MacGyver moment....

We're having our electrical service upgraded next week, which will involve installing a new meter, moving the location of that meter to the back of the house, bringing more power from the lines behind our house, installing a new circuit breaker panel in the house (goodbye push-button breakers!), and eliminating the sub-panel in the basement and putting everything in the new panel. It will also involve patching holes in drywall because the new panel can't go in the same spot as the old one (it's over stairs, which is a code violation). I write this not to bore you all, but mostly to document the steps of our remodel, which is by far the biggest remodel we've tackled on this house.

Anyway while the ceiling in the basement is down, we're also replacing as much wiring as we can reach. (I say "we," but really, Jeff is doing the work.) The old wiring is just that - OLD. It does have a ground, so it's not totally ancient, but the insulation on the wire is crumbling. We also decided to add a couple of circuits in order to break up some of the power load. So last night Jeff was trying to string a wire from the hall outside the bathroom, through the ceiling of the bathroom, and turn it to go into the laundry room. There is currently no ceiling in the hall or the laundry room, but the bathroom ceiling is still intact and we don't want to take it down.

Jeff tied the new wire to the existing wire, and was able to pull it most of the way through. But then it got stuck over the bathroom. Really stuck. He spent quite a while trying to figure out where the snag was and how to get it loose before he asked for my help. I was able to see that the cord had gotten pulled into a corner between two joists, and I was able to get it loose using a piece of trim left over from another project. Jeff started pulling again. But this time the existing wire came apart from the new wire. So we now had the wire halfway through the bathroom ceiling, with no way to get it the rest of the way through. And if we pulled it back out to the hall, we'd have to start over. We were able to look from the laundry room and see the end of the new wire, but we couldn't reach it. The ductwork around the area made it so there was only one little hole - about 3 inches tall and five inches wide - through which we could bring that wire. Jeff's hands and arms are too big to allow him to reach that far in, even if the water heater and water softener weren't in the way of getting right up to the wall. What to do, what to do....

(This is where you'll all wish you had me around to solve your little problems.)

We had a piece of scrap PVC pipe that was long enough to reach the end of the new wire, so I got a piece of phone cord and doubled it, then put the folded end through the PVC pipe until it just stuck out the end. Both loose ends of the phone cord were still out the other end of the pipe. Then I just had to insert the PVC through the little hole, guide it to the exposed end of the new wire, loop the folded phone cord around the new wire, and pull the other ends of the phone cord to cinch the new wire up against the PVC pipe. It took a couple of tries, but we did it!

I probably couldn't pick a lock with only a light-bulb in time to get out before an explosion, but I like having enough resourcefulness to figure out some of the less critical problems.

Jeff's such a lucky guy.