Rick Galbraith

Network marketing: see my page at rickgalbraith.com if you have the motivation to build a lucrative business of your own. If you have the desire, we have the team to support you.

www.iprance.com is my first domain name.

My story: Electrical renovation

Have you come to the point of retirement and wondered how you could be productive in this latest stage of life. Perhaps you are looking for meaningful work that you can do.

I was never trained as an electrician, but from my youth I had an electric train set. So when I became a householder, I started doing minor electrical upgrades. I was given a guide to the electrical code for Ontario about 16 years ago, by one Peter S. Knight, author/publisher. It was very helpful.

So my friend asked me to rewire his house to ready it for resale. Now I live in Manitoba and it's a few years later. I found an updated guide from Mr. Knight that covers my province, at Home Depot. I bought it, and in six months the work was done. Holes in walls and ceilings, mind you. but done nonetheless.

There were some others who looked at the job and declined it, or gave a high price citing the difficulty of the job. One fellow wanted to run the wires in conduit along the surface and in from the outside!

In the process of working with this century-old house, we learned tricks and twists. How to figure out where the wires ran when partition walls on the second floor that didn't line up with first floor walls. How to find places where the wires would run easily (and not having to put any holes in the living room and dining room ceilings.) And all about neutral switching.

Ahh, neutral switching. Early on, I used a tester that would beep in the proximity of power running in a wire. It was so sensitive, you could put it beside a three wire cable and tell which wire was the neutral, though the wire was inside the cable jacket.

Tested knob and tube wires in the porch, with the light off. I still got a signal - from both wires! Concluded that the switch was on the neutral side. All the old wiring was the same.

So even when wiring in an old location, we put in all new wire. We only reused, apart from the stove line, nmd90 of recent intallation if it met our standards for installation.

So what reno work do you want done. If it's impossible, it'll just take longer!