Shocking Development

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With life being lived on the internet, electricity is now as important as food and shelter.  We bought our house going on eight years ago.  The former owner claimed to be an electrician and, based on his mail that we’re still receiving, has his own electrical business.  First-time buyers, we didn’t know to be skeptical.  It didn’t help that the home inspector we’d hired bowed out a week in advance of closing and we had to hire someone with no recommendation on the fly.  He said nothing about the electrical box (and many other flaws that should’ve been spotted and reported).  We started having some electrical issues soon after moving in.  We found a local electrician (not the former owner) who was friendly and once saved us by returning to the house as night was falling and hooking up the power so we could have heat (this was in a November).

Before picture

When the power went out completely in April, and the electric company said there were no issues on their end, we decided we’d better have the whole system checked out.  We hired from a larger, regional company.  These guys were good.  After being here for only half an hour they’d found the problem, and it was a big one.  The mast, or conduit, on the side of the house hadn’t been properly installed.  Water had been seeping into the breaker box and several of the breakers had rusted.  The repair cost was mighty, but it would be done correctly.  This led to a chilly April day without heat, but they did supply a line that let us work by powering the router, and kept the fridge cold.  They were here for ten hours.  For the first time since moving in, we have an uncompromised electrical system.

What makes all of this so strange is that we had been trusting of the seller that he knew what he was doing electrically.  As laypeople, we had no way to assess this, and the inspector apparently didn’t as well.  The good electricians (the most recent) suggested that our former electrician was afraid to tell us the real cost of doing the job right, and had decided to cut corners.  He may have been acting out of kindness.  Or he may not have been able to see the problem from a larger view.  So we’re poorer, but wiser.  And we have power.  As long as the electric company can be trusted to keep up its end of the deal, we shouldn’t run into internet access problems.  And that’s life itself.

Eclectic Electric

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It all began with the internet going out.  Less than a month ago the modem was replaced, but the tech this time thought it could be the co-ax cable.  We went outside and he fed the cable through, but when he got to the box he noticed a problem.  “Your electrical drop isn’t attached to the house,” he said.  Sure enough, he was right.  “I can’t replace the rest of the cable until that’s fixed—it’s an electrocution risk.” So I called the electric company.  They said I’d need an electrician to secure the conduit to the house, but they’d send somebody out to look.  The tech must’ve been in the area because he arrived just after I spoke to our electrician.  “Your cable has never been permanently connected to the house,” he observed.  “It should be.  We can do that, but you’ve got to get an electrician to attach that conduit.”

The funny thing about this is actually two-fold.  One is that our home inspector didn’t notice that the electrical cable was not secured to the house (once the tech pointed it out to me it was perfectly obvious).  The second is that the former owner of the house claimed to be an electrician.  In fact, he runs a electrical contracting business.  The electrician we pay has said, on one of his many jobs here, “I don’t think he was an electrician.”  I, for one, believe the guy we pay.  So now we have to have him come out and secure the conduit.  Then call the electric company and have them permanently connect the cable (the house has only been here since 1890, so do a few weeks matter?).  Then we call our internet provider and have them replace the cable that’s been causing our internet issues.

We like our quirky old house.  It does seem, however, that many owners have neglected various aspects of it.  And that our home inspector was a somnambulist.  We’re just trying to get it up to code.  Well, actually, we’re just trying to get a secure internet connection because three livelihoods rely upon it.  Shoddy work has consequences, and caveat emptor reigns.  Few things are more basic to modern life than electricity.  Or even the internet, for that matter.  These things are fragile, it turns out, in ways difficult to imagine.  There’s a lesson hidden here, and it reaches back, I suspect, before the taming of electricity.

Image credit: Mircea Madau, public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Shocking Truth

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The electrician recently stopped by. We’re renters and although I don’t mind doing minor household repairs to benefit the landlord, I draw the line at electricity. It’s a scary thing. I’ve been shocked too many times to want a jolt bigger than I can handle. I even once accidentally grabbed the metal prongs when unplugging something as a child (it was a microscope light, I remember) and that helpless feeling of being unable to drop the plug even while my body jerked uncontrollably left me with a healthy respect for those who actually understand insulation, capacitors, and those impossible electrical diagrams. So when the pull chain came out of the ceiling light I wasn’t going to try to fix it.

The electrician, like most people who see our apartment, commented on the books. “You like to read,” he said. I can’t help but feel guilty about that. It’s almost as if you should apologize for requiring the stimulation of so many tomes. I confessed that I did, but I wanted to justify it. “I work in publishing,” I feebly offered as an excuse. Concentrating on the fixture above his head, he said, “I don’t ever read a book unless I have to.” He fixed the pull chain and left. I couldn’t have fixed the thing so quickly, or safely. He even had a metal ladder. I was grateful for the light, but once again felt somewhat freakish for my bibliophilia.

Those of us who write books must read books. You can’t learn how to do one without the other. Because of movies and television, we picture writers as people with large houses and separate rooms as libraries where they can sit surrounded by books as they type away at their next bestseller. Those of us who work for a living seldom have such luxury. A separate room just for books? I like letting my books reside in whatever room they feel like. Most affordable apartments don’t come with a study. There are living room books that you want people to see, and kitchen books that suggest good things to eat. There are bedroom books that you might not want others to see. What I don’t have is a library. A book zoo. My books roam freely about my home. It occurs to me that one area lacking in my collection is one about household wiring. Maybe instead of feeling weird I should get wired. I’m sure there are books out there that will tell me how. Or at least that will let me know that a wooden ladder makes a poor conductor.