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Long Circuit
After a successful long weekend finishing the nursery, I looked forward to roughing in the electrical in the basement so that I could call the city for my first inspection. It did not go as planned.In preparation for my upcoming work week, I slept in (this also explains why this weblog entry is so early in the morning; I’ve not gone to bed yet). After breakfast and some quick yardwork, I headed down to the basement. I started by removing the insulating wall I had created in the bulkhead opening last year (saved me a fair amount of oil by not leaking heat to the outside so readily); I figured if I was going to have code enforcement down there, I’d better not have the one exit in the basement blocked. With that out of the way, it was time for electrical work.
Preparing the basement for inspection required three things: deal with the basement lighting, deal with the stairway lighting, and finally, rough in the electrical in the office. The basement lighting and stairway lighting were all on the same circuit when we bought the house. Two three-way switches controlled all the lights in the basement and stairwell—one at the top of the stairs, and one over by the bulkhead. To deal with the basement lighting, I had to rig up a new three-way switch just inside of the new workshop area; this and the existing bulkhead switch would control all of the workshop lights. To deal with the stairway lighting, I had to rig up a new three-way switch at the bottom of the stairs; this and the existing stairwell switch would control the stairwell lighting. Wiring the office is the easy part; all the walls are still open.
When we made an offer on the house, the stairs down to the basement were unfinished. I rather liked it that way; it would have made it easy to do the basement as I pleased. Unfortunately, between then and the day we closed, the contractor had drywalled these stairs. A nice gesture, for sure, but detrimental for me. Without being able to see the wiring, I had to do a lot of investigation. About four hours worth, in case you’re wondering. I started with the easy stuff. I traced the exposed wire from the bulkhead three-way switch to a box where the new family room will someday be. That box was labeled “BASE LIGHTS”. Makes sense so far. Upon opening this box, I found wiring for another three-way switch. I knew where that went. Also in this box were two standard wires. I traced one over to the basement lights. I followed that to the end; it powers all six basement lights. Now, there’s a light in the stairwell right above the switch. I assumed that they had run power to the distribution box I was poking around in and run the light off of the switch. I disconnected the suspected power wires and restored power at the breaker, expecting that I’d go over and find power at the disconnected wires with my meter. Instead, the basement lights came on when I flipped the breaker. Weird.
I killed the power again and headed up to the top of the stairs. I removed the light fixture (wasn’t planning on keeping it anyway—who wants a light to come on right by their head when they flip a switch?). Only one wire going to it. I crossed the wires and checked for resistance at the wires I disconnected in the basement. Sure enough, this wire ran to the single stairway light. Very weird. That meant that I had no power at the box; it had to be coming from somewhere else. I went back up the stairs and removed the three-way switch at the top. In addition to the three-strand wire (the other end of which was in my magic box downstairs), there were two standard two-strand wires. Super weird.
I disconnected everything and ran downstairs to turn the breaker on once more. I almost expected the basement lights to turn on (would have been par for the course), but they did not. I had found my power source. Back up the stairs to find out which of my mystery wires was providing current. I tagged the one that was live and then set out to find out where the other wire went. It didn’t take me too long; the first-floor hallway light, first-floor hallway outlet, above-ground stairwell light, and second-floor hallway light were all dark. I began to suspect the “Cellar Lites” label on the breaker I was using wasn’t telling the whole story.
Now I was starting to stress out. With power coming in at the stair switch, I needed a way to get power to the magic box downstairs in order to make my new basement light circuit. I searched everywhere in the basement for the wire that led up to the stair switch to no avail. I even removed the cover on the breaker panel, so as to follow the wire from its source. I couldn’t follow it and I didn’t want to power down the whole house just to trace one wire. Having no other viable options, I made the trip to Home Depot.
You might be thinking I asked the electrical expert at Home Depot how best to solve my problem. Not a chance. I picked up two wall boxes, a metal box and cover, and a wall blank. Upon returning home, I cut out a hole just above the opening where the stairwell light was. Using the light fixture opening to my advantage, I brought the power wire, the “rest of the hallways and stairs” wire, and the former light wire into a new wall box in the hole I had just cut. I connected everything up and covered it with the blank. Now the old light wire would carry power down to my magic box. I ran my new three-way switch to the box and wired everything up, including a power feed over to my new metal box right next to it; this will be the box for the new stairwell lights. I capped off the live wires in the new box and flipped the breaker a last time; the basement lights came on. I flipped both three-way switches a few times to make sure everything was working properly, then donned my head light for the dark trip up the stairs.
If all goes well, I’ll install and wire the new stairwell and basement hallway lighting tomorrow. If I’m really lucky, I’ll have the office wiring done in the next couple of days (working for an hour here and there before and after work) and be ready to schedule the first inspection for early next week. While the nursery is done and I have a temporary home for my computer, I’d still really like to get the basement project finished before my daughter arrives. Thirty-nine days to go…
Posted by: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) in News on May 27, 2009 at 2:27 AM