The Renovation Saga - Weekend #1

Yes,Whenever i’m faced with an electrical problem that sometimes is - and sometimes isn’t, I learned the ground is first suspect.

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I would just like to know how in the world the UK got “earthing” and we got “grounding?” Seriously?

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Flat earth and round ground :rofl:

Batteries go flat over there. They go dead here.

Remember, their maps used to say “here there be dragons” over here :slight_smile:

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“Mind the Gap!”…an elevator is a 'Lift" and a shower is a douche.
Not any worse than Navy speak .Port and Starboard for left and right respectively. Wall is a bulkhead, rope is a line, Bathroom is a head (which comes from sailing days, when you pee downwind instead of all over yourself - always at the Bow, the head of the ship).

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Except when facing aft, when Port is right and Starboard left. I’ve never heard anyone in the Royal Navy call the heads by the singular “head,” as in “I’m off to the heads,” or “Captain of the heads,”( the leading hand in charge of the cleanliness of the heads & bathrooms, amongst other things.

I can’t recall any baths in bathrooms afloat, only showers. However, these were often seen in Stone Frigates (shore establishments.}

In the world of cars (automobiles,) a bonnet is a hood and a boot is a trunk.

One which has the same pronunciation but has, unfortunately fallen into disuse over the past half century is Gaol instead of Jail.

Two peoples divided by a common language.

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Spent 6 years in the navy, just over a year in Scotland, and have been a pilot for the last 30. I tend to permanently adapt linguistic portions of cultures I’m in so it has messed my ability to communicate.
Port and Starboard make more sense than L/R as there is no ambiguity, British nouns have stuck because they are often cute, and a 24-hour clock makes more sense to me for the same reason as Port and Starboard. Fixes ambiguity.

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Except the designation doesn’t depend on an individual’s perspective - facing the port side won’t make the stern ‘port’ and the bow starboard.

Well said! :+1:

I’m sorry. I should have made it clearer. Imagine standing on deck facing the bow, the side of the ship on left side of one’s body is the port side. Turn round 180 degrees and the port side is on the right side of one’s body. So the side of the ship with the red nav. light on it is the port side, and the side with the green nav. light is the starboard side.

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Ah, thanks!

It seems like a doorbell wouldn’t be that big of a deal. I’m just glad that doorbells are “low voltage” because I was not “treating it like it was live” last night.

When we moved into our rental we had our security company install an auto-deadbolt, a doorbell camera and other assorted goodies. We had to remove these items from the rental so we went over last night to do so. I find the old doorbell button, remove the camera doorbell and reinstall the original. It doesn’t work. Oh well. I go about other things. Then I decide to look at the doorbell unit and when I pull the cover off I find that there are four wires inside, three of which are tied together. The other is connected to it’s proper pole in the doorbell. It took me a while, but I finally figured out which wires went where, as there were four wires but only three poles to connect to. I finally had to connect two wires to one pole and the remaining two wires went to the other poles and it worked… at least the upstairs button worked. The back doorbell button didn’t work, but we’ll just claim it never worked if they bring it up.

Yet another example of something that should have taken 10 minutes that took nearly an hour.

Tonight we patch holes. Yay.

For the record, our security company is Vivint. They were great when we were in CA, but here in WA they have been less than stellar. To get everything we needed installed at the rental Jan actually had to email the CEO of the company. Only then did it get done. Then, when she called to move service to the new house, they said “we are a month out right now, you need to give a month notice” which is just ridiculous. Jan did her thing and they bumped our install to today at the new house. Yet last night when I called to let them know I was removing the panel, doorbell, etc… they had no record of any scheduled service, though “that’s a different department that is closed right now, so I may not be seeing everything.” I see another email to the CEO in the near future. In the end, the equipment is excellent, though the app on my phone does hang up on viewing the live cameras sometimes. But the service, at least here in WA, is bad. I don’t know that we will stay with them once our contract ends.

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to this day i don’t understand why all clocks aren’t 24h. i set them where i can, it completely removes the terror of accidentally falling asleep for a nap at 4pm and waking up at 9:30 and thinking you’ve missed work.

the discussion of left/right/port/starboard reminds me of the native speakers of guugu yimithirr - while not their sole descriptors, they make very heavy use of cardinal directions (i.e., north, south, east, west) when describing things instead of just left, right, up, down. so if you were asking where one kept the flour in your kitchen, you might say that it’s in the easternmost cupboard just west of the fridge.

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It used to be ‘larboard’ before it was ‘port’ which I’m sure was even more confusing.

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Probably around the time of Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovel (what a delightful name!)

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I have read of cultures that favor cardanal directions and like the 24 hour clock, I’ll do this in my head but have to revert for talking to “normal” people. Just try giving directions to an American using “go south three blocks, then turn west”.

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I’m sure there a decent number of us that would either not even blink at that or take a second to look around just to figure out sun/time to get bearings and then wander off.
I also wander around making everything 24hr. So it might be a certain kind of mind too.

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Camping in the mountains for the next 10 days. Totally socked in with clouds and rain so have had no hint of where the sun is for the past three days. Because of that the little camper got set up in less than a preferred position to the afternoon sun. Came up this morning for the first time.

If I’m asking for directions that means I don’t know where I am (as strange as that may seem). Knowing which is the northeast corner of my peanut butter and jelly sandwich isn’t all that helpful without the sun.

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Finished the pot-filler and fridge water connections this weekend. Also started hanging cabinets and figured, may as well put the fridge and range where they will eventually be.

I HAD to test the induction, so dug through boxes until I found a pot (oddly enough it was in a box with a colander and some pasta… wierd). So, 4 cups of boiling water in less than 2 minutes. I’m REALLY going to like the induction range.

Great decisions from this weekend. Switching from soldered copper to PEX and sharkbites… I may use either copper or PEX, but I will never solder another fitting that I don’t have to. Holy crap shark bites are AMAZING!!!

Keys at the old place were turned in this morning, so we are now officially done with renting. Lets see how much of our deposit we get back.

So as you can see in the first and second photos, there are two valves sticking up out of the floor. The next step is to get under the house and take those below-ground. While I’m down there I can remove the drain as well.

Then I can place the island cabinet, mark out the edges and then build a half-wall behind it. I can then pull the plumbing and drain back up into the half-wall. I also have to pull an electric line to the half-wall. Then I can install the island cabinet, and install the dishwasher.

Once that’s done we can have the counter tops ordered and have the tile floors installed.

Man this is a LOT of work, but I feel like now each step is one more step towards completion as opposed to a couple weeks ago when it felt like each step was just another into the constant oblivion of construction.

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We rep those! (They are rather awesome!) :grinning:

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Yes, you will love your induction! We installed it about 12 years ago and never regretted it.

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You’re a brave man. I don’t think you could pay me to crawl under my house.

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