You can't see it [It's Electric!]
Our next big adventure- figuring out what to do about our electric situation. We knew going into it that we were taking on some old "knob and tube" which is apparently not inherently bad, but because people use the exposed wires to hang their clothes on, which starts fires, it's not much appreciated in the insurance business. SO, being on top of it before we bought the house- we brought in an electrician to get an estimate for the work. Apparently we somehow picked out the low-baller electrician because he came in, looked around, pointed at a few things, and gave us a reasonable amount. Feeling confident about our informed, proactive researching, we happily handed over our check and bought the house. Flash forward about two weeks, once we have our own keys to the place and can come and go as we please, we call around for a couple more estimates.
Enter electrician #2, which I unfortunately missed, but my husband informed me: “was as old as the hills” (mid-70s). The highlights of that visit were the electrician firing at Clint “WHY do you want the outlets grounded?” which both stumped and disarmed him for any future questions, and the electrician saying he hadn’t seen a circuit breaker box that bad- which means a lot, because we’re talking about some 50-odd years of electrical work.
Our third electrician is apparently electrician extraordinaire, who proposed literally creating holes in our plaster (walls and ceiling), or somehow magically removing the trim along the baseboards, which as literally been painted to the walls with some 100 coats of paint. This would literally bring our entire house up to code, of course it also means more than likely removing all the plaster, and replacing with drywall. Which if we’re not dumb and infertile from the lead & stripper, we’ll likely need to be on a respirator from the plaster dust. And this is all if we’re not the start of a west nile pandemic caused by the mosquitoes. We’re waiting for his estimate, which we’re pretty sure will cause us look closely at the paperwork from the closing to see what, exactly the return policy is (30 days? 60?). I’m still feeling surprisingly optimistic though, at least until we get that quote back.
Enter electrician #2, which I unfortunately missed, but my husband informed me: “was as old as the hills” (mid-70s). The highlights of that visit were the electrician firing at Clint “WHY do you want the outlets grounded?” which both stumped and disarmed him for any future questions, and the electrician saying he hadn’t seen a circuit breaker box that bad- which means a lot, because we’re talking about some 50-odd years of electrical work.
Our third electrician is apparently electrician extraordinaire, who proposed literally creating holes in our plaster (walls and ceiling), or somehow magically removing the trim along the baseboards, which as literally been painted to the walls with some 100 coats of paint. This would literally bring our entire house up to code, of course it also means more than likely removing all the plaster, and replacing with drywall. Which if we’re not dumb and infertile from the lead & stripper, we’ll likely need to be on a respirator from the plaster dust. And this is all if we’re not the start of a west nile pandemic caused by the mosquitoes. We’re waiting for his estimate, which we’re pretty sure will cause us look closely at the paperwork from the closing to see what, exactly the return policy is (30 days? 60?). I’m still feeling surprisingly optimistic though, at least until we get that quote back.
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