Holy fuck, this just went from bad to worse. Electrician was here and knew right away where the problem was and located it. The weather head where the power meets the house is broken. So all these years, water is running down that, through the meter, and down into the breaker box. All of that has to be torn out and replaced. In addition, they have to relocate the meter to another part of the house because of new construction on that part of the house. The power company won't put a ladder on a roof, which they'd need to here. He told me he's surprised we still have power, and not to touch a thing in the hopes it holds out til it gets replaced. I felt nauseous for a bit, but thankfully the wife has an emergency fund so we can cover the cost. I just poured a really strong drink, and calling our homeowners insurance to see if this is something they'd cover. Can't hurt to ask. Oh, here's what the breaker box looks like:
Holy shit. I was jokingly saying "throw pennies at it" to get it to short out and spark... but man... it's growing its own pennies! Good luck dude... I don't envy you. And it looks like winter is starting to actually get cold in most places soon... hopefully that won't impact your heating for too long. Any idea of how long of a job that is? In and out in a day?
Yeah it's gonna drop to the 20's by the week's end. I'm hoping they can do it in a day, but electrician didn't say. He has to coordinate it with the utility company. Worst case scenario, family can go stay at a hotel, I'll stay here with the propane fireplace with the dog. I've been on the phone with the insurance company and have a claim open. Just sent them a shitload of pics. What I'm hearing is it may be covered, but I'm not getting my hopes up until they say a definite "yes". And I don't know if I mentioned it, but that whole box? Was installed in 2016.
Honestly, no idea but I don’t think it’s a bad install. At that time they wouldn’t have any cause to be up there on that part of the roof. Someone could have dropped something or caused it to break when we had the roof re-done in 2013(ish). Otherwise, no idea. Could just be one of those things where it got old and broke. I do remember in 2016 the guys remarking how the old breaker box was in bad shape and they didn’t want to put new wiring in it. So they replaced the entire thing. At that time I thought the damage to the old one was because of time and humidity in the basement. Now I’m wondering if this issue with rain water getting in there has been an issue all along that just exacerbated in the past few years. No way of knowing for sure. Just have to take the lumps and get it fixed I guess.
I don't know all the details, but that sounds like some bullshit. There's a reason you can paint and tile yourself, but electrical and plumbing require proper permits. And should require inspection. That water damage should not have been allowed to happen, and you shouldn't be liable. Those 2016 guys shouldn't have been able to get that signed off. Again, I don't know all the details, so maybe I'm missing something, but it sounds like you got fucked by shitty people, and should be able to sue to get the repairs covered. Sorry that's happened to you.
I appreciate it. You're not the first person to say I should sue. Thing is, right now I have to focus on getting the problem solved. Then maybe later I can direct my energy towards proving we got screwed over. Proving fault will be very difficult though.
I won’t bore anyone with more pics but as my wife said, angels have been watching over us. The electrical work was done today and I can’t say enough good about the guys doing the work. I sent the son home with a bottle of really good local whiskey as an extra “thank you.” They found two spots where things got hot enough that a house fire wasn’t a matter of “if” but “when.” Also gave a couple recommendations and added a couple things to make the house safer. Overall cost was just shy of $5,000 and I don’t give a damn, it was worth it. We slept soundly ignorant of the hazard. Now we’ll sleep soundly knowing it’s been fixed.
That's great to hear! I just hacked a fix for my shop radiant heater tonight. Hated every minute of it because I couldn't do it properly due to the ladder I have and the 14' ceiling. It was tough finding a furnace guy who could come out in a reasonable time, so I got a close-enough new ignitor (the old one had burned away), snipped the old ignitor off the lead, spliced the new one to the end of it, and mounted it in the ignition tube kinda good enough. (It was a little too long so I couldn't do a straight up replacement). It's ugly, but safe, and it works. I'll get a furnace guy to come out and do a proper maintenance on it in the Spring, and let them deal with ladders and shit so they can crack the thing open and rewire it properly.
One last thing about our issue here I found out just before bed. It was our microwave, which was half-tripping and led me to change out the breaker, leading to the discovery of the damage to the electrical system, etc. Our cone went to use it last night, and it half-tripped the breaker again. So I grabbed an extension cord, plugged it into another outlet, same results. It was never a bad breaker or the damage to our electrical service that caused the microwave to not work, it was something with the microwave! Call it Divine intervention, serendipity or dumb luck, but I went to bed not the least bit mad about it.
I have really hard water at my house because of the well-supplied water. I use a salt-based softener and Rust Out, but it's still hard on fixtures. One thing it's really hard on is the dishwasher rack. I've replaced the bottom one once already, and just ordered another one. Is there any kind of epoxy or something I could apply or paint on to the rack to thicken the factory coating so it'll last longer?
I have no real solution, but I've never heard of something like this before. That is nuts. Are you sure the water softener is acting as expected? I would think pH is killing it, not the conditioned water... but I'm no expert.
I am no expert, either, lol. The water softener works to allow soap to lather in the bath and detergent to work correctly in the clothes washer. (You know pretty quickly if you've forgotten to change it.) Lots of people in my neighborhood have toilet staining, fixture crud, etc. from the hard water. In the dishwasher, when the water is hotter, it causes calcium and magnesium(?) to more easily drop out and that attacks the coating. (I think) This is a fairly common problem, per Google and what not. Reddit is telling me to try Plasti Dip, but I don't think that can take the heat. The maker of Plasti Dip says to use ReRack instead. But, that seems to be to put on rusty spots when they appear, to keep them from getting worse. I'm kinda past that point. I was trying to start fresh, but coat it to last longer. Everything I was finding seems to be geared towards repairing a rusting rack.
yeah... I used to have a water softener in an old place... and foggily understand what it's doing. It's all about ionic transfers, and impacts the minerals in the water, etc. But that has nothing to do with ph. And I've never had any of the issues you've described with a salt-based water softener... except it chewed through the sacrificial anodes on my hot water tank like crazy. I'd be tempted to grab a simple testing kit and see if you have crazy acidic water or something that could be causing that kind of wear on your racks.
What brand of dishwasher is it? Could it be that the dishwasher manufacturer is using shit plastic coatings to begin with, and it's just normal wear and tear on said shit coating? I've always had high end dishwashers because I refuse to scrimp on them for many reasons... I wonder if that's partly why I've never experienced it. I had a Miele running with the water softener, for 5 years, no issues at all. Can't wait to see if you figure this one out...
Oh yeah, went down that road early on. (I've been in this house 23 years) The rods went out way earlier, and then did the tanks, so I switched to a Marathon. No anode rod. Best thing I ever spent money on, quite honestly. Just a regular Whirlpool, definitely not high end. The branded replacement rack was priced higher than what I paid for the whole dishwasher, so I bought the Bob's generic replacement for several hundred dollars less. It does indeed have shit coating, which is why I wanted to see if I could beef it up. I might have super acidic water, but the problem is definitely not unique to me, based on Reddit and other forums I'm seeing.
Smart man. My brother moved in their current house ~6 years ago and the cheapie D/W that was in there was already pushing 8 years old. It died and he went out and bought another cheap dishwasher which lasted about four years. He finally gets a decent Bosch D/W and they're blown away how quiet it is and the kids love that they don't have to wash the dishes before loading them into the dishwasher. No shit Sherlock. Been trying to tell him that way back to when I sold appliances 15 years ago. He did the same thing with vacuums. I bought a Miele. He bought a $200 Target vac. Few years he bought another $200 Target vac. Couple years later, another one. Couple years after that he finally got a Miele. My almost 20 year old Miele is now having a 2nd life at my stepkid's house. Buy once, cry once.
I mainly do a good rinse before loading because it keeps the DW cleaner. I pull the filter out for cleaning and it's amazing what it used to look like vs what it looks like now that I take the time. When I was doing apartment maintenance, the DWs were invariably disgusting.
I know the water isn't seawater salty, but is it possible the salt from the water softer is causing the corrosion?
I don't think so? My understanding from my other research is that the sometimes softened water can cause pinhole leaks in copper pipes. (I don't have any copper) But, that hard water is worse on appliances than softened water. They do make non-salt softener systems, but I think they are water conditioners, not water softeners, and much more expensive, from what I understand.