The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

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You do-it-yerselfers pay attention. This is a cautionary tale, like most of what I put out here for the edification of fellow imbeciles. I believe I just wrote a sermon on Knowing Yer Limitations, so maybe this is just insult to injury or maybe a double dose of Be Careful, What You Don’t Know Might Just Kill You!!

I’ve been having electrical problems down at the old house, now my glass shack. Lights flicker, then the line goes dead. The breaker doesn’t break, but I turn it off anyway, then in a few hours it’s okay again. For a few minutes, a few days, no telling. I’ve rewired outlets and switches but nothing works. A couple days ago the well pump quit. I tried changing gizmos in the control box, then finally called in the well driller crew who installed this submersible a decade and a half ago. They discovered only half the power was reaching the well house so back to the panel box we went and sure enough the 60 watt breaker was only working on one side, not enough to power the pump.

They tried removing the breaker but it wouldn’t budge. Add to this that this old circuit panel has no way to cut off power from the street so we’re dealing here with enough voltage to fry myself and a 20 pound turkey. That makes two turkeys. Okay, I get a replacement 60 amp breaker, then stand on an old truck tire to (hopefully) keep from grounding myself if I touch the wrong places. I’m nervous as a cat in a roomful of Dobermans but here I go. The breaker just won’t release. Parts of it shatter, the panel box wants to pull off the exterior wall, I try a bigger pliers and a screwdriver, no go, so finally I grab a small pry tool and try not to touch the live buss bar but I know I’m dangerously close to the live feed … and of course I touch it.

Sparks fly out at me like the ending to a sci-fi movie where the monster is climbing the power line towers and gets his alien ass electrocuted. The panel box is now shooting sparks up and down the line, first up top, then a shower of sparks down at the bottom, then up to the middle. The pry bar is shorting the whole thing so I grab a hammer and knock it back out. The sparks mercifully stop.

Then the smoke starts roiling slowly out from behind the box. I check inside the shack and yeah, smoke is coming out from inside the walls. I grab a fire extinguisher and hit the panel box with a blast of yellow powdery chemicals. I wonder if this is what it’s supposed to look like or it’s so old they’ve turned into this weird stuff. I hit it again. And again. Smoke keeps coming so I run over to the neighbors and ask them to call 9-1-1. Back I go and grab two more extinguishers from the shop back in the woods. I know what’s in those walls where it’s smoldering is 100 year old wood, tinder dry siding, crumbling tarpaper and once it gets going, nothing will stop the inferno that will jump up into the upstairs so fast I’ll just have to stand out of the way and let it roar.

Fire engines finally show up, only about six or seven, gleaming red beauties. I think maybe they can at least keep the fire from spreading, lose a wall, save the shack. They ask if I have any buckets of water at the ready. I tell em no, the pump doesn’t run, why I’m in that panel box in the first place. Traffic on the highway can barely get through, neighbors show up to watch the excitement, I’m inside with one of the firemen tearing barn boards off the wall and smashing out drywall to make it possible to get to where the smoke is coming from. They’re doing the same thing from the outside. Huge hoses from the pump truck are ready to spray down the wall.

It’s a day later. The shack is standing. The power has been turned off at the road. The electrical box is fried. The old house is dark. The pumphouse too. I’m trying to find an electrician who will return a call. My days of do it yourself electrical have come to an end. In some ways I feel extremely lucky to be here to tell the tale. If I’ve learned any lessons, it’s that I don’t learn lessons easily. This one was learned the hard way. My advice: don’t try this at home! At least not a home you love….

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