Murasaki99 ([info]murasaki99) wrote,
@ 2008-07-05 07:36:00
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Current mood: sleepy
Entry tags:family, home improvement

The Rocket's Red Glare
Well, we seem to have survived the night of the young pyromaniacs. Our town still allows people to buy and set off fireworks for the Fourth of July celebration, and so most of the evening is spent in a haze of gunsmoke and the sound of mortar rounds and screaming shells going off. Some of the displays were quite beautiful, but I at least get a little nervous about misfiring fireworks and the potential for accidental blazes. I managed to get nearly the entire lawn well watered yesterday, which helped a little and then kept an eye on the house and yard.



I finally figured out how to get photographs out of my iphone, so here is a picture taken on Wednesday of almost the entire span of the addition.



On Thursday the electrician arrived and began putting in the new electrical meter, circuit breaker box, and the supports for the power cables which will come in through the new roof. The electrician says the power supply will be enough to support power for a 3000 square-foot house, which is almost twice as big as what this place will be when it is finished. So I guess I don't have to worry about power issues for awhile, if ever.



The new breaker box which is on the interior wall of the pantry.

You can see the riser for the power cables above the box. This neighborhood was built in the late 1940s and so all the power comes into the houses from overhead cables rather than buried underground.


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[info]x_expat
2008-07-05 03:59 pm UTC (link)
Looks like good progress!

Yeah, my neighbors (the deranged ones) didn't set the neighborhood on fire despite their best efforts last night. The street is full of firework debris and their lawn chairs are still in their driveway while they sleep off their hangovers. I sat on the porch steps for a while last night and watched the show.

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[info]murasaki99
2008-07-06 02:44 pm UTC (link)
So far, so good. Maybe tomorrow or sometime this week the trusses for the roof will show up, and then the shingles for the roof -- then it will look very house-like from the exterior. :)

Glad you got through the 4th unsinged. It is always a worry when you have kids (and adults) playing with gunpowder and stuff that can make fires.

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[info]aayesha_r
2008-07-05 04:35 pm UTC (link)
One of those "you might as well's" that you might want to consider doing at this stage is having your electrician put on a whole-house surge suppressor at the main box level if it's not to late to patch it in. We did it when we built our last house. I don't think it was too expensive, and it protected the computers, TV's, stereos, microwave, refrigerator, freezer, and all the other expensive stuff in the house.

It's illegal to buy fireworks in our state, except things like sparklers. That doesn't stop people from crossing state lines and bringing them back, even though it's illegal to set them off, too. I heard fewer of them in our neighborhood this year. Maybe the price of gas kept people from traveling a several hundred miles round trip to get them?

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[info]centaurg
2008-07-05 07:08 pm UTC (link)
Good suggestion on the surge protector! And from the location, Murasaki's all set to plug in her future electric car from a convenient location...

Over here, fireworks can be had in any quantity and about any type at the Muckleshoot Reservation, but most types are now illegal in town. So this 4th was about the quietest and least smoky I can remember.

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[info]murasaki99
2008-07-06 02:35 pm UTC (link)
I didn't know they made surge suppressors for the whole house. I'll ask the electrician, thanks!

Out here it varies by county and town whether or not you can have fireworks, but that doesn't stop people from bringing them in and setting them off in places where they shouldn't. <__<

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[info]kayshapero
2008-07-06 07:14 am UTC (link)
We wound up staying home and watching the fireworks displays from our bedroom window. There were at least three and maybe five this year; the one from the North jetty was still by far the most spectacular, but it looks like we've got some new ones, and they weren't doing too badly. After which all the usual pops, bangs and whizzes from around the neighborhood. Leastwise the folks with the bottle rockets moved years ago. I can recall sitting up half the night just to make sure nobody set fire to the house.

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[info]murasaki99
2008-07-06 02:37 pm UTC (link)
Hooray for getting through the 4th with no fires! Especially now when things are so dry.

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[info]_steelphoenix_
2008-07-07 12:33 pm UTC (link)
That's looking really good, swift progress indeed from the last pictures. :) When'd you get an iPhone? They look really shiny. :)

How are the cats reacting to the builders and so on, out of curiosity?

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[info]murasaki99
2008-07-07 02:38 pm UTC (link)
I'm hoping the roof trusses arrive this week, then it will look even more "house-like".

I got an iPhone back in March or so when my not-so-old Motorola up and died without warning. Turns out they don't repair them like I thought. <__< But the iPhone is a lot of fun, and I can actually *use* most of its functions, which is way cool. The cats are doing OK so far -- they don't like the noisy parts of construction, but they come right out as soon as the guys are done and stare out the window at the new stuff. The outdoor cats do the same, except they get to walk all over the construction in the evening. :D

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