biggerboat's building boondoggle blog
I started this in H&F but this seems a better place for it. These are my H&F posts. A bit long-winded but hopefully en
GL w/ the paperwork and bureaucracy on both fronts. I guess now you know to go take pictures of vehicles' dashboards next time there's a storm coming.
I just couldn't live with that rat's nest of aluminum and copper wiring.
So......
One of the wires coming out of the mess went to a plug on an adjacent wall. It was already exposed when we tore the sheetrock out. I just replaced the aluminum with new romex. Easy peasy.
Another one of the aluminum wires went to a plug on the other side of some windows. I just pulled the sheetrock above the header and replaced that one with copper as well.
The other two wires exiting the box were both copper.
So now I have only one aluminum wire - the hot wire coming in. I'll just put those alumiconn connectors on that one and tie the rest together. I think it will work.
Got my wife a honda accord hybrid. Much cheaper than my truck. Plus the insurance from her old car covered about 2/3 of it so not horrible.
Sheetrock people are coming today to patch things up.
The plumbers finished but I'm not entirely happy with them. They were here until almost 10:00 the other night because they wanted to cram 3 days of work into 2. They were really sloppy too. We have holes in the wall and ceiling where they miscalculated where the pipe would go. They did some sort of weird convergence of pipes under the kitchen sink that won't allow me to install the new cabinets without either cutting a massive hole in the back of the cabinet, or cutting off water and cutting pipes. They didn't clean up their mess at all. I have the supervisor coming tomorrow to look at everything. I don't really want to hate on the guy that did the work too much, though. He was a nice guy and worked really hard. But he was just sloppy and did a rush job.
if you didnt pay in advance you hold the hammer.
The plumber's boss is coming today to look at everything. We'll see.
I got that electrical rat's nest fixed. Those wires are really crammed in there but everything is working.
We got thrown yet another curve ball. Every day we have to deal with something unexpected. We had the sheetrock guys scheduled for next week. We've been planning a vacation for almost a year and we've already paid for the flights and hotel so we are determined to go, hell or high water (been through both). Anyway the sheetrock guys knocked on the door and asked if they could start now. That's good that it gets done sooner but we had to scramble to move and cover stuff. Plus we have to deal with people working while we are in the house.
Then my wife and I got into a huge fight. This is just so unbelievably stressful.
Another question for Mark.
I have an oven receptacle that needs to be replaced. They wired the aluminum wires directly to it. Do they make aluminum compatible 220 receptacles or do I need to use alumiconn connectors? The wire is pretty thick and I don't think the connectors i used for the 12 gauge wire will work.
The first one I looked at on home depot's website is AL/CU rated, so good for either copper or aluminum to wire directly to it. Just make sure the one you buy has AL stamped on it. If you want to use an abundance of caution you can buy some nolox and squirt a little on the wires when you connect them to the receptacle, but it shouldn't be necessary if the receptacle is rated for AL.
The first one I looked at on home depot's website is AL/CU rated, so good for either copper or aluminum to wire directly to it. Just make sure the one you buy has AL stamped on it. If you want to use an abundance of caution you can buy some nolox and squirt a little on the wires when you connect them to the receptacle, but it shouldn't be necessary if the receptacle is rated fo
Thanks. I read the fine print on the one I already bought and it says its ok for aluminum, plus there was already some sort of glop on the wires so all good. Thanks!
We rarely travel other than to see relatives. This is our first only us vacation.
We're going to do the tourist thing in NY. 911 museum, a couple of shows, the met museum, not sure what else.
My favorite thing we did in NYC was taking a pedicab tour of Central Park. Have done the tour twice with this guy. He's pretty entertaining and knowledgable:
My favorite thing we did in NYC was taking a pedicab tour of Central Park. Have done the tour twice with this guy. He's pretty entertaining and knowledgable:
Cool. We'll probably check that out. Our hotel is right next to Central Park.
Sheetrock guys are done putting up sheetrick and taping and floating. Another guy will do the texturing monday.
The crew was 2 girls and a guy. Boss man wasn't around. They were a well oiled machine. Did fantastic work and were really fast. I rarely do this but I was so impressed with the job they did that I gave them some side money.
House is starting to look like a house again.
Got the boat lift working and started the motors. All good. I still need to replace the breaker but it works for now.
For no good reason, the following occurred to me yesterday. In a storm, how do you keep the boat from filling with water?
I know the cabin part is waterproof. It seems to me when there's a huge rain, the open part would fill. Seems like that would be really heavy. Ever enough to sink a boat simply by filling with rain?
It has an automatic bilge pump. It kicks on when the water in the boat gets a few inches high.
also has self bailing decks
Random d1 ny thoughts.
Laguardia is much nicer than I remember it. They must have given it a total makeover since I was here.
The streets are not nearly as busy with foot traffic as i remember it. Maybe everyone works from home now?
Our hotel sucks. Its in a prime location and not cheap, but the air conditioning is almost nonexistent and it is warm here. Our room was hot and when I said something about it the guy said they turned it off for the winter. I pressed him on it and they sent an "engineer " who said our "line" was struggling so they moved us to another room. Somewhat better but not great. They gave us a fan.
$10.00 cup of coffee... .
Just finished walking through Central Park to the metropolitan museum of art.
We couldn't have asked for better weather. The trees are in fall foliage and beginning to drop leaves. The park is wonderful.
The museum was awesome.
We're resting now. Lots of walking so far.
Headed to a show tonight.
Just gotta ignore a lot.
what do sarcastic pizza restaurants have to do with this particular conversation?
The elevators in this hotel are somewhat challenging. You have to put your key card in a reader that is pretty iffy at best and there is a reader on just one side of the elevator so when it is full, and it is always full, you have to squeeze through people to do it. Then you have to find your floor button which is almost impossible because they aren't lighted and the elevator is really dark. Every person we've met struggles with it and complains about it. This morning we waited 15 minutes to get on one that wasn't packed with people.
