Circuit panel removal

So part of the requirements to keep my homeowner's insurance after moving into the home was to remove the old Federal Pacific Electric Circuit panel. It appears that despite being a popular company a few decades back they are now looked at as a fire hazard. Two sources of more info on these panels: http://ismypanelsafe.com/fpe.aspx and http://www.inspectapedia.com/fpe/fpepanel.htm. Here's the old panel:

As you can see it was quite mess, looks like random things were added or removed throughout it's service. You can even see a doorbell transformer in there, needless to say that should not be mounted in a circuit panel, let alone be just put in hanging from the wires!

At least they used proper clamps to hold the wires.

 Some of the old wiring that's original to the home, it runs to all the light fixtures and the outlets upstairs.

 You can see how the old insulation was brittle and frayed in some spots.

 Luckily this wire was long enough I could cut off the dmaaged part in the new box.

Here's where the aluminum service wires enter the main breaker. Both carry 120 volts but at a different phase so when you run both to an appliance you get 240 volts for the heavy duty appliances like the stove, dryer and A/C unit.

No more power! Good thing it was a cool day.

New outlets.

Woo hoo, now we finally have an outlet under the sink for the dishwasher so we don't have to run the cord across the floor. The other one's for a garbage disposal. And they actually have a functioning ground! Whoever ran the wiring before just cut off the ground wire instead of hooking it up, now it's fixed.

Possum

:::No animals were harmed in the making of this post:::
Well, apparently I should have hooked up they dryer vent sooner, I was doin' it Westside and would just open the garage door and run the dryer with the vent facing the door. I went to use it today and some leaves and a plastic bag blew out. When I looked into the vent on the back this was the cause.

The poor little thing was a baby, we finally got it to run out, trembling as it escaped under the work bench. This was motivation enough to get me to install the vent! Now we can use the dryer with the garage door closed! Hooray!

Interior shots

Here are some pics of the inside now that we have most of the furniture. The next big project I have to post is pics of the circuit panel I switched out.

 

Here's the dining room. You can see the top of Charlie in the bottom left.

The living room facing the front door, with Maggie :)

The living room facing the fireplace.

Long shot of the living room facing the fireplace with Charlie.

Replacing the drain pipe for the kitchen sink.

After about a week or two of getting the home the kitchen sink stopped draining. First thought, no problem, probably just a clogged trap under the sink, boy do I wish that's what it was.

 

 I had to keep taking apart more of the cabinets and move the fridge to even get to the pipe itself, the drain pipe had to be off to the side since the vent has to go through the roof and there were windows above the sink.

 You can tell from this and the next picture the pipe had not been doing so well lately.

 Here are some pictures of the cool pipe cutter I rented to break the cast iron pipe, you just tighten it, move it side to side to score the pipe then tighten it some more and the pipe just snaps! Tool would have cost $550 to buy but I found a local shop renting it for $12/day.

You can just see the riser clamp in this picture too, the long horizontal piece of steel, this clamps around the pipe and rests on the pieces of pressure treated wood I screwed into the studs, this keeps the cast iron vent that runs all the way through the roof from crashing down on me when I cut the pipe.
In hindsight I should not have used pressure treated wood for this as the only type of metal it can be in contact with are hot dip galvanized and stainless steel. I had the proper screws for it but had to put a piece of plastic between the wood and the riser clamp so the riser clamp doesn't rust away.

You can see some of the scale and buildup in the pipe here, the whole thing was pretty bad, and it was completely blocked at the sanitary T, where the horizontal pipe transitions into the vertical pipe.



We think she might need more iron in her diet, she really liked licking this pipe.



New roof

Here are some pictures of the new roof going on, the last one was put on in 1991, it definitely needed it!

The house itself.

Here's a pic of the house itself, I'll be adding more updates with the work that was done for us before moving in as well as the work that I have done to the home to make it safer and more livable.