Thursday, November 27, 2008

Shocking

I don't think that basic electrical work around a house is all that tough. I've done some - and by basic, I mean basic - and its usually turned out okay. Replacing a failed electrical socket, light switch, that sort of thing. In the one case where we had an electrician come out to figure why my replacement of a combination switch -- one for the light, one for the fan -- in our master bath didn't work, he said it was because each switch was wired to a separate circuit, which he thought unusual. Hearing that, it occurred to me that I could have figured that out. I didn't, and without a tester, I likely never would have, but I could have, if that doesn't sound like sophistry.

Speaking of which: I heard today that some people are upset. They feared that Obama had a hidden reactionary side. Now, watching who he's picking for the cabinet, he's turning out to be worse than that. It seems that for all his talk of change, he's picking people of competence and experience for his staff. He's not focusing on ideology as the primary sort criterion - only the second, or possibly third. Good god. He's a hidden moderate.

Anyway, I was thinking about the electrical side of things after I was through talking to the electricians. I had mentioned to the oral surgeon that we weren't going to use a local electrical company because, though they were very good, they were also very expensive. He recommended another company, saying he thought their work was always good. (Interestingly, for those of me who like to think about the effect of reputation, he said another company had been the people who wired his (palatial) offices; they're 'sometimes good, sometimes bad', he said. Its my opinion that people who get that kind of reputation don't seem to care very much abut reputation -- or their boss does, but that worthy doesn't know how to keep track of it, or fix it.) So, I called the other electrician, told him what we had in mind, and he said that worrying about whether we should get a two line or four line thermostat didn't really matter. (I know: two line what? four line what?) The first guy we'd talked to was saying it didn't matter, either, but then he'd say 'if you have the one kind, you just break one leg, but if you have the other, you just break both, so it really doesn't matter'. Although I knew he meant 'leg' as in 'an electrical feed', this inability to talk my language disturbed me. It was a bit too glib. (I know: me, a computer guy? Talking about people being too glib?) Well, the second electrician was pretty easy going, until he started saying 'the only problem with the two line is that it doesn't have a true Off; it doesn't shut completely off'. If that's not a problem, he went on, you can use either two or four. Well, heck. I don't know -- is that a problem? Since he's the most recent, and I don't feel like talking to every electrician in the area, we're going with him, but my feeling is gee, why can't these guys speak in normal sentences?

And then I thought: well, when you used to be a lot more comfortable with electricity than you are now, you'd have thought that casual talk of two line and four line, and breaking one of the legs, was perfectly clear, right? So do these guys. They just don't know that to you, it really doesn't matter. You just want it to work, and not burn the house down.

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Update: This is interesting. It seems to say 'just about any electrical configuration can be made to work, if you know what you're doing'

9 comments:

Tabor said...

I have two switch problems in this new house. The fan for the fireplace has a turn knob and an on/off switch. The turn knob doesn't work so the fan is always on high. Downstairs the only way we can get the patio light switch to work is if we turn on the inside lights!! Soon as we get ahead a little financially, the problem becomes getting an electrician.

Cerulean Bill said...

The first sounds like a simple replacement (though with a fireplace? Maybe not). The second makes me wonder if there's a common ground -- or even whats called a 'floating ground', where two things are grounded relative to each other, rather than to the structure.

Course, could be gremlins!

Unknown said...

I was an electrician for 20 years. We have our jargon....like a contactor is a relay is a remote switch....a generator may have a rotor and a stator, or be wye or delta connected...its all fairly low tech stuff. So low nobody has bothered to make it "transparent".

One problem I have in MY house is a floating ground....the big bar with the cable on it which is pounded into the ground outside my electrical box is lying on the top of the ground after a botched paving job. I know it...and it bothers me a little, and I can't use GFI's to protect myself in the laundry room.

But of course electrical stuff is only one remove from medieval alchemical magik. Most people don't know how it works...they just know that if you move that switch that light comes on. Like waving a magik wand...it works. Somehow. But Bill, this is hardly new to you...Windows is an operating system which is "transparent", the key strokes "look" just like they are being put on the screen but we all know (or should know) they are converted to ascii binary by a keyboard, transmitted to a server in Virginia (or wherever) as negative pulses, and then bounced back to my computer where it magically transforms those pulses back into what looks suspiciciously like letters on a screen. The technology is so transparent that you don't even see it anymore.
(Now I have to figure out whether a blade server rack will be worth the effort for my expanding business, or should I go with a couple of quad cores and subscribe to oracle on demand. Talk about tech talk!)

And Bill, one thing about electrical systems...they are not manufacured in Redmund, so there are NO gremlins.

Cerulean Bill said...

Except that I KNOW what a blade server is, and a quad core (god help me, I started to think well, gee, are you doing compute intensive stuff?. Though I don't see the connection to Oracle...I'm sure Ellison would say Everything connects to Oracle...or should!

Its not a gremlin, its a feature, huh?

STAG said...

Actually, I just like the tech talk.

I believe it was Heinlein who said that most technology to most people is indistinguishable from magic.

Cerulean Bill said...

Sufficiently advanced, yeah. And though he didn't say that, I'm guessing that the 'advanced' is relative to the hearer, not an absolute.

STAG said...

Hmmmm...ya got a website where I can enter a quote and find out who dunnit?

STAG said...

Found it. It is Arthur Clarke's third law.

Nobody remembers his first and second law however.

STAG said...

Oh, and Tabor, it sounds like the rheostat on your fireplace is shorted. Or jammed onto the "full on" position and the knob just needs to be tightened.


Patio lights problem. Duck soup. Patio lights were installed later, and the installer looked for a source of electricity. He found it in the switch for your inside lights. He just put the patio feed wire onto the downstream side of the switch. Your qualified electrician has to
a. Find which wire is the culprit
b. remove the wire from the end of the switch.
c. Put the same wire back to the middle screw on the switch.

Generally speaking, its actually perfectly legal to use a switch as a junction box like that, so long as you don't overload the wiring to the circuit breaker. You haven't blown any breakers yet, so you are likely okay. I wouldn't buy a house that had wonky wiring in it like without haveing an electrical load analysis done as part of the pre purchase inspection.

The service call will be considerably more than the hourly fee.