Post by horseguy on Jul 7, 2017 18:45:33 GMT
I was replacing an out door light fixture today on a brick wall. I got my tools ready, and the new fixture and removed the old light. There was no electrical box behind it to which I could connect my new light. The previous electrician had drilled a hole through the bricks big enough to run a pair of wires and then cobbled up a strange combinations of screws, bolts and pieces of metal that allowed him to attach the former light fixture to the exterior wall. The old fixture used two connection points and my new one a single type. There is a thing called a light fixture universal mounting bracket
that allows you to mount just about any fixture to a box (I need to use the big hole in the center) but with no box I had to improvise.
I have been thinking a lot about today's young horse trainers, the kind that buy a bit to give their horse brakes and think of it as a piece of safety equipment. I saw the connection between the electrician who left me with no box to connect my mounting bracket to. Nothing there, a very basic and necessary element of electrical work just forgotten or left out on purpose. I don't know which, but either way I had to deal with it.
I got thinking about two horses at the farm where I've been. I have mentioned them before, the mare is not worth all the time and energy necessary to work on her because the end result is a pretty average ungifted mover with an attitude. Most people who call themselves a horse trainer would be ashamed to say they had owned that horse for several years. It's missing more than one fixture box. The other horse, said to be worse in some ways than the mare, is a gelding that is more like a messy breaker panel that could be remedied by shutting of the main switch, disconnecting most of the wires and routing them in an orderly manner to the breakers. This one is just confused about what he's supposed to do and is essentially nice equipment that needs to be tidied up.
As you work on a project someone else started or thought they finished, it's as if you meet and get to know the former electrician or horse trainer. You see their work, or lack of same. You see the details of how they did something, or didn't do something. You see the whole result, and as you get into the work you see the details. In that process you either gain or lose respect for the person who did the work before you whether they are around or gone.
My conclusion is that we all need to be more careful about what we leave behind. The former electrician, if he really was an electrician, left me a time consuming problem and a dangerous situation. Some things like electrical boxes just cannot be left out because they contain any problems from future shorts like electrocuting someone or starting a fire. Likewise, as was said here, going to harsher or stronger bits or equipment leads to running out of solutions, some times quicker than others. You can't leave out good brakes any more than you can leave out an electrical box where it needs to be. All you are doing if you do that is leaving the next person a big problem.
Now I have to go back and work on mounting that light fixture.
that allows you to mount just about any fixture to a box (I need to use the big hole in the center) but with no box I had to improvise.
I have been thinking a lot about today's young horse trainers, the kind that buy a bit to give their horse brakes and think of it as a piece of safety equipment. I saw the connection between the electrician who left me with no box to connect my mounting bracket to. Nothing there, a very basic and necessary element of electrical work just forgotten or left out on purpose. I don't know which, but either way I had to deal with it.
I got thinking about two horses at the farm where I've been. I have mentioned them before, the mare is not worth all the time and energy necessary to work on her because the end result is a pretty average ungifted mover with an attitude. Most people who call themselves a horse trainer would be ashamed to say they had owned that horse for several years. It's missing more than one fixture box. The other horse, said to be worse in some ways than the mare, is a gelding that is more like a messy breaker panel that could be remedied by shutting of the main switch, disconnecting most of the wires and routing them in an orderly manner to the breakers. This one is just confused about what he's supposed to do and is essentially nice equipment that needs to be tidied up.
As you work on a project someone else started or thought they finished, it's as if you meet and get to know the former electrician or horse trainer. You see their work, or lack of same. You see the details of how they did something, or didn't do something. You see the whole result, and as you get into the work you see the details. In that process you either gain or lose respect for the person who did the work before you whether they are around or gone.
My conclusion is that we all need to be more careful about what we leave behind. The former electrician, if he really was an electrician, left me a time consuming problem and a dangerous situation. Some things like electrical boxes just cannot be left out because they contain any problems from future shorts like electrocuting someone or starting a fire. Likewise, as was said here, going to harsher or stronger bits or equipment leads to running out of solutions, some times quicker than others. You can't leave out good brakes any more than you can leave out an electrical box where it needs to be. All you are doing if you do that is leaving the next person a big problem.
Now I have to go back and work on mounting that light fixture.
