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Appreciation post: the 92 year old lady in Boise who made me redo her keypad wiring twice
I was doing a panel swap at this old craftsman house in Boise last month and the homeowner, a 92 year old woman named Ruth, watched me the whole time from a kitchen chair. She asked why I was running the keypad wire through the wall cavity when her late husband ran it through the attic back in 1987. I laughed it off and kept going, and she just sat there shaking her head at me for 40 minutes. When I fired the system up, one zone showed open and she pointed at the crawlspace hatch without even looking up from her crossword. She was right, a mouse had chewed the old wire, so I ran 60 feet of new 22/4 through the attic her way and it tested clean on the first try. Has anyone else had an old timer homeowner who knows the house better than the as builts do?
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charlesanderson13d ago
Ruth sounds like half the old farmers I run into out here. Had a guy in his 80s in Kuna who kept a hand drawn map of every circuit in his house on the back of a closet door. I rolled my eyes until I popped a breaker and he walked me right to the outlet. My advice is when a longtime owner tells you how something was run, just do it their way and save yourself the callback. Took me about 15 years to learn that one. Ask them where the trouble spots are before you even pull the old can, they'll tell you the zone that acts up in winter and the door that never latches. Your mileage may vary but old houses keep receipts in the owner's head, not in the panel.
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