice that wire with the analogous wire from the new chain mechanism.
Teri was a little dubious, so I called my father to double-check. He backed me up on my guess, fortunately. So I dug out some electrical tape, cut the wire and stripped it, then twisted the two wires together. Wrapped them carefully with a three-inch length of electrical tape, made sure that all of the wire was completely covered, squeezed the taped connection with the pliers to make sure that the connection was solid (while not squeezing so hard as to break or cut the tape), and put everything back together. Went downstairs, flipped the circuit.
And I'm pleased to say that it worked! In fact, it's a pleasure to turn that light on and off now. The chain pulls smoothly, all the lights go on or off instantly and simultaneously...a small thing, I guess, but I'm really pleased with it.
My first real electrical work, minor though it was.
On an unrelated note, where the hell is everybody?
no subject
I was offline for most of yesterday, and will be for most of today (Gaming group). I thought I had quite a few journal posts in the past week (though a number of them were under the news filter).
Congrats on the electrical job... not something I would have done myself. I'm bad, if it can drastically effect the house I usually hire outside help.