My badly wired apartment

[muses_nightmare]

You know, I liked my apartment, and for the most part I still do, but the wiring seems like it was done by someone who has no idea what they were doing.

We live in an old building, so we still have fuses. (oh and have I mentioned how much I hate fuses?), anyway, basically the way our apartment is wired is that the hallway, which is about 4ft long with only one light and no outlets, is on it's own circuit, the kitchen is on it's own circuit, the bathroom, and one outlet in the kitchen is on it's own circuit. Now the problem I have is that the bedroom and living room are on one circuit. Because apparently no one plugs anything into those areas. So last night the fuse for the bedroom/living room blows once again. This time though the socket (is that what it's called? Where the fuse goes...anyway) is corroded, so we have to call our landlords to get an electrician in to fix it. It's a pain in the ass because my computer is attached to that circuit, as was our router. We have it patched together so we can go online, but there is no power in our bedroom atm.

*sigh* if we could afford to move and get a place as big as we have with underground parking for the price we're paying we'd be out of here...

[protege]

When I first moved into my place, the home inspector found all sorts of things wrong with the wiring. Things like plugs that weren't grounded properly (if at all), one plug that was wired backwards, and several plugs in the basement that didn't work. At least most of that crap was covered by the home warranty. But, because I wanted to upgrade to 3-prong (grounded) plugs, I had to pay the difference.

Up until now though, things have been fine. Everything works, discounting the little electrical fire I had in the kitchen last year. Some of you know that one of my hobbies is rebuilding older computers, and then donating them to charities. Well, as I was plugging in an older (CRT-style) monitor, the outlet in the kitchen exploded in a shower of sparks...damaging that outlet, scorching the wall slightly, and knocking out power in the kitchen. But, that wasn't the worst of it.

The explosion tripped a breaker downstairs, and when I tried to reset it, it wouldn't turn back on. When it finally *did* reset, that too was damaged. Again, another shower of sparks, another scorch mark on the wall, and a bill of $400 to fix everything.

But, what pisses me off, is that the basement wiring still isn't perfect. There are still a few outlets that don't work down there. Mainly, because, instead of installing proper boxes, whoever did it...chose to run a cheap 'raceway' (similar to the ones sometimes used to install network wiring) along the cinder block walls, and put outlets in that. To do things properly, I'd have to rip all of that out, and install a false wall, paneling, all of which isn't cheap. Until my ship comes in, I have to run an extension cord into the laundry room, or out into the garage just to run my trains. Annoying, but hopefully temporary.

[smileyeagle1021]

I feel y'alls pain with bad wiring.
I have a circuit breaker... that is 30 years old now and never been updated and I have a hell of a time keeping those damned things in the on position... like to the point where if for whatever reason, you need the microwave on high power for more than 10 minutes (yes, there are legit reasons for that) you have to have someone hold the damn switch to keep it from tripping (I have consequently gotten very good at using the oven which is on its own circuit). If I turn on my air conditioner, all the lights in my house will flicker for as long as the AC is on. And, the extension cord has become my new best friend, because during the winter, if we want to run heaters in the bathrooms, one of them can be plugged in in the bathroom it is in, but the other one (even though the bathrooms aren't even on the same circuit) will have to be put on a heavy duty extension cord into one of the bedrooms to keep both bathroom's circuits from breaking.
Yeah... me and my electrical system aren't friends.

[blas87]

In the 3 years I have lived in this apartment, I've killed two blowdriers in less than 6 months of having them. One of the outlets in my bedroom I swear is shorting or just plain cursed. I don't dare stick anything in there anymore. Two times of nearly frying my hair off was enough.

[telecom_goddess]

In the 3 years I have lived in this apartment, I've killed two blowdriers in less than 6 months of having them. One of the outlets in my bedroom I swear is shorting or just plain cursed. I don't dare stick anything in there anymore. Two times of nearly frying my hair off was enough.

OMG hair dryers....yeah I make sure I do NOT run the air conditioner and the hair dryer at the same time or the circuit breaker will trip. Although I have found if i run the hair dryer on high for too long even without the other stuff running it will trip anyway. And knock out power to two bedrooms and bathrooms. *sigh*.

And this has been true everywhere I've lived. Does anyplace have decent enough wiring to handle a hair dryer anymore?

[Ginger Tea]

I live in a shared house (6 rooms 7 occupants) and only have 2 single socket wall outlets and I'm in what would be the master bedroom
the guy down the hall in a tiny room has 2 or 3 multipliers plugged into the same socket running his pc, monitor, tv, dvd and vhs and perhaps his fridge/freezer, but I'm hoping thats on a separate socket.

I looked into shared equity in 05 (but the housing association was only interested in relocating people to cambourn which was way out of my way for work with no public transportation for a 6am start) but I did look at somewhere above a coop that was really close to work (and just about morgageable till a dealbreaker), the bedroom and similar sized living room had atleast 4 double sockets and the bedroom 2 had more and another single room i saw (that turned out to be too expencive to rent even with my NHS discount) couldnt go a metre without another double socket

[muses_nightmare]

We can't have our air conditioner and microwave on at the same time, and we can't vacuum with the TV on...

We have actual fuses, as in we have to replace them when they short out. We did put in a couple of those mini-breaker things (where you just have to press a button instead of taking the whole damned thing out), but they seem to get fried after a couple of shorts, and they're like $10 a piece.

[blas87]

My fuse box is in my kitchen. I haven't had to mess with it yet, thank the lord. But that one outlet in my bedroom is the devil. I won't use it.

My parents' house....oh boy. For the longest time, the lights would flicker upstairs when the washer was spinning in the basement. Both sides of my family are "fix-it-men" (although the majority of the time, it's Jerry-Rigging or doing something that really doesn't fix it, even makes it worse) and my dad rigged almost every electrical appliance in the kitchen AND the basement into the same fuse......needless to say, bad things happened if you had the washer going and were trying to microwave pizza with the lights on.

I don't know if he or my brother changed it, but it's a lot smoother now. And now, almost everything is a seperate entity in the fuse box.

*I am not good with electrical stuff, perhaps I meant that my dad rigged everything into the same current or that he used a "cheater" outlet, I'm not really sure. Whatever he did DID NOT work*

[telecom_goddess]

My parents' house....oh boy. For the longest time, the lights would flicker upstairs when the washer was spinning in the basement. Both sides of my family are "fix-it-men" (although the majority of the time, it's Jerry-Rigging or doing something that really doesn't fix it, even makes it worse) and my dad rigged almost every electrical appliance in the kitchen AND the basement into the same fuse......needless to say, bad things happened if you had the washer going and were trying to microwave pizza with the lights on.

That's too funny. Thank god mine isn't that bad. It's mainly the hair dryer that's a culprit....

[blas87]

I wasn't even aware that hair dryers took up that much energy. Especially when you only use it for a few minutes. It has to be the outlets.

[the_std]

I wasn't even aware that hair dryers took up that much energy. Especially when you only use it for a few minutes. It has to be the outlets.

Nope. Hair dryers and hair straighteners are two of the small appliances in the home that use the most energy. Those heating elements take a LOT of juice. That's why, on a lot of power adapters or converters, they warn you not to use said appliances or else you could blow them out completely.