October 28^th, 2003

I’ve been getting a lot done with the wiring. The attic and the second floor are completely done. I must have made a zillion trips up in the attic over the 4 or 5 weeks I spent running new wire down in the walls. About two weeks ago I started the first floor. This means a lot of trips under the house. I thought the attic was bad but it is nothing compared to crawling around on your belly in the dirt, spider webs, and cat poop under the house.

I ran wire for outlets in the front parlor and the little back parlor adjacent to it. After that I realized I was going to be working under the house for several weeks and I had to make the working conditions a little better. I spent a few days setting up lights and outlets under the house. Now I can crawl under there and flip a switch and four lights come on and light up the under side of the house. I then spent about a week cleaning up trash, debris, and cat poop so wouldn’t have to crawl around in it. I also cut out a lot of water pipes that I’m not really using. I’m going to replumb so they will be going eventually anyway. I might as well do it now so I don’t have to work around it in the meantime.

The biggest problem with the wiring on the first floor is the ceiling fixtures. I have to get a wire from the fixture on the ceiling to a switch on the wall. I don’t want to ruin a lot of plaster so I decided to try and remove floor boards on the second floor and run the wires from there. I’ve done two so far and it is working pretty good. I am able to remove the floor boards with out destroying them.

I have found that all of the ceiling fixtures on the first floor were origianlly gas/electric combo lights and the gas pipe is still in the ceiling. At first thought it was natrual gas but I’ve been told that natural gas was not available in this area back then. It was carbide gas, also known as a acetylene gas. They would have a tank in the back yard that they would fill up with carbide (a mineral) and water and a chemical reaction would take place and create carbide gas. The tank would be buried because explosions were common. The gas was piped from under ground into the house to fuel the lights. I did a little research and found out that carbide gas was also used for early coal miners helemt lights, stage lights, and even things like irons to iron your clothes. I toyed with the idea of connecting the pipe back up to the gas supply and having gas lights in the house. To much work.

Today I went out to Fortuna (about 15 miles south) and met with a man who sells antique lighting. He has a collection of old lights and he has a few of the old gas/electric combo lights. I picked one out that he is going to restore and covert to all electric for modern use. It is going to go in the front entry hall. It is a very intersting light. It a brass chandelier that ends with a single electric light pointing down, and then there is a brass arm that curls down around the electric light and curls up with the gas light at the top of the arm. It will be ready in about a month. I’ll send pictures.