I bought a condo last year and now own a place for the first time in my life. I want to make improvements, but the problem is I am not a mechanical person at all. I have used various tools and machines for work over the years but I generally don’t feel comfortable doing things like drilling holes in my own walls (what if I hit a wire or screw it up?).
I tried YouTube, but there is a ton of crap out there and a lot of stuff assumes you have a clue. I don’t. So any suggestions where to start? Books? Someone in YouTube who explains things for a complete beginner? Any ideas?
I’m not sure if this would be practical for your condo, but I got myself comfortable with a circular saw and drill by building myself a workbench from plans I found on the internet. It didn’t have fancy joints, and the thing was fastened together with carriage bolts. But the basic idea of giving yourself a project to do covering some basic tools that you want to learn to use would help you get more comfortable.
Alternatively, you may want to look for courses that give help you with learning the basic skills.
I bought a drill, and some tools, but I am dreading it. Starting off with some coat hooks and a key/shelf thingy that I ordered from Amazon. Figure if they aren’t exactly straight, it will be ok. I think wires go up vertically from switches/outlets, so my plan is to just avoid drilling where there might be wires.
I have been watching YouTube videos for info mainly. RichVR’s suggestion looks like it might be a good idea, just don’t really want to spend that much money when I am already having to invest in tools. There is a youtube video for everything, you just have to sort through a lot of crap.
If my initial projects go okay, I am going to expand to cat shelves. Big climbing trees are expensive (and hard to find), so I figured I might just put some shelves on the walls for them (which aren’t really cheap either).
A stud finder will allow you to find the wood members in your walls. When you hang something heavy like shelves, you want to mount them to the studs for strength. Generally, studs are 16 inches apart. This type of finder ( there are many different types online and at hardware stores) has a feature that warns when it detects live electrical wires in the walls.
You can usually find a small level (sometimes called a torpedo level) for just a couple of dollars. You just set it on top of your item and adjust until the bubble on the level is centered. Very little effort to get better results.
The best part of buying tools is you just have to keep them clean and you get to keep them forever.
Congratulations. One of the first things I would do with a new house before you get established is fine out which circuit breakers control what parts of your house and make sure the breaker box is labeled correctly. That way if you have a problem or need to make a repair,you don’t have to shut off your entire house.
That is a good tip. Luckily for me, this home was a single owner home (a couple, both 89 years old!) and the breaker is currently labeled, so I would assume that it is still labeled correctly, but always good to check.
My old house had two breaker boxes. One for upstairs and one for down. Both Federal Pacific. They were also wired badly. So they weren’t actually one for upstairs and one down.
Along with that we had an old fuse box that was a rat’s nest of ancient cloth covered, solid core wiring. It was a house fire waiting to happen. Once I opened the fuse box, on the basement ceiling, to trace a wire. When I closed the cover I heard a ZZZZT. I called an electrician that very day.
He ended up replacing the boxes and rewiring as much of the wiring in the old fuse box. But he said that, basically, replacing the old wiring would be extremely expensive and leave it. As in, do not touch it at all. The fabric insulation was like mummy wrappings. Ready to turn to dust at the lightest touch.
Not to mention the old iron drain pipes that were too old to repair at all. Almost solid rust.
Hey, speaking of electricians… Does this raise red flags for you folks?
We rent the ground floor in a duplex and have neighbors upstairs. One of them let me know (I’m not currently at home) that two of the bedrooms upstairs lost power. On their first glance of the circuit breaker box, which is in the basement for what I think is for both units, they didn’t see any tripped breakers.
I told them to get in touch with the landlord to get a trained electrician* to look at it ASAP. My thinking about electrical stuff is that it should be just working all the time. If it stops working, something is really wrong, like maybe a power line snapped or was chewed through, and now not only do those guys have power in their rooms but we could lose the place to an electrical fire.
Am I unnecessarily freaking out?
* a real electrician, not just a handyman like usual. Long story.
I had a breaker go bad and wouldn’t power the room even when it was (ostensibly) “on”. Of course, this happened when I triggered the breaker to install a new ceiling fan and turning it back on did nothing, rather than just happening out of the blue, but those things aren’t infallible.
Also, my breakers are the type that sort of “half” turn off when there’s a short rather than flipping all the way back to the other side, and there’s a little window on the breaker to a colored strip that changes when it’s tripped. So the breaker doesn’t look like it’s tripped unless you know what you’re looking for.
There are several reasons that can happen, and I’d go through a few before spending money on an electrician which is going to cost a lot for what could be fixed with a new $1.50 outlet.
The most obvious case is when you have an upstream GFCI (ground fault circuit interrupter) that has been tripped. They trip pretty easy - a bouncing ball, an errant vaccuum cleaner that bumps up against it, can trip it. You have to push the test button & then push the button in until you hear a “click” which resets it to work.
Seeing a tripped breaker is actually more difficult as this can be subtle. I recommend going to the breaker that controls the room, turning it completely off (at which time you may feel that it wasn’t really in the on position) and then pushing it all the way on.
2a. Some breakers have a GFCI built in. You’ll need to reset it. They have the “test” button on them:
All options below require you to find & turn off the breaker. Test the outlet with an outlet tester to make sure it is actually off! Here is what an outlet tester looks like. Everyone should have one of these in your house!
Test the offending outlet(s) before you turn off the breaker. It may spot the problem for you.
Loose wire in the outlet. To save time, many electricians use the back holes and insert the wire. These are notorious for coming loose. It takes more time, but is far better to wrap the wire down on the wire nuts. To complicate matters, if they wire these without pigtails, and use each hole in the back instead, it’s like xmas lights and one upstream outlet can take out all downstream outlets. Finding the offending outlet may take some time. This is a picture of what this type of wiring looks like:
To find/fix, just turn off the breaker, pull each of the outlets, and check for lose connections. This can be intimidating as there may be a lot of wire jammed in behind that outlet, particularly if they wired it the best way with pigtails. This is a properly wired outlet using pigtails:
Bad outlet. It happens. I’ve replaced most of my outlets because over time they just get loose when plugging things in, it only takes about 5 minutes per outlet and they only cost about $1.50 each when you buy packs of 10.
Bad Breaker. Here is where you will need to call an electrician. I’ve had this happen once in owning 4 homes over the past 35 years, so it’s pretty rare, but it can happen.
I wired all my Electrical panels so I agree it’s doable, but this is with a lot of experience - wiring 2 houses from scratch and completely rewiring a 100yr old house with knob & tube got me that experience. However, it’s just a few steps above an outlet and I’m not going to recommend anyone do that on a forum. Fucking around with a 120v live outlet will get you a twinge when it shocks you, fucking up on a panel can get you dead.
Since it’s been a day and i assume you got home, i would ask is there only one box or two? if its two boxs are they looking at the right one? People mislabel stuff all the time. Like Tman said above is it a outlet or multiple? are the lights in those rooms out too? anything more than outlets or resetting breakers definitly call someone.
Real question is if there is only one box who is paying the electrical? the owner or you guys or the neighbors?
Thanks for everyone’s advice. The house is still standing, though I don’t have enough information to completely satisfy my curiosity. The only info I got was that the power in their bedrooms (plural) upstairs was back up and running. I don’t know if they figured it out/fixed it themselves or got a pro. When I got home last night, I checked both boxes. Nothing was tripped. I guess everyone upstairs is satisfied with the state of their electricals, all’s well that ends well. In the meantime, I have made sure that the batteries in our smoke detectors are fresh and everything seems to work on our circuits.
I think, from my experience in the house, that generally the stuff on the left hand box is for the first floor, and the right hand box is for the second floor, and various switches and outlets on the shared basement/laundry room/garage level are wired to both in confusing ways. Mice, both floors pay separate utility checks to the power company; there are two meters.
The interpersonal relationships between 1) my wife and I, 2) our rotating three neighbors upstairs, and 3) the family that (at various times) owns the house and sometimes provides casual landlording duties including cashing rent checks could fill a thread of its own.
Anyway, thanks again for your helpful info. Tman, an outlet tester is definitely on my list of things to pick up.
