The septic field replacement

The septic system replacement is FINALLY started.  It took longer than desired for the permit to go through.  I was very surprised when a women came out to get soil samples, etc prior to completion of the permit.  She spent probably 30-40 minutes getting samples, etc.  We are hoping that the septic people only stopped due to weather on Friday and will restart on Monday. I was actually surprised they got started Friday due to terrible weather out where I work now.. guess it wasn't quite as bad at the house.    At the moment, I think the septic tank is disconnected from the field but I think they emptied the tank before starting.. otherwise we would have a big mess right now.  As I understand it, they will plant grass once done.  Hoping things will look nice soon since we seem to be the "ugly yard" neighbors still..  Too many projects with not enough time and/or money.  To top it off, the dirt pile currently covers a large chunk of the side walk out front.  

The technology used is a newer one than we had at our old house. Instead of black round corrugated pipe it is a sort of half dome with holes and is open on the bottom.  This prevents tree roots from fully clogging the holes and preventing the fluids from exiting the pipe. I am really hoping this is a 30+ year solution. 

We are really hoping that this work isn't going to kill our remaining tree in the front yard.  They did cut quite a few roots - if it doesn't have some good roots down deep then it will struggle. I fear it will die but as my wife says "don't buy trouble".  

[Update 2019/08/22] Got it done!  I wish the grading was a bit better but I won't complain because it is DONE.  Now waiting to make sure everything flows the way it should. Figuring a week out to do it.

[Edit 2019/09/25] After some grass and weeds took hold and we cleaned up most of the surface rocks and root pieces. Paid our kids a good sum to pickup rocks and I raked a good amount of it into piles for them.   Still picking out future grass ideas - maybe zoysia.

Thanks for reading..
Scott

Isaiah 32:18 New International Version (NIV)

18 My people will live in peaceful dwelling places,
    in secure homes,
    in undisturbed places of rest.

Wiring and older homes - the headaches

I had a few days off between the end of a two week notice and the start of a new job.  I didn't end up with quite as much time in-between as I hoped but figured I'd make the best of it and get some projects done around the house.

I've been working on wiring up new outlets and switches in various places around the house - toward a goal of replacing everything. I'm mainly converting from the old flip switches to the paddle style switches and from the round style electrical outlets to the square/rectangular/block style.  I'm also adding in a few outlets with USB charging capability and replacing a few dimmers which worked fine with old incandescent lights but not so well with LED lights.

I started to work on the switch + timer next to our front door which controls the exterior entry lights and a switch/dimmer for a chandelier in the entryway. This was happily not a real hard one to do.  The hardest part was figuring out what I wanted to do with the extra (3rd) opening since I was getting rid of the timer for the lights since I was using dusk-to-dawn bulbs.  We ended up deciding to put in a night-light in that opening which turned out nice.

I decided to tackle the kitchen and that went well until I got to an outlet at the end of the "island" where our sink is.  The outlet had hot wires even with the kitchen and dinette breakers off.  It took about 35 minutes of back-and-forth to determine this 1 outlet was on the same circuit as the entry way lights/chandelier/outside GFCI outlet..  Ahh why??  Who knows..  Nothing I can do about it right now.

Anyways, I got a number of items done and then started to work on my daughters bedroom.  I just wanted to replace the set of 3-way single pole switches that control the ceiling fan/light from both doorways to her room.  Just in case you haven't run across "3-way switches" - they enable a fixture to operate by flipping either of 2 switches usually located at opposite ends of a hall or at 2 different entrances to a room.  I thought this would be easy.  Once I opened up the box for the switches I found something unexpected - a white "neutral" wire joined directly to a black "hot" wire.  In all the wiring I have done over the last ~15 years or so (just on my homes - not professionally) I have never seen that.  Everything in my mind screamed "mistake" and a few other phrases.  I had to sit down and start searching the internet to determine what I was looking at.  

I finally determined that electrical codes up to a certain point do seem to support something called a "switch loop".  I won't delve into the details here but it is a valid way to wire up fixtures.  The general premise is that you run power/wires to the fixture before it goes to the switch(es).  This is in comparison to "switch leg" where you run power/wires to switch(es) before going to the fixture.  Once I found a name for it - it became a bit easier to find more information and diagrams.  The expectation is that when a wire such as a neutral is actually hot - you mark it (black tape, etc).  That wasn't the case here.  I spent quality time with my non-contact tester verifying things.  On top of that, I found that I must be careful with crowded wiring because it isn't terribly hard to register a hot wire incorrectly by simply being a bit too close to a different wire that is hot..  No hair singed but I think I did pull out a few hairs in frustration while trying to understand what was going on.  

I *think* that the NEC 2011 codes really push you toward a switch leg setup which gives you a workable neutral wire in the switch box.

So after those 2+ hours of work I had a working set of new 3-way switches with a built-in light on each switch.

So onto the next area..  My wife mentioned that we have outlets in the master bedroom where plugs tend to slowly fall out of the outlets.. yes, that could be a fire just waiting to happen.

The first fun was identifying the breaker - I had mapped out the lighting a while back but the outlets turned out inconsistent.  It took a while to determine that the outlets on the side of the room next to the dinette area of the kitchen were on the dinette breaker. Why? Still don't know exactly.. can only guess they felt that was a good idea.  The last house I lived in did not do it that way and it was MUCH easier to understand the wiring layout.

So I got most of the switches/outlets done in the master bedroom and was getting ready to remount some outlets in one box when I saw something shine in the box.  I luckily decided to look into that and found that both bundles of wire had the outer jackets scrapped off and gouges in the copper wire itself.  What??  That is a fire waiting to happen.  How?  Not exactly sure but I suspect that either at construction or sometime during the previous owners tenancy someone used a flat blade screwdriver to push wires into the box and they slipped a lot.  The wiring is all 12 gauge which is difficult to manage/move/bend when you have 4-6 conductors plus ground wires to fit into an electrical box.  In this case, I could only tape up the wires for now and mark the outlet to fix later since I will have to wire it from the attic down into the box to do it right - there just isn't enough extra length to work with.

I found this problem in another box too.  All the damage generally resembles the picture below.

So, I am very glad I am going through the process of redoing lots of the electrical here even though it is painful and slow. At least I have the opportunity to correct some of the issues that exist and hopefully prevent any disasters.

I figure I am about 65% complete with the switch and outlet updates - just not enough time to deal with it.

Thanks for reading..
Scott

2 Corinthians 4:17-18 New International Version (NIV)

17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.