Trips to the Hardware Store

Having a second home that you do not regularly live in can be a problem, because you are not there as things happen. And when we arrived here yesterday, it was obvious we did have a problem.

When I pushed the garage door remote, nothing happened. I had to get out and open the front door of the house with a key. Pushing the inside button on the garage did nothing to open the door either.

The breakers in the electric box were partially tripped, and almost every ground fault outlet in the house was tripped. Usually that means we have had a lightning strike. And so we have.

I have spent the last day fixing the electric system here in the house. Doug of Doug and JoAnn’s Living our Dream says that you can tell the size of a problem by how many trips it takes into town, to go to the hardware store. This will take several before it is over.

Our neighbor says he lost both of his TV’s and his computer about two weeks ago, which must be the time we had the problem as well.

We got all the breakers reset and found ground faults that have been toasted, most notably the fault in the cord on the remote boat lift out on our dock. The lightning fractured the case. But it seems to have been sacrificial, as the electronic computerized brain of the lift went into a reset mode and reinitialized itself, when I restored power to it. It seems to work fine.

But all the wiring between the dock and the house must have been fried. There is power to the top of the wires, but none at the bottom. The first trip to Lowe’s was to purchase a new corded ground fault and some additional drop cord. Another 50 feet of 14 gauge to add onto the 100 feet I already had. That is the power for the dock now.

I have rolls of wire back at KC so the next time I come down, I will be armed with the entire electrical kit to rewire. Trouble is that the conduit is buried and will need to dug up and replaced, along with the seven wires that are inside. It is about 50 feet long on the shore and at least another 50 feet once you get out over the water. I am hoping this second part is OK, but have not had power in the first half to check out the second part.

The first trip to the hardware store was only $70 to get the drop cord and the corded ground fault. This along with some conduit and PVC glue and a few fittings, but that is just the initial trip.

Oh and by the way, I did get the battery installed into the boat, and that part went fine. The Honda outboard started right off and the test trip went without a hitch, so something was OK. LoL

We have to get wound up tomorrow and head back to KC later in the day, as I have an appointment with the Doctor on Friday morning. I have not been in for most of the winter, and they get grumpy on the diabetic thing if they haven’t seen you in a while.

So that’s the news from Lake Ozark.

Retired Rod