What I did on my February break....

[coldwater]

Hey LTG, where's the updates???!!!

[littletractorguy]

Update - we're totally stalled due to a lack of certified electrician to punch a breaker in and run the wiring.... We've been on two separate waiting lists for the past 2 months.

In the meantime, stuff is piling up down there....

[Alberta 7.3]

Geez, if I run out of work I may need to come over there and wire it.

[littletractorguy]

Originally Posted by Alberta 7.3

Geez, if I run out of work I may need to come over there and wire it.

At the rate electricians here are getting back to us, we'd feed ya, bunk ya down, pay ya... Heck I might even let you play with the tractors!

As long as you get a permit, mind you. LTGal and I are big believers in that... Otherwise, heck, I could do this MYSELF, right?


(finally got a date out of one yesterday, he can come look to see what the job involves mid-next week)

[coldwater]

Running a circuit is extremely easy to do. I have absolute confidence that you are MORE than capable of doing it!

[Alberta 7.3]

You should be able to do it yourself. I'm not sure about things in Saskatchewan, but in Alberta a homeowner can get a permit and DIY it. Of course the inspector will be a bit more particular when checking a homeowner's work, since a homeowner will be less aware of codes/methods that a journeyman would. If you decide to tackle it yourself and have questions, feel free to PM me.

[Greensail]

Sask did or still does allow a home owner to do his own wiring tho they maybe curious as to how you came to know the electrical code. I think they require you to study the code manual first and then may quiz the homeowner on it so I never bothered to look into it.

[littletractorguy]

When we did our LAST reno, I did investigate the homeowner electrical permits, and they allowed homeowners to do everything UP TO (but not including) putting new breakers into the box... So I got keen, and bought a spool of wire and a bunch of wire staples.... then I looked at our existing, 60's vintage wiring, and found a number of ODD things (wires that seemed to just DISAPPEAR into light mount boxes, strange unexplainable wire color changes as wires ran through places I couldn't see, hidden junction boxes mounted behind paneling by someone who couldn't use 3 of the same type of screw for one box, stuff like that)... then I found out that we were already significantly over our max for our existing breaker box even BEFORE wiring the reno and would have to either run a sub-panel to power our reno or replace our whole box... THEN I called an electrician... They were nice and knocked a few bux off the price tag 'cause I just told them to use my spool of wire...

Besides, by then, we were under the gun to get the reno done, 'cause we REALLY needed to finish it before LTBabe was born... No time for me to futz about and turn the wiring into an episode of Disaster DIY.

[littletractorguy]

Well, I wound up hanging out down in the proto-mancave last night 'cause LTGal's laptop hard drive packed and I had to clear off my spare external to restore her backups to, so I had a fair bit of time to ponder the wiring question... And I figured, well, I could probably relocate all the wiring for my man cave on my own... Just moving a switch and pushing two light fixtures back a joist or two... Yeah... I can DO that! So, I suggested it to LTGal, and we made a stop at RONA this afternoon to pick up the light fixtures she wanted to swap around...

So, off came the panelling where the existing switch was, then nailed down where all my tools were that I needed BEFORE I turned off the breaker... Off with the breaker.. Disconnect the first fixture and pull the wiring back... Well, while I'm doing that, might as well take the rest of the strapping that the wiring was hooked to down, DOH can't find the wrecking bar in the dark! Finally find it in the bin-o-many tools, 20 minutes beating up on some old strapping. Well, then, you know, I wanna do this move right, so I should really run the wiring through the joists, not surface mounted on the joists like it WAS. So I pull out the big drill and the 1" spade bit and drill 7 new holes... DANG this old growth Douglas Fir they built my house outta is HARD... Mount the boxes, re-run the wire, break for supper... LTGal says, are you ready to go live yet? Anything you need help with? Well, she COULD pull down the fixture outta the laundry room that she wants me to swap into my space... Okay... Then she comes to help me put up the fixtures, 'cause she's better on ladders than I am... DOH, I mounted the boxes recessed, and the fixtures require them to be out a half an inch... Down come the boxes, find two other octagonals that have the mount points appropriate for these fixtures... Up go the new boxes... Good thing I wrote down how the wiring went by this point... Just staple up the wire to where I gotta feed the switch down through the wall, we're gonna leave that for another day, 'cause the two of us AND LTBabe working on electrical is a lotta work...

Gonna go have another glass of cider now...

I dunno how Ken in NJ does this electrical thing for a living.... Its hard. And I HATE ladders... AND reaching above my head. Think I'll let the electrician do the rest.

Sorry, no energy to post the before pics I took, I'll do some afters once the switch is in place....

[Alberta 7.3]

Congratulations on your first day as an electrical apprentice.

That fir can be nasty stuff. I use the Bosch spade bits that have a twist and a screw point. They are $5-6 each and eat through practically anything.
http://www.boschtools.com/Products/T...spx?catid=1363

[coldwater]

at least you gave it a shot. My brother has been an electrical contractor for over 35 years, and just this year, he closed the business and retired. He's keeping his license though. I learned under him, but never got my license, because I prefer being a carpenter instead. Keeping up with the code is easy, once you finally learn it the first time, and know what you're allowed to do. After that, like anything else, it becomes pretty easy. We can walk into a big house, check the prints, and start punching all the holes in every room, then measure and mark locations for outlets switches and fixture boxes, and bring in the boxes and start hanging. After that, we both start pulling the miles of wire (or so it seems) and when we get a good part of it done, one of us breaks off and starts terminating in the boxes and stapling the cable. It goes amazingly fast. Then off to mount the panel box, pull service cable, set the meter can, and do the terminations. I'm pretty quick, but my brother is lightening fast and hard to keep up with. It's always fun to watch any good tradesman perform the work their so good at.

[littletractorguy]

Well, took the morning off work to pull the paneling off the wall, run the switch wire to its spot, mount the box, put the switch in the box, tuck-tape the vapor barrier, cut the hole in the paneling, put the paneling back up, discover that I'm an idiot because the switch should go OUTSIDE the paneling before screwing it into the box, cut the hole bigger so I can get the switch out through it, re-screw the switch onto the box, then finally put the plate back on.

Yes, Ken in NJ, it took me the whole morning! I would be one DANG expensive electrician, if I were charging myself!

(I DID have to tidy so that I'd have enough room to actually work).

And the REAL electrician is showing up at 8 tomorrow morning! Yay! Guess I coulda saved this for him... But, saved a bit of money, got to have some good family electrocution time, there ya go!

Anyways, some pix!



My quarry!



Where it's SUPPOSED to be!



Naked electrical!



The old fixture on its way down... Notice the box mounted on the surface of the joist, and the wire running along the surface of the joist...



A pic of the wiring, for future reference when I go to hook it back up



Voila! The new fixtures up...



And lookit the NICE holes somebody drilled!



The box mounted, the vapor barrier all nicely tuck-taped, I EVEN got one of those nice hoodie pieces they say to put around your boxes so that it ties into the vapor barrier nicely!



The switch mounted... Just kinda wrong...



Et, tut FINI! Notice, I lined up the screws horizontally on the plate. I hear real electricians are particular about that...

Time to put in some more light bulbs, then have a rum break!

[marlboro180]

Looks good LTG- but my electrician whines at me unless I time the screw vertically LOL

[Alberta 7.3]

Originally Posted by marlboro180

Looks good LTG- but my electrician whines at me unless I time the screw vertically LOL

That is usually burned into every apprentice's mind to line up the plate screws.

[littletractorguy]

Well, the electrician showed up on Tuesday morning at 8:00 am, came in and looked at the work we wanted him to do in the basement and said "Well geez you know, you could pretty much do that yourselves!".

Ya, except for that electrocution thing, he's probably right... He'll do it ANYWAY, he said, ALONG with wiring in the 20 amp outlet for the welder out in the garage!

So, we got ta thinking, tho, he's probably right... So LTGal went out and bought 10 metres of 14 gauge 3 conductor, 2 octo-boxes, a switch box and a passel of new switches (she wants to change out all our old switches), and we set to studying how we'd do this...

So, the existing light fixture at that end has power coming in from the direction where we want to put the NEW ones... So basically, we should tie into that power where we want the first new fixture to be, run a switch line down to where we want the new switch, run wire out to where the second new fixture goes, and viola!

So I got to pull down a bunch more strapping tonight in order for us to be able to mount the boxes, then drilled another 6 holes in the joists to run the wire through... Conveniently, whoever built the basement reno had left a 4" wide chunk of tin missing off of the cold air ducting between the joists, and had covered it with a piece of strapping... So I was able to drill through the joists where the cold air ducting goes. And we'll just have to tin-tape it when we're done.

So, tomorrow morning, out to get some more strain-relief collars for the boxes (Home Depot didn't have them, at least where LTGal could find them), then we run the wire and hook things up!