Here we were thinking the renovation was going great and we were staying within our budget and timeline when BOOM! Disaster strikes! Ok, ok, it wasn’t a disaster, but it WAS a major setback. So what happened was…
Our electrician was starting to wire up some of the new things when he made a shocking discovery. The entire house had old aluminum wiring! I didn’t even know this was a thing! Apparently aluminum wiring was used in the past and it has since been banned from use. Even if you could get your hands on some aluminum wiring, it is not up to code. The other major problem is that you can NOT splice copper and aluminum together because it creates heat and could lead to electrical fires and is incredibly dangerous. We were learning about all of these things as it unraveled.
This is how our electrician discovered that we had aluminum wiring (it did not show up in our home inspection). He was re-wiring the electrical that we had to move from the wall that we removed and found aluminum and copper spliced together from where the previous home owner had added some new lights (incorrectly). Part of it was already melted (see first photo above)! This won’t necessarily cause a fire right away, but over time it will eventually degrade and you could find yourself in trouble. Needless to say, we now had a big expense (both time and money) to deal with. Of course we want to do things properly and make sure everything is up to code, but most importantly, safe! And as it was now, the wiring for the entire house was not safe and posed a potential fire hazard. Not good!
What happened next? The electrician asked Damien to cut holes in all the drywall in the bedrooms that we had just freshly skim coated and primed. It was heartbreaking to have to cut into the drywall that was all repaired and ready for paint. But, it had to be done. So now we had to stop everything and address this most pressing issue. Sometimes it’s three steps forward and one giant step back. As in any home renovation, there are always surprises and unexpected twists and turns. It’s just part of the fun!
So that is exactly what we did. Damien cut holes in all the drywall so our electrician could drop new wiring down to all the outlets and switches. The good news is now we will have all new wiring and a brand new electrical box that is safe and up to code. Bad news is afterwards we had a ton of drywall to repair and skim coat once again.
Alright so now we’re back to where we started before we made this discovery, we’re ready to repair drywall, skim coat and prime (again) and then finally paint! We have our color scheme all picked out and just need to finalize paint colors for each room.
Next week we’ll be painting all the rooms and then installing flooring and trim. Until then, happy DIY-ing!
-Selene Builds Things