Fire Scare
>> 3.12.2010
Earlier this week, the power in half of my house went out. I called the electric company and they sent someone out that evening to check on the issue. After checking everything, the serviceman determined that I had some sort of wiring issue and needed to call an electrician.
Fast forward to the next day and two hours into the electrician's visit... THIS ended up being the issue:
From what I can understand, a wire had come lose (we're talking over 20-year-old wiring) and literally burnt out. You can see by the hole in the side of the switch, I was lucky that a big fire didn't start in my garage (where the culprit was found).
The side-by-side really shows the poor state my the old switch was in:
YIKES!
Needless to say, not having a fire was worth more than the $212 this emergency visit cost me! The electrician also recommended that my boyfriend spend some time this weekend switching out all of the old switches. Ha! Little did he know that Nate won't get near electricity. It looks like I'll have another nice little time consuming job on my hands. I'll be sure to let you know how swapping out all of the switches went for me.
Anyone else have any fire scares?
What are your big project plans for the weekend?
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15 comments:
Switching out all the switches and outlets is the first thing we do when we move into a new house, which we've done 3 times in 3 years - yeah, we're crazy like that. Good thing it's super easy - just watch out - the old wiring is notorious for being difficult and too short to attach to the screws easily.
Even better perk - all shiny new white switches make me so happy and make a huge difference in the finish quality of a room!!
Just did it to half of my house-- not difficult at all. Just be sure to put a sign on the breaker box when you flip it off. You never know if somebody will flip it back on when you walk away. :)
Whoa! I'm glad your power just went out and a fire didn't start. This makes me curious about the state of the switches in my house...
Oh my, that is so scary! We had a similar scare when we demoed our porch and the light bulb was submerged under water. We'd been using the porch light everyday for a year. We're still working on switching out all of our light fixtures and adding outlets to our house (only one outlet in the master is not cutting it!). Good luck to you this weekend in switching them out!
That's terrifying! I'm glad everything worked out, even if it will be time consuming.
Woah that is scary!! Our neighbors' house burned down right before Christmas and it's really put us into safety mode, although we're still working on replacing a lot of the switches - the previous owner was an electrician so there are outlets and switches as far as the eye can see, and we still don't know where some of them go!
Wow! Yeah, I think switching them out is a good idea. Wouldn't hurt to switch out the outlets too, at some point.
It's an easy upgrade, but, yeah, time consuming. And annoying with having to turn the electricity on and off as you do stuff.
Do you have one of those beep-tester thingies? Good thing to have when doing electrical work.
@chacha~ Yes! I bought a tester thing. Better safe than sorry :).
Yikes! Glad there was no fire!
We've (meaning my husband) has replaced switches and outlets in all the rooms of our 30 year old house. Besides working better (some of the outlets wouldn't hold plugs snugly) they look so much better! (they were almond colored before, and now they're all white!)
my om my! I'm so glad all is ok! I hope everything goes smooth with the new ones
yikes!! That is scary!! Thank god there wasn't a fire!!
So glad it worked out and you are all safe!
Yikes that scary!! So glad that nothing major resulted!!
Wow, Kasey, that is so freaky! I'm so, so glad you caught it in time.
I'm happy that you are safe, and can't wait to hear the newest skill set you acquired.
We've been doing some major electrical work in my house (I get a great deal since Stan's dad is an electrician :-) and my 1926 house is full of "knob and tube" wiring- super old school. We also discovered that half the house was on ONE circuit. Not sure if that's a fire hazard, but I'm glad to have updated electrical nonetheless!
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