RIP Sailor

Well, Sailor died in recovery after surgery today. She went into cardiac arrest and did not respond to any of the emergency procedures they tried on her.

She will be greatly missed.

Please help save Sailor!

I haven't gotten any work done on the house lately because we've had a bit of an emergency here. We foster dogs for our local humane society. Last week we got in a very weak and emaciated American Bulldog from the animal shelter. she had been left tied to a pole outside the shelter.


We took her in and began her rehabilitation. Things were going great at first but soon she began throwing her food back up and started getting lethargic. Christmas morning she didn't even raise her head to greet us and we knew then that something was seriously wrong.

We spent the day at the emergency animal hospital. it turns out that she has an intestinal blockage that requires emergency surgery. The vet has agreed to perform the surgery but the Humane Society does not have the amount of money required to pay for it.

We have decided to setup an online fundraiser for Sailor to try to raise the money ourselves. Here is the link to the site:

http://www.fundable.com/groupactions/groupaction.2008-12-25.6311233069

If anyone can help out it would be greatly appreciated! It only takes a few seconds to donate and even $10 will help out greatly. If you know anyone else that can help please forward the link to them.

Thanks in advance for everyone that can help, Sailor thanks you!

We have power!!

The power is finally on! We went out to Woodbury House yesterday to try to get some things accomplished and found this!



I spent the afternoon running more circuits under the house, installing new outlet boxes, and installing outlets. I ran 4 circuits to different junction boxes with an outlet to each. We now have power to the Kitchen, Dining room, Parlor, and Study.

Now that we have power we can work later and use power tools. Hopefully things will start moving faster from here.

A wasted day...

Yesterday was a total waste of time. The power was supposed to be turned on at the Woodbury house yesterday so we went out there hoping to get some work done, but when I called Georgia Power they said that they never received the inspection paperwork from the county. I called the county but the inspector that we met was out in the field. The man I talked to said he would e-mail the information to Ga. Power shortly but it still wasn't there after 2 hours.

In the mean time I was double checking all my wiring to make sure everything was ok. I was checking the torque on the lugs in the meter socket when this happened:


Crap! The plastic bracket holding the bottom right lug snapped! I ended up having to once again make a 40 mile round trip to pick up a new bracket from the closest Ga. Power office.

In the end we just left with nothing at all accomplished. I don't know if the power was ever connected after we left but I seriously doubt it. I'll be calling Ga. Power later to find out.

I got a picture of the wall between the Living Room and the Sun room from the Living room side. you can see the outline of the old doorway that I mentioned in the previous post. This is the doorway that we will be opening back up.

Electrical Inspection

We passed our electrical inspection today!

I went out to the house a few hours before I was supposed to meet the inspector so I could finish up on a few last minute things. When I got there I realized that I forgot to get a grounding rod and copper ground wire so it was off on a 40 mile round trip to Home Depot to get it.

I had enough time when I got back to clean up all the old, moldy drywall up off the floor in the sun room, run the copper wire from the panel to outside just under the meter socket, and hammer the grounding rod about halfway in before he got there.

He was actually a very nice guy, we talked about the house for a long time (he's an old house owner also) and he gave me a lot of helpful tips.

Here's the picture of our meter socket with the county's inspection sticker on it:



By the way, it's no fun hammering an 8' ground rod in with nothing but a hammer. It took close to an hour:


We're hoping to get the power on by the end of the week, then the real work begins!

Sun room demo

First I just wanted to say thanks to Mike over at the L. Norris Hall house for all the electrical help!

The room that I put the main electrical panel in is an addition that appears to have been built in the 50's. It's a shed roof design that runs along the kitchen/dining room addition. Here is a picture of it:

Can you see the rot on the sill? This was taken last year, it is in worse shape now.

The addition is at the top left in the above floor plan. It is divided into 2 rooms but it is actually one structure. It was built very poorly and is literally falling apart. Water pours into the room when it rains and there is rot and mold everywhere.

Our original plans were to tear the back half down and replace it with a deck and keep the front part as a sun room. Unfortunately the rot extends through both rooms so it will all have to be torn down. Today the plan was to just get a tarp up on the roof so that the electrical panel wouldn't get wet.

Here is the roof:


As you can see the PO had already nailed a tarp down years ago. The furring strips they used blocked the water from draining and made the problem worse. The roof is very soft all over but there is a big hole right above the furring strips in the corner:


I removed all the leaves and nailed plastic sheeting down with roofing nails:


I only put plastic sheeting down over the sun room side because that's all I care about for now since that's the room the panel is in. Once we have the electric on we are going to tear the entire thing down and rebuild just the sun room. Luckily the panel is on what was originally the outside wall of the dining room so it wont be disturbed but we'll have to work quickly to tear the room down and rebuild it during a period of no rain.

Once that was done I started gutting the sun room. There was a water heater, a shower, a closet and some shelves. I didn't get to finish the last 2, but got the rest out of there as well as most of the old, moldy drywall that was on all the walls.


That is thick mold growing on the walls. The wood walls are rotted out in a few places also. I should be able to salvage some of it though.


The above picture shows the entryway to the room and the main hall beyond. Just to the right of the door is a plumbing chase that is falling apart. I'm not sure yet if I'm going to keep the plumbing there or move it to another location.

When I removed the drywall on the opposite wall I found an old doorway into the back of the original house that goes into the study. I knew this would be there as I had seen the outline of the doorway on the wall of the study. From the size of it, it looks like it used to hold 2 small french doors, probably about 2 feet each. this would have been a doorway out on to the back porch originally. we plan on opening this doorway back up.


You can see the doorway in the above picture. The wall covering it on the right is the small closet that was for a washer and dryer. They will be coming down the next time we go out there.

New meter socket

We've been out at the Woodbury house for the past two days trying to get the electrical to a point where we can turn it on.

The meter socket needed to be replaced since the old one was a dual socket. It looks like the upstairs was an apartment at one time and had separate electrical service.


I picked up a new meter socket from Georgia Power and had them come out to disconnect the service drop from the house. Then I removed the old socket:


Then I installed the new socket. I used PVC conduit for the exposed electrical line and capped it off with a new service head.



I have a question for all you electricians out there. The service drop is 3-wire, 2 lines and a ground, (black & red). The line I ran from the meter socket to the panel is 4-wire, 3 wires and a ground (black, red & white). Where is the neutral (white) wire supposed to connect in the meter socket? I attached it to the ground in the socket (see pic below), is this the proper way? Georgia Power will be inspecting it before they turn it on but I'd like to have it done right the first time.



Also, the electrical panel had a bridge connecting the neutral to the ground. I removed it but which way do I need to have it when the neutral is connected to ground at the socket?

We also brought over a stove for the kitchen. We got it free off Freecycle. This will be temporary until we can sell the other house and begin the full remodel.


Not bad for free :) It was disgusting when we got it. This pic is after hours with bleach, a scrub pad, bristle brush, and a scraper. One of the elements was burned out so I'll be replacing all of them as well as the drip trays.