More wires ran in Jacob's container house.

Wiring Jacobhouse, Day 3. (A surprising visit)

3/23/19:

Building Summary: Today I went down to Jacobhouse at 9:30 AM*. There, I soon found out that Alan Hendrickson was going to be over around 10:00 AM to start working on wiring. This led to a flurry of activity where I moved the divider board in the switch box area at the entry, drew pencil-marks on the kitchen section to display the actual dimensions of the appliances, and neatened the whole place up a bit in preparation.

At about 10:30, not only did Alan arrive, but his son, Terry, did as well. They are both proficient electricians, and got straight to work (as did I alongside them). While they started wiring the stove and hot-water heater electrical boxes, I self-tapped a few outlet boxes to the walls in the office and bathroom area. Padre arrived around that point, and it was then that we set about getting wires to all the places they needed to be**.

It was about 1:00 PM when we all decided we’d done about as much as could be done with the available materials (and we were hungry, too). It was a productive 3 hours, though, for in that amount of time we must have completed no less than 70-75% of the wiring in Jacobhouse.

Commentary: A lot of learning occurred at Jacobhouse this morning. I haven’t even gotten to wiring the outlet/switch boxes yet, but today I learned what’s required to get the wires from Point A to Point B and what supplies are needed for those aforementioned outlets and switches.

Wire work in Jacob's container home.
Large box for three switches (hall light, bathroom light, and vent). Small box at bottom right for outlets.

An interesting thing about today, is that I was planning on it being a quiet ‘lasagna-making and container framing/drilling morning’. I had no clue until about 9:30 that Alan was coming over, and even then, I didn’t know what was in store (i.e. was he just dropping off supplies, or was he going to give me more pointers on preparation?). So, it’s safe to say that I was surprised when I saw Terry’s truck come in along with Alan’s utility van, and moreso when I saw the tools and supplies they were getting out of their trucks.

I (gladly) went along with the new development, and with the addition of Padre on the job… Well. The three hours went by swiftly, and in that short time, we accomplished what I thought would end up taking weeks. If that’s not a highlight, I don’t know what is***.

Final Note: I have much more to do at Jacobhouse now. Tomorrow, I’ll likely begin by stripping back the Romex wire’s outer layer  8″ at every outlet/switch box. Then, if I still have time after that, I’ll fashion the support like I said I would in yesterday’s log or I’ll mount the kitchen’s sub-counter and south-counter outlet boxes.

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*I was late because I prepared two lasagnas for lunch. Those lasagnas proved quite delicious. It’s the second time I made the recipe, and it can be found on Youtube at this link. The chef, Gennaro Contaldo, who demonstrates the recipe is quite enthusiastic (and rightly so).

** Not the wires we already pulled yesterday; those ones were fine. What I’m referring to here are the switch circuits for lighting, vents, and additional outlet circuits.

*** On that note, I don’t know if they read the Jacobhouse Blog, but if they do, I’d like to thank Alan and Terry Hedrickson for dropping by this morning, and of course, Padre’s aid is always much appreciated as well.