Circuits, Breakers, and Electricity. Oh My!

Amy and I are having a lot of fun doing home projects and getting everything just the way we want things.  Today, I was going to add a new circuit breaker to take power out to the front yard.  An area that is painfully lacking in an electrical outlet.

The plan, as always, was a simple one.  The pervious owners of this house had a hot tub (it was, thankfully, gone when we moved in).  I knew that dropping a new electrical wire would be a nigh impossible task with how full this circuit breaker box is, so we decided to simply high jack the electrical line that used to go to the hot tub.

Basically, we’d take the 30 AMP breaker that is presently in there and replace it with a 15 AMP breaker.  Then we’d take the electrical line that is sitting in the attic (attached to nothing, don’t worry) and simply attach the new line to the end of that line inside a junction box.

That’s when I was introduced to a type of breaker called Zinsco.  They look like this

They are also HORRIBLY outdated.  They are also, and more importantly, against electrical codes due to a design flaw in which the circuit breaker's connection to the bus bar becomes loose, causing arcing and subsequent overheating.

How did I find all this out?  I went to Home Depot where a kindly associate pointed me to the replacement breaker that cost 70 dollars!  OUCH!

The long story short is that I was able to purchase a replacement on eBay for 7 bucks and will continue this project in a couple weeks.  In the long run, I will need to replace the entire panel, but that’s a very expensive (though only slightly more than how much Home Depot would have charged me for the breaker) and timely, so it will be a project for much letter.

Ironically, however, I’m thinking about changing my mode of attack for putting an electrical outlet out there.  Where before I was going to drop the line through a water proof pipe out of my attic down the side of my house and into a waterproof outlet box.  I’m thinking that a better option may be to actually just boor a whole in my outer brick wall and tap into an outlet in the guest bedroom.

Then I’ll just flush mount the waterproof outlet and it will look significantly nicer.  It’s not like I need a huge AMP rating on this outlet either.  I literally just need an outlet out there to hook my weed eater up.  The only other things on this circuit (Amy and I mapped all the circuits last week) are the outlets in the guest room and 2 in the office and 2 in the master bedroom.  So unless I decide to hook a ridiculous amount of high Amperage equipment to each outlet at once, tapping in to the preexisting outlet should work just fine.

Any thoughts? (other than call Daniel’s father-in-law, our local electrician)

Circuits, Breakers, and Electricity. Oh My!

Married!

Yay - we got married and it is almost our 1 month anniversary!

Married!

Birthday fun!

We celebrated my (Amy) 23rd birthday this past weekend. It was great fun to get to together the families. Here is a picture of the three girls:

We had my favorite dessert: funfetti cookies

My cute niece delievered my presents to me one by one -- even the four pounds of bird seeds! She was determinded to get them to me! It was so adorable. She loves her aunt Amy!

My sister made the most adorable home made gifts. I love how creative she is! Check out the cool stuff she made!!

The first is a hand drawn picture with the design that was on our wedding invitation. What a special keepsake!

Next is an adorable plastic bag holder -- with the same cute wedding icon.

And don't forget about the cute customized hand towels -- the kind grandma used to have!

I don't have any of the pictures from the celebration at the Bennett's but it was a good time too! Thank you all for the gifts and the good times!

Amy

Birthday fun!

Well, that was Quite the Adventure wasn’t it? Hmm?

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

James 1:2 – 4 (Emphasis Added)

Amy and I had a lesson in perseverance yesterday night. We had gone out to Spaghetti Warehouse to celebrate Patrick’s birthday and on the way back to their house Amy and I decided that we would stop by the home we our buying (oh yeah, I guess I should mention Amy and I are buying a home) and see if any of the repair work to some outside issue had started yet.

About a week ago, one of the fence panels fell down. This was not a surprise to me, I had walked the fence and found that the post it was attached to was the only one that needed to be replaced, and I have replaced quite a few fence posts so I was not overly concerned by it. What was concerning is the fact that the fallen panel was completely detached from both posts as if someone had been walking over it. We also noticed that some kind of sheet had been placed over the windows in the backyard.

Hoping that it was the construction guy who is going to replace all the air ducts, we decided to take a quick peek through a window. As we approached, however, we found that the storm window had been completely removed and glass was covering the backyard. Moreover, taking a peek in the window revealed garbage on the counters, several holes punched in a wall, and garbage in the fireplace.

Our future home had been vandalized.

We walked the perimeter and finding the front door unlocked, ventured inside. We found paint on the carpet, paint on the wood floors, someone had written, in paint, on one of the closet doors, and worse of all, the garage was just completely trashed. It looks as if they had taken turns throwing a paint can at a wall, painting obscenities and racial epithets all over the garage floor, walls, and door. Additionally, it appeared that they had been bathing and showing there.

Seeing the garage was devastating to Amy, and infuriating to me. I admit that I am guilty of sneaking into an unoccupied home when I was a child and chilling there. But the amount of senseless destruction… it boggles the mind. There is simply no rhyme or reason why someone would write some of the words they did in an empty garage or punch holes in the walls.

We made very certain that we changed nothing from how we found it and left. We called up our realtor and informed him of what had happened. He promised to call the seller’s realtor and find out whatever he could. About 10 minutes later we got a call back from him and found out that the police had actually caught 2 of the individuals involved in the vandalism. They know that there are two others and the 2 who were caught are informing the police who the remaining two are.

We also got some more good news today. The seller was already aware of the break in and has a contractor out there getting an estimate and starting repairs this week as soon as the police’s investigation is finished and work is allowed to resume on the house. Other points of God’s provision in this include:

• We have extensive photographic records of the condition of the house before the vandalism by ourselves, the seller’s agent, the inspectors (2 of them), and the appraiser was there just before this happened!
• The seller is already committed to fixing these issues (we are praying that the parents of the individuals who committed this crime are held responsible for the bill and not the seller. The seller has been real nice to us during this process and we really hope he isn’t burdened by this)
• The closing date should remain unchanged
• The seller is fixing the fallen fence panel for us now too (originally I was just going to do it)
• The police are going to be keeping an eye out on our house until we move in to make sure this does not happen again.

I’d like to take a moment and put some of our friends’ fears to rest who have responded to this story with extreme concern about the safety of the neighborhood. This is actually a very nice neighborhood. Every time I’ve gone by I’ve seen plenty of people out in their yards, there aren’t bars on the windows, and even the kids who walk past us on their way home from school have been friendly and well dressed (with one or two exceptions, but hey, if you saw some of my pictures from that age you’d be surprised too).

The simple truth of the matter is that this place has been empty for the past 4 months, the backyard was wide open for anyone to traipse into, and… it was spring break when it happened. I’d be hard pressed to find a neighborhood in which something didn’t happen to a home in similar circumstances.

And, just so you know, Amy and I are not worried about the safety of the neighborhood and we are still closing on the house on schedule. Letting a couple kids who got stupid rowdy keep us from closing on this amazing home would be beyond idiotic and painfully short-sighted!

Thanks for all your prayers!

Matthew and Amy

Well, that was Quite the Adventure wasn’t it? Hmm?

Do you know what time it is?

Tool Time!  Is the answer of course.  While Amy was off having her wedding shower this past Sunday, my dad decided to throw me a Tool Time Party (Read: Groom’s Wedding Shower).  Dad invited over a bunch of men who had been of particular importance in the course of life and together they equipped me with some top notch tools.  Such a party would have been really nice if I was moving into an apartment, but since I’m moving into a house, this party really provided me with the tools I need to perform basic to intermediate (and even a little advanced) repairs around the home.  Here’s a picture of gifts:

Here’s a picture specifically of what my father equipped me with.  First he provided a tool box and a set of craftsmen's screwdrivers just like the one he’s had since he and Mom got married (and were given to him by his father)

Then in the bottom of the tool box were an assortment of pliers, vice grips, and wrenches (The hammer is from my brother Andrew).

And finally he gave a HUGE tool kit full of sockets and wrenches and all those little things that bring a project to a halt when you don’t have them.

Also of special note, my future father-in-law gave me a cordless drill (something that no tool collection is complete without)

As well as a driving set so I can put that drill to good use!

A big thank you to everyone who came to my tool equipping party.  I promise to make good use of all the tools you graciously provided to me.  The first project?  Well if I take the advice of the men from the party it will be to set up my work area… which might mean that the first project is to build my work area, as you can see, the quality of the current one is… dubious.

(On the bottom left under the work bench is a pan, a pan full of oil and two old oil filters.  The garage might need some loving, but the inside of the house is amazing!)

Do you know what time it is?

Wedding Countdown!

Wedding Countdown!

Silly knees

So, it’s a blizzard in Texas today. And really, it is true, coming from someone who grew up in Utah. It has been snowing all day! And it’s actually sticking to the ground – a rarity in the big TX. All of this information means that it is a snow day in Texas; few people dare to drive and we all sit around our suburban homes and wait for it to dry up (rather quickly typically).

I, however, being the Utahn that I am decided I wanted to venture out for lunch. I thought to myself “Wendy’s is just down the road, no big deal”. So I put on my slip on shoes (people wear flip flops in the winter in Utah sometimes) so in true west coast fashion I went out. I quietly tip toed down the sidewalk to my car which had been sitting all night in the snow. It appeared to have about 4” inches (?) of snow on the top of it. In Utah the snow is lightly and fluffy and can sometimes come off if you just turn on the windshield wipers without scrapping it off first. So I gave this a try. And failed. The snow in Texas is much more wet, heavy and … rude.

I climbed out of the car with my slip on shoes and snow scrapper. I began shoving the snow off the windshield and remember thinking to myself “well, it’s been awhile since I’ve had to do this! I knew there were reasons I moved to Texas!” I ambled around to the other side of the car and scrapped the snow off that side too. When I still couldn’t get the wipers to budge I got aggressive and stood on top of the side of my driver’s side door step to get a harder push on the snow.

When I got back in my car there was snow EVERYWHERE inside the car. I could not immediately find the source. Perplexed I believe I sat there dumbfounded for a moment or two before glancing upward and finding my moon roof completely wide open. I actually laughed (quite proud of myself on that one). Apparently, when I had decided to stand on my door frame my silly left knee hit the moon roof button. The button opened the entire moon roof, the whole way and the large amount of snow plopped into the car. Just that simple folks.

Utah girl learns a Texas sized lesson. Watch those knees.

Silly knees