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Tweakers' Asylum Tweaks for systems, rooms and Do It Yourself (DIY) help. FAQ. |
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Tweakers' Asylum Tweaks for systems, rooms and Do It Yourself (DIY) help. FAQ. |
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In Reply to: If you need to ask... posted by Trevor Wilson on September 22, 2000 at 18:34:54:
most people won't do much of their own plumbing. cutting and soldering pipes that run under your floor joists or up inside a wall is not only a big pain, lots of times you both set fire to your house with the torch, and then cause a lot of water damage when you find out that one hard-to-reach elbow wasn't sweated properly. but plumbers have a pretty low status none-the-less. they say all you need to know to be a plumber is two things: 1. shit always flows downhill. 2. don't chew your fingernails.but with 'lectricity and a tiny bit of knowledge from watching Bob Vila (who gives moron's a bad name)on the TV show, "This Old House Where Formerly Happy But Now Bankrupt Homeowners are Gettin a Divorce Any Day Now" (on PBS), people in the USofA get busy and do all kinds of amazing things to their house wireing.
take me for example. i worked with 'lectricity in a research lab for a long time, occasionally running out to a chemical plant start-up to help out, and over to the pilot plants to work with the scale-ups of processes. so we did all kinds of 'lectricity, from delicate thermocouples and circuit designs right up to 'dem mother three phase 'lectric motors running industrial pumps, clarifiers and centrifuges. i worked not only here in PA, where we use coal AND newclear kind of 'lectricity, but in some really primative, foreign countries where they don't have "normal" 'lectricity, like Chile and North Carolina. (in the great Atacama desert of N Chile they have weird electricity that varies in both cycles and voltage, and sometimes just plain stops--i think it's made from seabird guano...but in NC it's even stranger...made from some kind of sodomy energy or expectorated tobacco product).
so when it came time for me to go up in the attic and fish a dedicated line down into my listening room, armed with my Home Depot "You can do 'lectricity as good as Bob Vila" guidebook, i had no fear, none at all. The wife however, was very concerned.
Then about a week after I finished I blew up my very expensive digital-to-analog processor and my transport, and left a huge scorch mark on the outlet i had been trying to plug them into. Both pieces of gear were toast. I spent a week trying to figure out what had happened. Obviously it was the fault of Steve McCormack or Enlightened Audio Designs. They fixed the gear for free you know.
I chatted here on this website to VK. He had a few ideas where to look. I was careful not to tell him about the "self-inflicted" 'lectrical work I had done. We agreed to blame it on those morons who wired my house (how right he was). I talked to a few 'lectrical engineers about it too. Hint: never talk to an electrical engineer about your house wireing--they know less than Bob Villa but have an aversion to clueing you into this bit of info. they have an uncanny ability to talk for hours with a high degree of confidence and reassurance, in very technical language, about things they have no experience of.
Then one day somebody on this website (might have been VK) told me to go to radio shack and get a $2.99 circuit tester. The thing showed all kinds of problems with that circuit: voltage leaking where it shouldn't, reversed hot and neutral...so I got a real, scientific-looking analog meter and a screwdriver and started tracking down the bad connections.
Turns out that working up in that dark, hot attic with the fiberglas hairs floating all around and the hornets and bats and squirrels, climbing up and down that ladder to get the tools I forgot and fishing thru the fiberglass and trying to drill through a top plate threee 2x4's thick while holding a flashlight in your teeth and not hit the wireing to the bathroom fan motor, or worse of all--put your fat foot right through the listening room ceiling because you lost your balance and missed the joist...was too much for me. I had properly installed a junction box from which to drop the line, but when I removed the cover of the box, I saw that I had not connected the ground leads together. there they were, just hanging out in space, waiting for me to go all the way down to the basement and get some tool i must have needed or just to take a leak...I guess I'd become distracted on the way back up and just put the cover plate on without finishing the job.
lesson: no matter how smart you think you are, ALWAYS have somebody check your work when you are fooling with electricity. as VK points out, don't even trust the "pro" you hire to come out and wire your house. that's why most townships/cities require you to get a permit and have it inspected. your tax dollars at work.
Thanks to:
McCormack Audio
Enlightened Audio Designs
Balanced Audio's (BAT) Victor Khomenko
this websitefor all the free repairs and advice
and for making me follow-up and find the source of the problemmy house ain't burned up yet!
tomorrow, i'm putting a new hose bib on the main cold water feed line where it runs under the living room right up against the very dry, wooden, floor joists.
but first, gonna trim those fingernails.
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Follow Ups
- kinda like plumbing - petew 14:04:05 09/24/00 (0)
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