Vintage Life: Let there be Light!

Now that we've redesigned our 1920s bungalow, replaced all the subfloors, built new walls and closets, and added pocket doors and new windows, we're ready to re-wire the house.  Remember the exposed wiring?

Inside the walls were the fabric-covered wires originally installed when the house was built.  Obviously we needed to re-wire the entire house for safety.  We now have a new 200 amp service instead of the original 60 amp box.

We have light switches galore throughout the house.

Here's a view of the wiring in the upstairs that runs under the floor.

And we have light!  We've installed can lights in the ceilings in most rooms with dimmer switches.  We've also installed junction boxes in the middle of the ceilings in most rooms for chandeliers or ceiling fans.

But not only did we re-wire the whole house, we actually re-built the electrical connection to the house.  I really hated the ugly electrical, cable, and telephone wires that ran from the pole, over the driveway, and attached to the roof of the house.  So we asked the city to install a new pole, which you can see below to the right of the old pole.

Next we dug a trench from the new pole to the side of the house where we had installed a meter base.

We ran conduit and then filled in the trench.  The city came out, snaked the new electrical service through the conduit, and then installed a new electric meter.  The city building inspector came out to take a look and we passed our first inspection!