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Jun. 26th, 2016 05:19 pmSo, yesterday around 5pm Mikey told me his light flickered and died.
Cue me going up to put a new bulb in...it was only AFTER I tried a new bulb that I noticed that the hall light upstairs and the stair light were not working either. So I check to see if anything he had plugged in was getting power. Nope, so I go into the accessible part of the attic to see if by chance power comes up to his room by that area. Nope. So I go to the other side and pull open the exploratory hole I made shortly after we moved in. After a bit of crawling and looking I thought MAYBE I had spotted the incoming power line coming from under the floor of his room.
I found out I was mistaken, It didn't lead down after I got my head close enough to see it . But it was time for gaming. I made sure his light switch and the hallway switch was off and told him not to go up there since I was slightly afraid of a fire...no way to tell which breaker was his since power was already off and I don't have the equipment for tracing a breaker.
So I get up and go up there shortly after breakfast with Ben being my helper.
I knock holes in the ceiling to get up above his room. At first just big enough to stick my head through to see if I could SEE. Nope. So bigger...and get the ladder instead of standing on furniture. I climb up there and start tracing lines. I took several trips to identify things correctly because I had to dismount a few ceiling fans and light fixtures to see where the wires went.
Apparently the power comes up from one of the outlets in Ben's room and goes through the box his ceiling fan is mounted on. I didn't look further because according to my meter power was getting to that point. I unwrapped the electrical tape and power was back to Mike's area. So that was the problem. Some dumbass had just used electrical tape to join all the wires. There were some crimped connections but it was one of the taped ones fed power to the other half of the upstairs.
So quick trip to Home Depot. (Sorry Lowes, they are closer) to get Wire connectors, electrical tape, some materials to patch the holes I made, as well as a toilet flapper and a handle for the toilet that decided to break DURING gaming. (we did have this complicated mechanism that converted the toilet to flush less water if you pull the handle up instead of down, but the damned thing was a headache even before it broke completely, so standard flushing it is.)
So Wire connectors replace electrical tape. Tape over the crimps, and then spend a few hours remounting fans and fixtures. Then patching holes. The patches ain't pretty but they should keep the hot attic air out of the rooms.
Ben was a fantastic help, he got my tools, carried, cleaned up, took over on some screws when my arms gave out ( I always have had problems with holding my hands above my head for long periods,) recommended I take breaks, carried stuff at the store, steadied ladder, hammered nails a bit while patching, cut tape, and just generally did anything I asked.
But man I'm tired.
This already went on FB.
Cue me going up to put a new bulb in...it was only AFTER I tried a new bulb that I noticed that the hall light upstairs and the stair light were not working either. So I check to see if anything he had plugged in was getting power. Nope, so I go into the accessible part of the attic to see if by chance power comes up to his room by that area. Nope. So I go to the other side and pull open the exploratory hole I made shortly after we moved in. After a bit of crawling and looking I thought MAYBE I had spotted the incoming power line coming from under the floor of his room.
I found out I was mistaken, It didn't lead down after I got my head close enough to see it . But it was time for gaming. I made sure his light switch and the hallway switch was off and told him not to go up there since I was slightly afraid of a fire...no way to tell which breaker was his since power was already off and I don't have the equipment for tracing a breaker.
So I get up and go up there shortly after breakfast with Ben being my helper.
I knock holes in the ceiling to get up above his room. At first just big enough to stick my head through to see if I could SEE. Nope. So bigger...and get the ladder instead of standing on furniture. I climb up there and start tracing lines. I took several trips to identify things correctly because I had to dismount a few ceiling fans and light fixtures to see where the wires went.
Apparently the power comes up from one of the outlets in Ben's room and goes through the box his ceiling fan is mounted on. I didn't look further because according to my meter power was getting to that point. I unwrapped the electrical tape and power was back to Mike's area. So that was the problem. Some dumbass had just used electrical tape to join all the wires. There were some crimped connections but it was one of the taped ones fed power to the other half of the upstairs.
So quick trip to Home Depot. (Sorry Lowes, they are closer) to get Wire connectors, electrical tape, some materials to patch the holes I made, as well as a toilet flapper and a handle for the toilet that decided to break DURING gaming. (we did have this complicated mechanism that converted the toilet to flush less water if you pull the handle up instead of down, but the damned thing was a headache even before it broke completely, so standard flushing it is.)
So Wire connectors replace electrical tape. Tape over the crimps, and then spend a few hours remounting fans and fixtures. Then patching holes. The patches ain't pretty but they should keep the hot attic air out of the rooms.
Ben was a fantastic help, he got my tools, carried, cleaned up, took over on some screws when my arms gave out ( I always have had problems with holding my hands above my head for long periods,) recommended I take breaks, carried stuff at the store, steadied ladder, hammered nails a bit while patching, cut tape, and just generally did anything I asked.
But man I'm tired.
This already went on FB.
