My good friend Lee stopped by yesterday. Lee helped me a lot when I remodeled my last house. He spent a lot of time and particularly taught me about wiring. When he came yesterday, he announced that the “building inspector” had arrived. And I’m glad that he did. He gave me a half dozen suggestions as to how I could improve my remodeling project.
When I put the can in the ceiling last week, I had to push on of the house wires out of the way. Something about the fact that two objects can’t occupy the same space at the same time. Lee told me that the wires needed air all the way around them for cooling. It wasn’t a good idea for me to have them touching the cans. So, one of my first tasks today was to cut out this old wire and to run new wire in a new location, away from the cans. And did I mention that I needed to tear out even more of the ceiling to install the box that connects this new wire to the old? This time, I only needed to tear out an area about 16″ square.
Actually, my first task was to work up my courage to change the circuits in the main electric box. I wanted all my kitchen circuit breakers together. After hemming and hawing for a while, I opened the front of the box, moved the breakers, and relabeled the inside panel door. Phew! In addition to the line that I mentioned above, I also moved the entrance to one of the basement lines, wired the kitchen circuit to the box, and wired the lighting circuit to the box.