new member, almost new to me house....

House Repair Talk

Help Support House Repair Talk:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

saleen4971

Junior Member
Joined
Nov 29, 2015
Messages
12
Reaction score
4
howdy folks! i would love to say how i found this place, but.....hell i dont know anymore! started poking around on a garage forum, ended up looking for plumbing, moved to electric, then this!

anywho - new guy here, been doing some reading tonight. currently living in a hellhole of an apartment (maybe i just expect too much....) and tentative closing date on my first house (well, wife and I.....) is end of december. needs a bunch of electrical work, a little plumbing, and of course there is the huge list of things i want to/will do.

looking forward to reading more, posting more, and learning more! ive worked with my hands most of my life, father was an electrical engineer (smarter than i could ever hope to be), so needless to say, i dont pay anyone to do anything unless it is absolutely mandatory or scares the crap out of me :D

anywho - looking forward to hanging around here! more than that, looking forward to making my new (and first) house exactly what i want!
 
Welcome.
The key is the list of repairs and things and getting them in the right order.
If you had an inspection done, they can't damage anything as they look around, you want to start with a much more detailed inspection of you own.
Will you be working on it before you move in or after?
How old is the house?
 
Welcome , plenty of great Help at this little hole in the wall. :welcome:
 
Welcome.
The key is the list of repairs and things and getting them in the right order.
If you had an inspection done, they can't damage anything as they look around, you want to start with a much more detailed inspection of you own.
Will you be working on it before you move in or after?
How old is the house?

I have to make an actual list, but step 1 is going to he fixing old and crappy wiring. Plenty of old cloth wrapped stuff, connected to grounded outlets.......

Will be working after move in, since I can do everything room by room.

House was built in 1960, current seller is a flipper (and not a very good one tbh....)
 
I have to make an actual list, but step 1 is going to he fixing old and crappy wiring. Plenty of old cloth wrapped stuff, connected to grounded outlets.......

Will be working after move in, since I can do everything room by room.

House was built in 1960, current seller is a flipper (and not a very good one tbh....)

Flippers are scary.
A few years ago a young friend bought a house about that age and I suggested he document all work with notes and photos and permits so if he ever wanted to sell it, people could see his work. When the wife left the house had to be sold and he left his book of repairs on the counter for buyers to see. A buyer made an offer subject to and electrical engineers inspection as he had not got a permit for the work he did.
He printed 60 photos that weren't in the book and the inspector was happy with what he saw and just verrified that the pictures and the house matched.
 
There is some shoddy electrical, but I chose to not address it after the inspection.

Grounded outlets put on 2 conductor fabric-wrapped wire, so no grounds 0_o - figured if we had him do it, they would either put in non grounded outlets, or jump ground to neutral and fool the tester. I'll just handle that myself, make sure it's done properly.

There is even a 3 conductor (no ground) line from a dual breaker going to a simple junction box in the garage.....which is then split to two 110/120 circuits........
 
Except for the missing ground the 3 wire is done to save wire and I beleive it is fine.
For three prong plugs without ground, you can install gfci outlets and then lable the outlets as no ground. The gfci goes on the first outlet coming from the breaker box.
 
Save wire? They put a 3 prong outlet on a line that only has a hot and neutral - there is no actual ground wire. Either way, I will be replacing the old wire and adding more outlets. 20x20 room only has 4......
 
Save wire? They put a 3 prong outlet on a line that only has a hot and neutral - there is no actual ground wire. Either way, I will be replacing the old wire and adding more outlets. 20x20 room only has 4......

They did that when there was no ground wire in any house, but a newer house could still have two circuits wired with a 3 wire with ground. That's all I ment;)
 

Latest posts

Back
Top