[InactionMan]

So I just bought a house, it's about 50 years old and the home inspector had told us that there was some dodgy wiring in the basement. Some of it was pretty obvious. There were pony boxes all over the place in the basement. The previous owner had drilled holes in the wall to run extension cord out to the backyard. There were some scary splicing jobs that clearly weren't safe. To get insurance we have to have the service upgraded to 100 Amp from 60 so we're having the electrican clean up the garbage wiring while he's upgrading the service. He said it shouldn't take him more than two days, which is great.

I just got a call from him.

He had taken down a few ceiling tiles around the old breaker panel and said he had now seen the worst amatuer electrical work ever. Apparently half the circuits in the basement were rewired using whatever the guy around. And it seems that what he had laying around was bits of old lamp wiring, completely stripped and just wound together. So the electrician won't hook up our service to the grid until he can get all the nasty junk cleared (which is good actually, I don't want my house to burn down) so we won't have any hydro in the place expect in the kitchen (which was properly wired).

So I think the whole place is going to get rewired. It'll probably cost us way more than we had budgeted for. And my iMac died two weeks ago and I don't think I'll be able to get a new one atleast till we find out how much all the wiring will cost. I'm sure that if the wiring didn't suck arse it would be the plumbing we'd have to replace. Or we'd find out the previous owner insulated the place with dead cats.

So, does this kind of crap happen to all homeowners?

[FFL]

Bummer!
Yes, this type of crap will always happen when buying a less-than-new house. That's why you have to be ready for it before you finalize the sale.

20/20 hindsight of course, but ya shouda had a Repair Allowance written into your offer as soon as you saw the many signs of the dodgy wiring. Better yet, you should have had it inspected by an electrician and then used the amt. of his estimate for the Repair Allowance amount.

Did you use a Realtor™?

[nomorewindows]

Originally Posted by InactionMan So, does this kind of crap happen to all homeowners?

Ouch. I once moved into a house where the inside walls were painted Pepto Bismal pink. The guy who built it must have been obsessed with lighting because you could control all the lights from every room in the house, outside lights included. I'm sure the wiring must have been a nightmare. I'm glad I never looked.

Did you have some type of pre-buying inspection? Is there nothing you can do now to recover some of your costs? It's too bad you have to pay for someone else's mistakes.

Welcome to home ownership.

[Maciej]

Yeah, typically this sort of stuff is caught in a pre-buying inspection - its a major bummer, sorta reminds me of that movie Money Pit...

[kretara]

Yeah, this shit happens to us all.
I had a house in Boston that had river running through the basement and garage evertime it rained hard.

[Bryson]

I always find it strange when people call electricity Hydro. Makes no sense to me. Surely plumbing is more "Hydro" than electricity.

Amateur house electrics is no longer legal in the UK without being certified by a "real" electrician, to prevent just this type of nonsense.

(And yes, I know why really, it just freaks me out.)

[WBG4]

Just be glad the house is not all wired with aluminum wiring

[InactionMan]

We did have an home inspection as part of the offer, that's how we knew there would be some electrical work done. But our electrician was upfront and said he wouldn't know the extent of the badness until he had the ceiling down. Luckily, it seems that the shite wiring is contained to the basement so it shouldn't be too bad.

The trouble with things like a repair allowance in Toronto is that the market is so hot right now that you're taking a huge risk writing something as standard as a home inspection into the offer. Most agents (including ours) suggest going in with a firm offer for well over asking price. Even doing that doesn't gaurantee you'll get the place without a bidding war. We got ours with the home inspection in the offer and without going over asking so we were very lucky. Most house in Toronto are going for between $20-100 000 over asking. (we lost one place that was listed for 240 and sold for 370)

If you tried to get a clause in the contract for repairs the seller would tell you to eff off. It sucks.

[InactionMan]

Originally Posted by WBG4 Just be glad the house is not all wired with aluminum wiring

We were just glad it wasn't knob and tube. You only have 30 days to get rid of that shit when you buy a house with it.

[Kickaha]

'Knob and tube'. That sounds, y'know... *funny*.

I take it you mean the insulator knobs screwed into the wall that the wires are strung from?

[Maciej]

Toronto is expanding soooo quickly nowadays, I'm not surprised that things are like that...

[InactionMan]

Originally Posted by Kickaha 'Knob and tube'. That sounds, y'know... *funny*. I take it you mean the insulator knobs screwed into the wall that the wires are strung from?

Yeah, the old-timey wiring. You can't get home insurance with Knob and Tube anymore so insurance companies make you replace it within a month or two. Too bad. It looks kind of cool if you're ceiling is exposed.

[InactionMan]

Completely unrelated to the bad wiring, but I was going through some of the crap the previous owner left and I found some old Apple swag from the 1970s. So I've got two pairs of yellow tinted aviator sunglasses with a little apple logo on them and a set of drink coasters with the old Apple logo, there's one coaster for each of the colours in the fruity Apple. Think I could cover the cost of the wiring of I sold them on eBay?

[Brad]

Actually, with the prices RedLightRunner.com manages to sell its over-marked-up junk, you could try!

$300 for a freakin' poster? You could probably get $150 for each pair of glasses and another $200 for the coasters.

[InactionMan]

They have my drink coasters! http://store1.yimg.com/I/redlightrunner_1841_22513147

No sunglasses though. I wonder what some sucker paid for them.

[WBG4]

How much you want for the coasters?

[curiousuburb]

Bad wiring. Bad.
No juice for you.

Disciplining your wiring with a rolled up newspaper may be old school, but is generally preferable to the more modern alternative of the water pistol. Use of a clicker can be counterproductive, since some breeds of wiring are clapper-sensitive.

Always speak to your wiring in a command voice, but don't pet it while it is feeding... it may snap at you.

With practice and patience, you should soon have well trained and shielded copper which can be taught some basic tricks like "fetch power" and "attack intruder". Ignore your wiring's needs and it may play dead.

Vet bills are a bitch, though.



And if you don't get it 'fixed', you'll have litters of piddling electrons all over your house.

[Kickaha]

Originally Posted by curiousuburb And if you don't get it 'fixed', you'll have litters of piddling electrons all over your house.

Would that be current leakage?

[curiousuburb]

It might be revolting, but it could depend how amped up you were.