Since the serious problems were behind us, we could breathe now. Oh well, not quite. That was when we started to notice the mythical electrical problems.
We were 100% sure we had 2 220-volts wires for the old electric cooktop and oven in the kitchen, since Daddy did the wiring for the kitchen plugs along both walls. Now the cabinets went in, only 1 wire was visible from behind the oven and cooktop opening. The other one was permanently sealed into the wall somehow. And, all 5 plugs in the family room were no longer operational. It would be costly to debug the problem, from the narrow attic space above or the tight crawl space below (Daddy tried, a couple of times). A quote of $680 or more ($85/hr x 2 persons x 4 hours) from an electrician sent Daddy underneath the house to locate the missing 220-v wire and to bring it up to the hole in the wall behind the cooktop opening.
For family room he devised a somewhat simplified method to connect a functional plug on the same wall (in dining area) using a junction box and wire underneath the house. The opposite wall of the family room got electricity back from the same junction box and a longer wire. The work was done by an an ex-20-year-accountant-turned general contractor, in about 4 hours at quite a reasonable rate. Daddy served as the requisite helper under him that day.
And, one more thing about the wiring... if and when the GFCI plug to the left of the kitchen window is tripped, all plugs downstream (i.e., further from the breaker box) are also out of commission, until the GFCI plug is Reset. A useful thing to know.
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