Rewiring

Spent the last several weeks rewiring parts of my 80-year-old house. It all started with me trying to get the front doorbell working. I had to change the transformer, rewire the back doorbell, and add a new AC line. In the process I thought I would add/split some existing lines.

My office is on the second floor. There I have several PCs and a server, RoadRunner modem for Internet and a wireless router. When this particular room was rewired, who knows when, at least they put in plugs with a ground. Unfortunately, they probably didn’t have an inclination that someone would someday fill the room with electrical/electronic devices. When a space heater was on, it would trip the breaker and several battery backups would start singing!

Well I ran some new lines to the office to split the computes and servers from the “standard” lines with TV, air conditioner, refrigerator and plugs and lights. Worked perfectly and no more tripping circuit breaker. I also added 2 RJ-45 cables to make a “hard” connection on my workbench in the basement…another convenience.

Unfortunately the front doorbell still doesn’t work…not because of the wiring, but because I can’t get a new line up to the front door. I thought I would use the old wire to pull the new wire…but no! I pulled and pulled, and the old wire snapped somewhere inside the wall. Looks like they buried the original bell wire into the front porch concrete slab.

So I took down the bell wire and transformer, plugged both holes at the front and back door and bought a wireless doorbell. Oh well, that’s progress.