Home Repair Fuckwittery

On Friday, I discovered that the GFCI outlet in my bathroom had suddenly stopped working. Pushing test and reset had no effect. I finally got around to working on that little home repair problem this morning.

I started by taking off the face plate and pulling the outlet box out of the wall to make sure all of the wires were properly connected. Everything looked good. Like I am an expert, pssht, but at least there was indeed a ground wire connected to the box, and two white wires were inserted on one side, and two black wires were inserted on the other. Okay, symmetry is good.

I next made a trip to my circuit breaker box, which is stupidly and inconveniently located on the outside of the house. No breakers were tripped.

Now I was facing the possibility of having to replace the GFCI outlet. With home repair, it's always half a dozen steps back before you can take a step forward. I needed to turn off the power to that outlet before I started messing around with it. But none of the fuses in the breaker box were labeled. Why would they be? Are they labeled in your house?

Excluding the large voltage ones which certainly powered the fridge, HVAC unit, and washer and dryer, I had 17 mystery fuses to sort out.

I turned on all the lights in the house and garage, and began systematically working my way through the fuses, filling out a table as I went along and turning off lights once I figured out which fuse controlled them. I had to go back and check a few of my "unknowns" when I realized that half a dozen outlets in the kitchen were not on the same circuit as the one that controlled the overhead lights.

It took me well over an hour of traipsing back and forth. I never figured out which circuit controls those kitchen outlets. But I did find the circuit for the upstairs bathroom--yay! Even better, the process of throwing breakers on and off reset the GFCI--yay again! No replacement needed.

Unfortunately, when I was pushing the box back into the wall, I neglected to remember it was live and gave myself a bit of a shock. Not enough to trip the damned GFCI again, thankfully. But enough for me to call it a fucker, and to make a trip back outside to shut off power to the bathroom.

I finished my day of home care by planting some flowers, and vacuuming the car then driving it to my favorite car wash. I also cleaned the upstairs bathroom, vacuumed the house, and started some black beans in the slow cooker.

It's not much, but it's a start. I rebuilt the rock wall myself.

As a reward for my virtuous activities, I am out on the deck with the entire pack, even the annoying cat, enjoying the beautiful breeze and balmy temperature.

Archie is off patrolling the perimeter.