SHAMLESS! Bah! I can't believe I did that! I really can't believe that I didn't notice it either!
Well, like everything else with this house, the final inspection wasn't easy! Everything went well until he saw one thing. ONE thing. But it was a big thing, of course. I had to rewire from the meter box to the breaker box. We did it correctly, but he failed to mention to me last time that I needed conduit from the meter box to the breaker box inside the wall. That wasn't really his fault, though. I told him that we were installing the meter box directly behind the breaker box. In reality, that would have made the meter too high for the electric company to read. So we lowered it a little, but then we had to run wire through the wall and then into the breaker box. It needed conduit. He told me that there was one other way to do it without having to wrestle with conduit inside the wall. I could buy MORE WIRE (Yay, because I love buying wire, you see.) but a different kind. I needed aluminum wire in a special sheath. 7' of it to make sure I had enough.
So at 3:30 today, when I could have been calling the electric company to schedule turning on the power, I had to run out to an electrical supply store because Lowe's doesn't carry that kind of wire. It started getting dark while I was rewiring everything so there I was, outside holding a flashlight with my mouth, wrestling with this horrendous, unfriendly wire. Did I mention that it was also raining? Did I also mention that I had to run to the hardware store before they closed to buy yet another inspection permit? I love spending money on the same thing over and over.
But the end result is this. He went through the house and said that everything looked great. He punched us on the meter box wire, but I fixed that. I hung the inspection permit in the foyer and he said that he'd come back Thursday to put a "passed" sticker on the meter box for the electric company.
So it's not quite over, but it's just a matter of him coming back Thursday. The sickest thing is that the wire I ripped out was copper. Three twisted bundles of thick, heavy-duty #1 copper. It cost a fortune, but now I'll only be able to get scrap money out of it at the salvage yard. That's nauseating. The aluminum wire only cost $35.
Something funny is now that this part is over, Mr. Vagabond is expressing interest in buying investment property. I can't fathom ever having to rewire another house. Ever.
