Dealing with electricity always scares me, mostly because I don't understand it. Alright, I get the movement of electrons, and that you have to have a complete circuit for electricity to flow. But why AC (which seems to me always like one step forward, one step back--how can that be useful?) works better than DC, building up a charge over a capacitor, and other details: these things mystify me. Add in the fact that a piece of copper one-eighth of an inch in diameter can deliver a lethal jolt, and I get nervous.
But sometimes you have to face the beast to get things done.
We want neither an outlet nor a cable jack in the back wall of our closet. Since both were present on the wall, I needed to move them to the outside of the right wall of the closet. This meant splicing wire, covering the junction, and fitting a new outlet and cable jack for the new location.
I knew enough to turn off the breaker before getting to work. What I didn't know was that it would take me over an hour to get the splices finished. This mattered because I started the work at 4:00pm, and it gets dark at 5:00. Since the breaker was off, no electric light was available in the room. So by the end of the project I was working in very dim conditions.
I do not recommend doing electrical work in the dark. ("Is that red or green?" These things matter.)
I got everything set up, wire nuts in place, junction box closed, and went downstairs to throw the breaker back on. When I returned to the bedroom, I was greeted by an ominous darkness. Hadn't I left the overhead light on?
Something was wrong. And this is the other thing about electrical work that makes me nervous: I know enough to try to do the work, but not enough to troubleshoot. If I've done something to create a short or improper circuit, I won't be able to tell. (Especially in the dark.) Thus with natural light fading too fast for my comfort, I opened up the junction box again and began to mentally prepare myself to call for an extraction by an electrician friend of ours.
Praise the Lord, the problem was simple and apparent. I had not tightened the wire nut enough, and one wire had come loose. I refitted the cap and threw the breaker again. Hallelujah! The lights came on, and I did not have to pay for it with a heart-stopping experience.
I did have to learn, however, that three 14-gauge wires and two 12-gauge wires are almost too much for a single wire nut.
Not only did I not kill myself rewiring the outlet, but thanks to a helpful guy at Lowe's I now know how to replace the female connector on a coaxial cable.
The hobbyist builder of our home had pulled the cable through to the bedroom wall, then installed a wall plate without hooking the cable up to the back side of the wall plate. How frustrating would that have been, if we had bought cable service for our bedroom? Hook up the TV, attach coax cable, and get nothing. Oy! There's a nice side-effect to the closet project. If future owners get cable or satellite, they can know that the wall jacks are connected. (Well, at least one is.)
~ emrys
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