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Today we had two tasks on our list:
Wipe out wall cavities - kitchen and
Wipe out wall cavities - living room TaraMap Circuits P.J.Wiping out wall cavitiesThere was a lot of gunk on the wood plank sheathing where we will have insulation sprayed: mud from
Mud dauber wasps who had presumably crawled up from under the vinyl siding outside and in through cracks in the wood plank sheathing and built many nests between the walls, dust, spider webs, spots of mildew and mold and other unmentionable things. I used a solution of water and bleach to wipe them off (an eighth part bleach). It was a dirty smelly job, but the walls do look better and I know that I will feel better about having spray foam insulation blown in on top of clean walls.
Making a circuit mapIn one of the electrical books (
Basic Wiring and Electrical Repair from Black and Decker), it was suggested than when moving into a house or planning electrical work, one map out the existing circuits.
Seemed like a thankless task, given the tangle of wires from different eras that lines the walls of the old house. I drew out a map of the house and drew in all of the light fixtures and outlets I could remember the locations of. PJ drew in the rest of the outlets on the map and figured out how we would go about testing the circuits - this involves turning off all of the circuit breakers, turning one on, and seeing which outlets/light fixtures turn on when that circuit is on.
Most of the house was easy. The fact that half of the walls in the house are 1/2 there right now helped, as we could see the wires snaking from one set of outlets to the other. We went through and did the lights first, which was easy because most of the lights in the house were on one circuit. Because I was working on wiping down the wall sheathing in the living room, we used a lamp (that we made sure was in the on position with a working light bulb) to test those circuits and I would simply yell out "on" when the light came on. For the bedrooms, which were close to the circuit breaker, PJ used the lamp. For the big room way far from the circuit breaker, PJ plugged in a vacuum to the different outlets so I could work on my task and PJ could hear if a circuit was on when he flipped the breaker switch.
Today we have to figure out where we want to install new outlets and where we want to put appliances.
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