wabmester
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
- Joined
- Dec 6, 2003
- Messages
- 4,459
I was not a handyman before retirement, but I felt that it was my duty to tackle the field as part of my retirement agenda.
I've learned a bunch.
For example, I've learned that stud finders are good at finding hot water pipes, and that you can drill through a hot water pipe if you're determined enough.
Today, I learned how some outlet boxes work. I decided to finally wire the house for ethernet. Set up a hub in the crawlspace, ran some cat5 to the livingroom, took out the cable outlet box, fished the cat5 through the cable hole, punched down the cables into the socket, pushed the modular sockets into the cover, and proceded to put the outlet box back in the wall.
But the box's screws no longer had anything to attach to. Apparently, these new-fangled boxes have "wings" that extend when you crank the screw. I managed to unscrew too far, and the wings are somewhere in my wall now.
Easy to fix, but I thought I'd offer this lesson before somebody else repeated my mistake.
I've learned a bunch.
For example, I've learned that stud finders are good at finding hot water pipes, and that you can drill through a hot water pipe if you're determined enough.
Today, I learned how some outlet boxes work. I decided to finally wire the house for ethernet. Set up a hub in the crawlspace, ran some cat5 to the livingroom, took out the cable outlet box, fished the cat5 through the cable hole, punched down the cables into the socket, pushed the modular sockets into the cover, and proceded to put the outlet box back in the wall.
But the box's screws no longer had anything to attach to. Apparently, these new-fangled boxes have "wings" that extend when you crank the screw. I managed to unscrew too far, and the wings are somewhere in my wall now.
Easy to fix, but I thought I'd offer this lesson before somebody else repeated my mistake.