After 4+ years, I decided that this weekend was the right time to switch out some of the electrical outlets in the house. If you've never had 2-prong outlets in your house, you can't imagine how frustrating it is to try to plug something in and go searching for an extension cord or an adapter. We had learned to live with it .... but T and I have become rather mobile with our laptops and our batteries aren't what they used to be - so we're always scrambling to find a power cord and an outlet ... lately we've also been short on 3 prong /2 prong adaptors.
As luck would have it, I recently found the paper bag of shiny new outlets from Home Depot that we purchased shortly after moving in to the house. I can't for the life of me remember why they never got used - oh well, at least I can take pride in never throwing them away. C-Man and I worked together on each outlet ... after a quick lesson on testing for current and using the circuit breaker. I initially was only going to do 2 (so we could easily plug in at the kitchen table) but eventually used the whole bag.
I'm always a little nervous when I take off an electrical plate that (1) a spider or something worse will be upset that I disturbed its home and (2) some strange wiring situation will require an extra trip to the hardware store or a call to an electrician. Today, the only one that I had trouble was the first one. It had been part of a long-ago kitchen remodel and was had some wires that were cut really short ... worse, they had been "back-stabbed" into the receptacle, so they broke and had to be cut back even more.
No spiders - no other issues .... and I had a set of little hands to grab whatever I had forgotten in the last room.
4 comments:
It was pretty cool having Dash and little dash doing that today! Then tonight...I started taking down the border in the bathroom and asked for help and Dash and N took over and finished it for me!
Now THAT I REALLY liked! :) It was a productive day and a fun day as we also played games with the kids and took time out to watch a tv show too! YAY Saturday! :)
Sounds like a great Saturday.
1. I didn't have the spider fear before. Now I might. :)
2. When I was at Evangel we used extension cords that had two-pronged outlets. I'm sure it was incredibly safe to use those with the three-to-two-prong adapters I got for all our three pronged plugs.
It must be safe to go 3 to 2. We did it all through our house and never converted outlets (other than the kitchen which was thanks to the terrific worship leader/electrician at church). Our computer ran with one of those goofy adaptors all the years we were at that house. You can never find one of those when you need it. I brought one with us over here. Not sure why, just seemed like an essential might need item.
It must be safe to go 3 to 2. We did it all through our house and never converted outlets (other than the kitchen which was thanks to the terrific worship leader/electrician at church). Our computer ran with one of those goofy adaptors all the years we were at that house. You can never find one of those when you need it. I brought one with us over here. Not sure why, just seemed like an essential might need item.
Post a Comment