December is for painting walls

[thanate]

Contrary to appearances, I am not dead, but I do seem to have gone mostly into input-only mode. Sorry about that. (Well, assuming anyone cares.)

BGE came out yesterday and connected our shiny new power lines; reputedly we now have twice as much power (100 amp service upgraded to 200 amp.) Then the electrician swapped out the new hall light switch in the completely useless location with the completely useless switch in the bedroom. I even managed to confine my sarcastic remarks to asking whether they usually put 4-way fans on 2-way switches (apparently the answer is yes, they do.) So, aside from final inspections, getting the washing machine upstairs, and swapping out the plug on the dryer (since apparently now dryers must have 4-prong outlets & plugs because it's not safe to have the neutral and the ground in one wire) we're down to the stuff we're on our own for. There may be last minute trauma if the inspector decides we can't keep the old closet doorway for the bedroom, but we shall see.

Meanwhile, I have painted the new bathroom, put up bathroom hardware, and the laundry/mud room is down to touch-ups for the walls. (to be performed tomorrow morning in the bright light.) I have also got a glamorous multi-size ladder sufficient to allow me to paint the walls upstairs, so I just need to determine what brand of paint to get my colors in. Trim and windowsills are on grauwulf, and pretty soon we should be ordering our carpet. And then, we actually get to move in, and buy bookshelves, and... well, you know.

Comments

[jazzfish]

whether they usually put 4-way fans on 2-way switches (apparently the answer is yes, they do.

Usually what I've seen has been a single fixture for light + fan, with a single switch, and pull-strings for both the light and the fan in case you want one on but not the other. So I guess if there's no light they'd still do it that way, in case someone wanted to put in a light (or a light but no fan) later.

(Utterly tangential: the only wiring job I've ever done was installing a ceiling fan + light in a house that was wired in the 50s and had no ground. More excitement than I really needed.)

apparently now dryers must have 4-prong outlets & plugs because it's not safe to have the neutral and the ground in one wire

This I did not know. I'd been vaguely curious about four-prong appliance plugs for awhile. Neat.

[thanate]

This fan a) did not come with pull cords, and b) is about 10 feet in the air. They put in two switch blocks for it, which I'm fairly sure I was told were one for the fan/light and one for the hall light, but the guys who actually installed the box apparently assumed that it was one switch for each of fan and light. Since we have one of those exciting radio controlled switches that just has buttons for everything in one switch slot, they just made the supposed fan switch into a dummy switch, and then cut a hole in the wall to put a hall light switch across from the bathroom- outside the bedroom door, but within 5 feet of the switch at the top of the stairs. Apparently this is due to poorly written county code, but still, completely useless.

(re: tangent: yes; we mostly have ground wires-- or at least the ground shielded cabling-- here, but almost half the old house is still on the same circuit, and we continue to find exciting wiring things as they get updated. Fortunately (or un, depending on how you look at it) this house does not contain K's most exciting adventures in wiring-- which involved an exposed knob and tube circuit running behind a leaky bathtub.)

[jazzfish]

Ah! Ceiling fan (and switch) technology has progressed since I last had to deal with them. Also, grr on stupid code requirements.