Home Repairs That Create Repairs

The Big Swede brought along the spade bit and I supplied the 2 x 4s. In less than two hours, we had the new studs installed.

"Ready for the plumber," he says as he packs up his nail gun.

He drills a hole through the floor so that I can move the wires for the thermostat, which were running through the wall where the new plumbing will go. No fool me, ah no, I wrote down the order that the wires had to be connected before I pulled the thermostat out.

The Big Swede dropped a string through the hole while I went below, to fish the wire through the new opening. Too lazy to get a ladder, I reached up to pull the wires out of their original location and managed to drop the bare wires onto the piece of conduit that just happened to be running in the ceiling.

"That's not good," says I as the sparks flew. Sure but it's nothing, and up I go to put things back as they were.

Black, red, yellow and green, I followed the order and screwed everything back in place.

No heat.

"I'm going home," says the Big Swede, whose wife was left at home with a long list of things she wanted him to be doing and him having to face a less-than-happy woman.

So I ring up my HVAC mate and after he gets done laughing, he comes over with a new piece for the furnace, to replace the one I fried when I dropped the wire onto the conduit.

"You should have turned off the switch on the furnace," he goes.

"I should have taped the ends of the wires," says I.

That's the problem with fixing things around the house. It only leads to more things in need of fixing.