Due to the fact that there is so much to talk about, I've broken this weekend's update into 2 pieces. The first piece will cover the actions of Friday night and Saturday. The second piece will cover Sunday.
During the day Friday I got to Lowes to buy the hardware required for me to install electrical outlets and some audio/data jacks outside on the deck. The key element of this trip was to get these outdoor boxes that allow you to plug things in and keep the cover closed. I also had to pick up some wire and a new GFCI outlet.
I was hoping to get the new outlets installed and all the cable/wire run in the wall so on Saturday morning we could get the wall insulated and the drywall up. As soon as I got home from work on Friday I started working on the install. It was lightly raining/misting so I figured it wouldn't be a big deal. I drilled a hole in the house and went to install the outdoor outlet. As soon as I walked outside it started to pour. I was able to get the box attached to the house but couldn't get the outlet installed because the voice inside my head said installing electrical outlets in a downpour is not the safest thing to do. Instead I went on to try and install the other stuff. Once again I was only able to install the box but get nothing in it because it was raining so damn hard. By the end of the night I was soaking wet and really friggin cold (it was 41 outside).
On Saturday morning I got up and got working around 8:30 AM. Within a few minutes I had the audio/data jacks installed and in the box. Before continuing on I decided to test it out to make sure the audio was working (that was the main reason for this box). When I plugged my iPod in no sound at all came out of the speakers. I went through a series of tests to find out the cable I had run in the wall got destroyed during the install so I had to get a new cable run. Luckily I have a bunch of RCA cables hanging around so I got another one hooked it up and we had sound coming out of the speakers. I then installed and tested the new GFCI outlet in the other box and had power out on the deck. It's amazing how much easier it is to work when it's not pouring outside.
At that point my father arrived to get working on the drywall. Before we could do that we had to tie the new outlet to the last remaining outlet in the dining room that was disconnected when we demolished the wall. To do that I had to climb up behind the well pump in the basement and have my dad pass tools to me so I could get the wires tied together. This was not a lot of work and took us about 15 minutes.
The last electrical mission was to get the outdoor side light back in use. This wire like the others had to be removed when we demolished the wall. We snaked the wire up over the door and after some fighting got it outside. I went out in the drizzle and installed the light and my father tied the new wire into the old wire and we were ready to test. After flipping the breaker back on we tested the other lights on the circuit and they worked fine. We then flipped on the outside light and pop the GFCI outlet on the kitchen counter tripped.
Now there's some history with this circuit. First of all, having the lights be on the same circuit as the kitchen counter is just wrong but we must accept that fact because at this point there's nothing we can do about it. Also, when I installed this light last year I went through this same song and dance so this is not my first time fighting with this circuit. Last time I had this problem I had shorted out a wire in the light so I figured that was the problem.
I went outside and disconnected the light and then went back into the kitchen to reset the outlet. I pushed the reset button and it just popped back out. No matter what I did, I could not get the outlet to reset. My father made sure the outside light was off and to be sure we disconnected that entire leg of wire from the circuit. Nothing would let us reset the outlet. We then figured maybe the outlet crapped out. Luckily I had another GFCI outlet hanging around so I wired that up and once again we could not hit the reset button. Now I'm getting pissed because we were not supposed to spend our day dealing with electrical issues.
At this point we started our troubleshooting. We worked our way to the next outlet in the circuit and found that we could get power to it without a problem. Then we went to the next outlet and again had no problem getting power there (at this point I knew I could at least use the fridge again). From there we went to what we thought was the next point, the light in the mud room. When we tested the wires we found none of them were hot. "Well it must run to the dining room light first", we said. Once again we were proven wrong. Now the best way to describe our train of thought at that point is to think back to Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade when Indy was in that Venetian library with the hot Nazi chick. You know the one when he found the numbers three and seven but couldn't find the ten. Well the next point in the circuit was our ten. We walked around the house, around the basement, and around the yard trying to find where the hell this circuit went. After about 10 minutes it hit me, the kitchen light.
This is the point in the story where everything went into the shitter (up until now the situation was just standing in line to use the port-a-john). When I took the kitchen light down pieces of old wire rained down on my head and we were faced with a real big mess. The kitchen light apparenly is the hub of all wiring in the kitchen and the wiring in the box was old and twisted up for so long that the wire covering had worn off which allowed the wires to touch and short out the circuit. We figured that whatever short we had in the new light had done enough damage to the wiring in the kitchen light to push it to the limit. By the time we had pulled every wire out of the box we had 8 completely bare wires and a floor covered in old wire covering. This became one of those "what the hell do we do now?" situations. We decided to take each wire and wrap them up in electrical tape so they wouldn't short out anymore and then had to figure out what wire went to where. Once we determined the hot wire we tied things together mapping out things as other parts of the circuit came alive. We then tied everything together and now because the wires in the light were wrapped up in tape the circuit stopped shorting out and we were able to get everything working again (including the outside light).
Oh yeah, it was 4:30 by the time we got the electrical figured out so we didn't end up getting any sheetrock done. That we decided to do first thing in the morning.
To end this story on a high note we have the "I'm an ass" moment of the day. While trying to figure out the direction current was flowing on the circuit my father had this idea to tie two wires together because he thought it would make another part of the circuit come online. He touched two wires together which created a spark, a big bang, and tripped the breaker. We found out at that point those were not the wires we wanted to tie together.
To read the rest of this weekend's work, please check out part 2.