Home Ownership Woes
By patgalca
@patgalca (18481)
Orangeville, Ontario
November 26, 2021 11:02pm CST
As some of you may know, I am very reluctant to leave this house. My husband wants to retire to another province leaving this house behind. A house with 25 years of memories. To a place I'm not really fond of.
Well, I'm beginning selling might not be a bad idea.
Earlier this week I was sitting in the family room (which backs onto the kitchen). My lamp kept flickering. I thought nothing of it. Then all the power went out in the room. I yelled out what was going on. My daughter said the outlet the fridge was plugged into was sizzling and popping. There were sparks. If we hadn't caught it the house may have burned down that night. Fortunately my daughter's fiance was just arriving. Mr. Jack-of-all-Trades took care of the outlet by disabling it, then plugging the fridge into an extension cord that stretches all the way across the ktichen. So far so good. We just need someone to get out and buy some new outlets. The fiance says the whole house needs to be done so I counted 30 plug-ins that we will be replacing.
Tonight, my daughter went to her bedroom. She has had a flickering light in her room for awhile now. It is very cold tonight so she wanted to put an electric heater on in her room (her room is over the porch so pretty chilly in there). The outlet she plugged the heater into started sizzling and sparking. Even after she took the plug out it continued to sizzle. She turned off the breaker which, unfortunately, is connected to the living room AND the dining room. The wall the outlet is on shares a wall with the living room. Can't believe it took out most of the main floor.
My older daughter and her fiance were on the road for a couple of days but fortunately were on their way back. In the meantime the breaker remained off. I don't know what my daughter did in her room with no power and no power in the living room where she has her television. But they showed up and he disabled the outlet so we could turn the breaker back on.
Now I guess it is my responsibility to go out and buy some plug outlets so we can slowly change all the outlets in the house... 30 of them. Stupid aluminum wiring built in the '70's for cheap, obviously.
I am at my breaking point. What else can go wrong? Another outlet sparking out probably, or another appliance dying. And at minus 6 celsius we better hope we don't lose the furnace.
Adulting at its finest.
For the record, the house in the other province is older than this one. We already paid $4,000 for a new furnace along with other stuff. It's going to need work for sure.
3 people like this
4 responses
@patgalca (18481)
• Orangeville, Ontario
27 Nov 21
During the height of the pandemic our washer, dryer and fridge all broke down.
My daughter's fiance said they could have spent a couple hundred dollars more to put proper wiring in when building the house. I added, PER HOUSE. You don't just build a house you build a whole subdivision and when they're doing that they take shortcuts I imagine.
@BarBaraPrz (51819)
• St. Catharines, Ontario
27 Nov 21
Sounds more like you need to rewire the whole house, not just replace the outlets.
1 person likes this
@patgalca (18481)
• Orangeville, Ontario
27 Nov 21
Oh I know. Changing the outlets is a temporary fix. Meanwhile I'm tripping over the dang extension cord across my kitchen. Who knows how long it will be before someone gets someone to properly fix this and, well, I'll probably have to pay for this out of my inheritance money and NOT go on vacation in February.
1 person likes this
@sulynsi (2669)
• Canada
27 Nov 21
We recently moved from one province to another.
I haven't seen your neck of the woods for about 30 years - had friends up that way in the Bruce Penninsula. Always used to pass through on our way up.
Hubby did a lot of work to the electrical system over the 20 years we lived in our house. He's not 'certified' as an electrician, he's 'just' a handyman, but when he does a thing, he researches it thoroughly, buys the best tools and equipment and does the job properly.
Interesting story - a friend had just had her electrical inspected by a licensed electrician, about 4 months previous when an electrical fire broke out and destroyed her home (fortunately no one was hurt) but they had to rebuild completely.
When I heard that, and compared it to my 'unlicensed' hubby's work, and our stellar standing with our home insurance company, I didn't feel so worried about putting the house on the market. It had to be sold 'as is' but when the people who wanted it saw the work he had done, they were very impressed.
I hope you are able to find someone competent to fix the issues - it is a real worry.
