…and by “new”, I mean “was built or updated after electricity became a standard feature”… then you probably take certain things for granted. Like for instance, you come home with your arms full of groceries, you unlock the door, and you switch on a light that illuminates your path safely to the kitchen. You do not come home with your arms full of groceries, unlock the door, and trip over your cat and kick several pairs of shoes across the room because you can’t see anything until you reach a switch halfway across the house.
If you can’t tell, I get the latter experience. But this weekend, that all began to change.
See, the only switch by the front door was for the porch light.
But just like Ariel, I wanted more.
I wanted to be able to switch on a light inside my house the instant I walked in the door. Is that so much to ask? This would normally be a piece of cake to take care of, but my house is a double brick walled beauty. Brick is hard. Brick must be dealt with using big, powerful tools, like angle grinders and frightening looking drills.
Not my piddly $30 Harbor Fart drill. After considering our options (one being a low-voltage impulse relay system- basically running teeny wires discreetly next to the trim, that when switched, tell the bigger wires to turn on the lights) we (and I use the term “we” loosely) decided to dig a trench in the plaster and brick, lay some conduit in there, and thread solid wires through there (not romex, because romex is big and our conduit was only like an inch around or something).
is bigger than
Since I wanted four switches- one for the dining room chandelier, one for the living room, one for the porch light, and one for a switched exterior outlet (for Christmas lights, hence the switch, but also for other yard tools) there was just not enough space to run all that romex. I do not really understand how it works, but somehow, you can get away with using the little single wires rather than the triple-wired romex for each switch. I just nod my head.
Manly Stanley used a turquoise colored pencil to draw where we should dig the trench. He’s so artistic.
Then, we trenched that SOB. We trenched it good.
The jolt at :06 was when a large number of sparks flew onto my hand. Ouchie. You can see that we’d do some grinding, then some chiseling. Not the first time I’ve chiseled some stuff.
Here it is, ready for conduit:
Side note: Did you spot the conduit that’s already there? (If not, are you blind?) We had a brief moment of excitement that we could possibly use that instead of trenching for some new stuff, but alas we could not get the old wires out. Ah well.
Here’s Stan’s dad, feeding the pretty blue new conduit up into the attic:
We color-coded the wires before fishing them up through the conduit.
It’s… beautiful!
Next up was hiding the conduit, using some Fix-All and some plain ol’ brick mortar, since we’d knocked about one too many bricks loose and wanted to provide a little more structural support.
Here’s Stan hiding the evidence:
And here’s how it looks right at this very moment:
That’s some intense mortar, huh? Hey, we didn’t want the wall to collapse. And no one should be needing to fuss around with the 4-gang box anytime soon- the conduit offers the flexibility to fish wires in and out if need be.
All that’s left to do now is patch and finish the mess, hook up the switches, and do some more stuff in the attic (I am usually not very involved in that part, so I’m not sure exactly what.) Then, my friends, I can walk in the house and flip on a switch to illuminate my way straight to the fridge. Mmm… leftover Indian food.
Once we had all the conduit buried and the wires run, I turned to Stan and said “It’s sick to think how easy this would have been if we were dealing with sheetrock, isn’t it?” Seriously, the three of us spent about 4 hours on this. If it were a sheetrock wall, it would have taken… oh, ten minutes? But ah, the joys of living in an old house.
December 20, 2010 at 11:12 am
We have the same problems! I joke that when they built our house the owners were so excited just to have electricity that they didn’t mind wandering all over the house to get to switches. I’m in the process of updating ours as well. I can’t wait to be done! Good work, that looked like such a pain!
December 20, 2010 at 11:29 am
I don’t have a problem with light switches, that seems to have been updated over the years. My problem is with not enough outlets, especially in the kitchen and in the basement. We have a lot in the front room, anyway.
That looks like a big job, good for you guys for taking it on!
December 20, 2010 at 11:52 am
Harbor Fart…..hee hee hee.
December 20, 2010 at 12:04 pm
Is it “gang” or “gain?” I honestly don’t know but if its gain then the jokes on you lol!
I didn’t know you could use plastic condooshit I thought you had to use metal in case someone hangs a picture there & pokes a hole in the wire with there nell or something.
December 20, 2010 at 12:07 pm
you were right its “gang” which doesn’t make much sense cuz if your adding 4 wires you GAIN 4 wires. gang? Come on…
December 20, 2010 at 12:11 pm
Of course I’m right- gang! I thought of that too, about someone trying to hang a picture there, but I don’t think right next to door frames is a rill popular spot for photos lol. Also that fix-all stuff is like, part cement or something. I guess they could probably still pound a nell through it if they were gung-ho. When I sell I will probably give the new owners a photo of it and say “Do not screw anything into the wall right there.”
December 20, 2010 at 1:47 pm
*Groans* I HATE electrical work. Come do mine for me?
December 20, 2010 at 1:54 pm
Wow. Very impressive work!
December 20, 2010 at 6:58 pm
Conduit. That word really scares me. I’m impressed beyond all get out.
December 20, 2010 at 9:27 pm
Wow! This is so much ‘real work’ than I have tackled!! Arn’t dads awesome?!
December 21, 2010 at 11:25 am
Wow, that is hardcore! All of that work just for something so seemingly simple that most of us take for granted! Electrical work frightens me.
But you are going to LOVE your practical, new light switch!
December 28, 2010 at 5:09 am
If you live in a new house you have wall switches. . . not pull chains on the lights themselves. I have three rooms with no switch at all. That’s a lot of hard work!
December 30, 2010 at 10:50 pm
Um. . . I have modern wiring, yet somehow still manage to trip over cats (and sometimes dogs) daily. I think it’s their mission in life to make me give myself a concussion!