Back in the “part 3” post, I mentioned that the electrical work was three times what was initially planned and budgeted, and that might have been slightly less than the final bill. I think we may be at quadruple what was originally planned.
But is it worth it? I think so.
In other parts of the house, when a large appliance or device is powered on, such as a printer, the lights flicker and dim. In the kitchen, we will never have this problem now.
Where there were maybe 4 circuits before (oven, stovetop, lights, and all outlets for 3 rooms), now there are 8. Breaking up the outlets into zones and removing the lights from outlets will make a difference. In our temporary kitchen, we can only operate one cooking device at a time – either the griddle, the toaster oven, or the microwave. We’ve tripped the breaker a few times with those.
The initial wiring work was done back when Part 3 was written (new wires run in the walls, tied in down in the crawlspace, and “home run” back to the panel), but the finish work has only just been done. A few weeks ago, the first plugs went in just after the tile work was complete on one wall, then last week, the last of the plugs were wired in (almost).
This week, the final pieces were done. The oven plug was finished off (apparently a code issue for modern ovens – no more direct wire) and the final hall 4-way switch was replaced (that wasn’t present in the last effort to finish so I had to buy a new one).
One problem we discovered when we plugged everything back in, was that the ceiling fan was not working with the new switch and wiring and initially, the electrician couldn’t figure it out.
Yesterday, while the electrician was taking a look at the wires, we noticed a small black dangling wire sticking out of the base of the fan where it attached to the ceiling. Turns out, it was attached to a black box – a wireless receiver which turned the fan and light on and off. Even though the wires to the wall were connected directly to the fan, the previous owners used a wireless transmitter/receiver combination to control the fan speeds and lights. This is no longer necessary since there are capable wired switches that can do the job.
The black box and old switch controller are now gone and no longer interfering with fan operations.
Here is the new 4-gang switch group with the new fan switch on the left.
So, it’s all done now. Well, the electrical is, and we have sufficient power and nice fancy new switches.
There is one thing left for electrical related items: we have new kitchen lights on order, so once they arrive, we will install them.
That’s something we can do ourselves.
::: jeffphillips.org ::: 