Saw this today . . .

[Jim_No_Garage]

So I was at my Dad's over the weekend planning out how to add 2 new outlets for stair lifts in his split level home.

I got to the corner of the basement and see where I'll be tapping in for one of the outlets . . .



I'm pretty sure this is Dad's work - from when he added a cedar closet with light in the basement in 1971. I can't believe I never saw it before . . .

He did a nice job getting the wire nuts facing in opposite directions . . .

Jim

 

[The Cobbler]

My father was an amazing man, but he was cheap as all get out. raised thru the depression after the family immigrated from Europe. they went through very hard times so he was very cautious with the coin. saved everything
he had done some wiring to install a light in the attic with outdoor overhead telephone wire . heck , there was little amp draw on it but still.
he never would have intentionally put the family in harms way, but ...

 

[Innovate1]

At least he used wire nuts. I recently fixed a similar thing for someone where the wires had just been twisted together and taped to run to outlets in an addition. They were running heaters on the circuits and tripping the breaker. It was only about 15' to the breaker panel so put in a box and ran the added outlets back to another breaker. Surprizingly the twisted connection looked like it never got hot.

 

[4xdog]

My father was an amazing man, but he was cheap as all get out. raised thru the depression...

My father exactly!

At least he used wire nuts...

As I clean out the folks' old house to put it on the market, I've found multiple places where my father re-used old appliance cords with masking tape to create overhead wiring circuits. Sometimes he did use wire nuts, though.

 

[Steve W.]

I give him credit for NOT covering it up with drywall.

As I have been re-wiring my house, I have found many, MANY places where the previous owner showed his 'creativity'. Many places where wires were twisted together very nicely, then folded back along one of the wires and masking tape wrapped around the joint. In another 'creative' episode, a small sub-panel had been installed for a room addition. A larger (18k?) window air conditioner was framed into the wall between the new room and the garage. (This cooled the new room, but heated the garage.) Being a larger A/C, it ran on 240v. Not having a handy 240 line, he noted that the line to the sub-panel ran directly over the A/C area, so he skinned back some insulation, wrapped some wire around it, then wrapped it with electrical tape. Moved a couple inches down the wire, repeated for the second wire. A couple more inches for the third wire. MANY more displays of 'creativity', but I'll hold those for another time.

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