This morning I finally managed to trip our breaker. In our old apartment, we went through a season where we tripped the breaker multiple times a week. Then, we managed to trip it one last time, caught the electrical box on fire and created a HUGE stir when the apartment complex guards came running with their fire extinguishers. That was a long time ago - I was newly pregnant with Julianna... Matt and I and the other inhabitants of our building were all safe, and we lived without power for one week. But, the silver lining to that whole cloud burst was that the power company rebuilt our breaker box and quadrupled the power allotment to our apartment. We had no problems with the breaker after that.
Anyways, our neighbors and buddies, the Huffmans are in a similar situation now - their breaker flips all the time. But, ours seemed impervious to all my efforts. I marveled at how many appliances I could run simultaneously. Then, this morning, it happened. For the record, I was running three space heaters, the clothes dryer, and had just turned the oven to broil. I went to check on Lydia during her nap, thought she might be a bit chilly and cranked her heater up a notch. Click. That did it. I turned off two of the heaters, flipped the switch in the breaker box and the apartment powered right up. No problem.
But, speaking of heaters, we've had a little trouble with the one in the girls' bedroom. My engineer husband decided he could probably just fix it himself, found a screwdriver, and opened the thing up. Julianna did her best as "electrician's assistant". At one point, Matt left the girls room and headed towards the toolbox. Julianna went running after him. As she passed me in the hallway she looked at me earnestly and said, "need 'nother tool", then scooted along to keep up with Matt.
As it turns out, Matt wasn't able to find the right tool, and the heater is still not-so-trusty. Matt took this photo of the "heater innards" and plans to find an electrician who can help. If you have any tips, I'm sure he'd be glad to hear them!
I'm actually kind of surprised he couldn't fix it. He's great with stuff like that.
3 comments:
Hey Matt and Laura - Heather and I love reading your blog. Those heaters are pretty simple, so it could be a bad heating element. There's really only a couple of parts: the heating element and the thermostat, unless it's a loose connection or something.
We're trying to enjoy the cold while we can, as we'll be moving to Indonesia this summer (right on the equator!). Maybe we'll see you in Thailand some day. Hope y'all are doing well.
"need 'nother tool"
loved it. Matt, --you are a lucky guy!!
I hate that it is cold for you. I noticed little Lydia's cheeks were red in a recent photo. I remember seeing all the local children with red cheeks so she fits right in! Hope Matt the engineer can fix that heater soon! Love to all, Mom/Grandmama
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