let there be light (and storms, almost)

Isn't this the prettiest thing in the whole world? Well, it is in mine. Installation was more complicated than we thought, so we had the neighbor help us install our new porch light. I love the fact that it was so easy for him that he chatted throughout the process. If only we had skillz; if only we had toolz.

Not so pretty, but coming along nicely is the storm window renovation. Although we have been scoffed at by the home renovation center salesmen and poopooed by the internet wizards, we are proceeding with replacing screens and glass, and fixing up the plastic. No, we are not going to get vinyl windows. We'll suffer the loss of heat (we did the ol' plastic sheeting with a blow dryer last winter, and it worked fine). We like the old-school look of the aluminum storm windows, and our nice old wood windows, and we simply can't afford to replace them with something that is either (a) totally prohibitively expensive (wood); or (b) ugly and cheap-looking that will only last 10 years, if that (vinyl). Perhaps we'll revisit this idea next spring, but we are amazed by how well the windows held up even with the broken and messed-up storms, so we are pretty sure that with fixing them and properly installing them, they'll be ok.

birthday present!

Lookee what I got for my birthday! All my dreams have come true. It's one of the only interesting-yet-simple modern porch flush-mount porch lights out there for a halfway decent price. I like the entire Hollywood Hills collection, especially the pendants.

Having searched to no avail in our local lighting stores, I purchased the porch light online. I chose Bellacor.com, which had mixed reviews and a longer wait time than other comparable merchants, but it doesn't have a ridiculous 25% restocking fee like most of the other lighting stores online, and there was free shipping via UPS.

It's too late now, but I'm curious -- have you purchased lighting products online, and if so, where? Would you recommend the vendor?

And...while I'm shopping...isn't this Westinghouse garage pendant lamp cute? Too bad I don't have a garage. The whole line of garage lights is adorable, and the price is almost too cheap to be good.

what the internets don't teach u about disposals

Just before I left to meet Mr. Reluctant in Utah for my camping trip, my garbage disposal suddenly stopped working. Being alone and mechanically inept, I searched for friends to fix it in the few hours I had before my flight took off. No such luck. I then turned to the internet, a screwdriver, and trepidation. I hit the reset button repeatedly, turned off the breaker, removed particles of broken china and pieces of bok choy, fiddled with the chopper and the shaft, hit the reset button a few more times, switched on and off the breaker again, just in case, and cursed it. Still nothing. So I finished canning my brandied cherries and left. It sat, broken and pregnant with a moldering cherry, for the week.

As I've mentioned before, I have the best neighbor in the world. He's a commercial electrician by trade, a handyman and a (mostly) organic gardener. He came over yesterday and took a look at the disposal. Turns out the internet told me everything I needed to know about the mechanics of the thing, but not the electrical system. A small panel underneath the device revealed that one of the wires had been shaken loose. That was it. He rehooked the wires and we saved a hundred bucks.

all i want for my birthday

...is a new porch light. Well, ok, if you bought me a dining room chandelier, I wouldn't complain. And a few guys to powerwash and paint the exterior of my house. And, um, that kitchen vent? And new cabinets for the kitchen and a fig tree and a carport and a patio and a garden retaining wall and a new bathroom.

This is like "Stone Soup," but opposite.

grounding outlets for computer equipment

A guest appearance by one of my favorite people -- my husband! He became rather knowledgable about old wiring during the process of rewiring our kitchen and adding outlets throughout the house. I am incredibly thankful he undertook this project, because the only thing I want to do is plug in my hair dryer and not have it shut off all the lights in the kitchen, dining room, and bathroom. Yes, that's what happens when you have one circuit for all of these things.

One electrician looked at me like I was crazy when I explained I wanted properly grounded outlets for my computers.

"All the kids up at the University just use cheater plugs. Works for them," he added.

"Yes, that's why their hard drives die after a year," I retorted.

I didn't hire him.

I called up another electrician to get an estimate on running a few new circuits. He said he could ground the existing outlets.

"How?" I asked. "The wiring is old two-wire Romex, not metal conduit. There isn't a path back to the box other than neutral. Grounding to a water pipe is not code. Are you going to run a ground back to the box?"

He explained it was a trade secret, and he wouldn't tell me how because I would tell other people or just do it myself.

Didn't hire him, either.

There are two reasons a grounded outlet is a necessity if you care about your computer at all. The first and most important reason is surge protection. The electricity in your house is very noisy. There are small variations in current and voltage *all the time*. Your computer contains components which are very sensitive to these fluctuations, and over time, plugging in to a poor electrical source will degrade these components. A surge protector is needed not so much for catastrophic events like lightening strikes, but for these everyday small surges.

Do your lights flicker when you turn on your vacuum? Having your computer on lines shared by motors is a particularly bad idea, because starting and stopping these motors create power fluctuations on the line. (This is a topic for another time.)

All but very very high-end (e.g., costing $250) surge protectors operate by directing overcurrent to ground. If you do not have an equipment ground, there is nowhere for excess voltage to go, and your protector is useless. This is why using a cheater plug to plug a three-prong power strip into a two prong outlet makes it useless as a surge protector.

As an aside, I note that the previous owners of our house replaced all the two-prong receptacles with three-prong ones, but since there is nowhere to connect the ground in the existing wiring, these are not grounded. I should note that this is both illegal and a bad idea. I will return to this in a later post.

The other reason electronics should be plugged into a properly grounded outlet is to keep the metal parts at the same potential as earth. Otherwise, current might flow if these components come into contact with something which is grounded. However, this reason is far less important than having good surge protection.

Many people misunderstand the fundamental reason for the third ground wire. It is connected to earth back at the box, either by your service being bonded to a rod buried in the ground or by being bonded to your water pipe where in enters the house, and will direct an extreme event such as lightning to earth. However, its more fundamental purpose is to provide a *low resistance* independent path back to the box. The exposed metal in your appliances should be bonded to this path through the ground wire. Should the insulation break down and these surfaces become energized, they will pass through the ground back to the box, hopefully tripping the overcurrent protection (fuse or breaker). Otherwise, if you were to become grounded and come into contact with the energized appliance, the current would flow through you.

The real estate agent had recommended installing a GFCI, either at the outlet or one at the beginning of the circuit, to take care of grounding the computer. This doesn't address the problem at all -- the GFCI prevents you from getting electrocuted in the case of a ground fault, but doesn't protect your equipment at all.

think electric

One of the major projects we undertook upon moving in to our house in November was the rewiring of the kitchen. I'm going to ask my husband to help me describe what was changed, but it involved new outlets, new circuits, lighting changes, and grounding everything properly.

I just wanted to take this opportunity to heartily recommend our electricians, Think Electric, a collective and progressive business managed by a young, friendly, competent, curious, hard-working, internet-savvy guy who goes by the nickname of Turtle. We LOVED them. They specialize in rewiring the 40s and 50s ranches in this neighborhood. I added a link to their website to my links list.

After missed appointments, arguments about grounding computer outlets, no callbacks, strange conversations and suspicions that we would steal "trade secrets," we decided that getting estimates from the other electricians in town was a waste of time. Luckily, we emailed (EMAILED!) Turtle, and he came out when he said he would, understood our needs, gave us a decent price, and did the job right. We ended up piling more small projects on the large one, and we gave them a big chunk of our remodeling budget. But it was worth every penny. Every time I turn on a light or plug in my vaccuum, I smile.