More joys of home ownership...
And another case of what in the good green earth were they thinking??!!
There is a fluorescent light fixture in the living room. She used it as an office for her seamstress business. The case is kind of cool and the glass needs to be changed and softened some more (maybe some painted glass at some point) but I digress.
The ballast on the light gave up the ghost. We were tapping it for a bit and it was slow to start on those cold mornings when the heat was turned down but no more. It had to go. And it was so old the part numbers were completely useless (I'm guessing mid to late 60's) but the guy at Home Depot was very helpful and figured out what I needed so armed with a new ballast, some wire caps and 2 new bulbs I was ready to do battle this morning while it was still light out. Call me crazy but I will not work on lights with the power on and the idea of doing this by flashlight was not appealing.
Step 1 figure out which breaker the light was on and of course turned off the computers and microwave before I found the right one- probably should have labeled those but power was off
Step 2 cut the wires to the old ballast leaving as much wire as possible just in case. Oddity/warning flag number one- there were no caps. The ballast has hard wired into the system.
Step 3 try to take off the nuts holding the ballast up. Key word there being try. I'm guessing this was assembled before being installed and they did NOT use lock washers or anything that would facilitate the removal of these nuts. I got one loose enough to be able to slide it around. The other one... well i more or less ripped it off the nut/bolt and mangled it enough to get the new one in. And of course whil putting the new one up the bolt fell off just to flip me off one last time.
Step 4 drill pilot holes for the sheet metal screws to hold up new ballast. This was of course after putting the box of screws down and then circling the house twice because I could not find them again (or the fairies need to borrow one). After asking them to give them back and finding them, and running the extension cord from the part of the house with power and getting the drill and the bit. Holes drilled and screws screwed. This was securely up and more importantly when it needs to be changed the next time it will be easier to do. Although there's not much left to the cord for the power supply so the next time might be the end of the fixture but that should be sometime after we have downsized into a condo after Piglet moves out.
Step 5 connect all wires after stripping the old ones and their near petrified casings.
Step 6 put the bulbs in and turn the power come back on. It lit up and the house did not burst into flames.
Step 7 take the bulbs back out and button everything back up. And the light still works.
The saving grace to the whole process was that J took the piglet off to the park and shopping while I did the most of m growling and swearing and tool dropping.
There is a fluorescent light fixture in the living room. She used it as an office for her seamstress business. The case is kind of cool and the glass needs to be changed and softened some more (maybe some painted glass at some point) but I digress.
The ballast on the light gave up the ghost. We were tapping it for a bit and it was slow to start on those cold mornings when the heat was turned down but no more. It had to go. And it was so old the part numbers were completely useless (I'm guessing mid to late 60's) but the guy at Home Depot was very helpful and figured out what I needed so armed with a new ballast, some wire caps and 2 new bulbs I was ready to do battle this morning while it was still light out. Call me crazy but I will not work on lights with the power on and the idea of doing this by flashlight was not appealing.
Step 1 figure out which breaker the light was on and of course turned off the computers and microwave before I found the right one- probably should have labeled those but power was off
Step 2 cut the wires to the old ballast leaving as much wire as possible just in case. Oddity/warning flag number one- there were no caps. The ballast has hard wired into the system.
Step 3 try to take off the nuts holding the ballast up. Key word there being try. I'm guessing this was assembled before being installed and they did NOT use lock washers or anything that would facilitate the removal of these nuts. I got one loose enough to be able to slide it around. The other one... well i more or less ripped it off the nut/bolt and mangled it enough to get the new one in. And of course whil putting the new one up the bolt fell off just to flip me off one last time.
Step 4 drill pilot holes for the sheet metal screws to hold up new ballast. This was of course after putting the box of screws down and then circling the house twice because I could not find them again (or the fairies need to borrow one). After asking them to give them back and finding them, and running the extension cord from the part of the house with power and getting the drill and the bit. Holes drilled and screws screwed. This was securely up and more importantly when it needs to be changed the next time it will be easier to do. Although there's not much left to the cord for the power supply so the next time might be the end of the fixture but that should be sometime after we have downsized into a condo after Piglet moves out.
Step 5 connect all wires after stripping the old ones and their near petrified casings.
Step 6 put the bulbs in and turn the power come back on. It lit up and the house did not burst into flames.
Step 7 take the bulbs back out and button everything back up. And the light still works.
The saving grace to the whole process was that J took the piglet off to the park and shopping while I did the most of m growling and swearing and tool dropping.