Don't cut anymore!
I recently had an experience that I thought I would share here.
I need to explain that about 16 years ago I moved into my present house. The house is about 35 years old, so before I moved into the house some changes and repairs had been made to it. When I moved in there were a couple of sprinkler control boxes attached to the outside of the house, with wires running to some sprinkler valves. There were also some loose sprinkler wires sticking out of the end of a plastic tube that came up out of the ground. Evidently at some time in the past the owner had decided to put in a new system of sprinkler valves, wires, and control boxes, and had simply left the old dead wires in place.
Because I didn't have to do anything about it, I just left them there. Then a couple of months ago I needed to install a new control box, replacing the two old boxes. The old wires and pipe were now a little bit in the way of the new box. The old wires and pipe were kind of an eyesore anyway, so I decided to get out my hacksaw and cut them off near the ground.
What I didn't know until last weekend was that the previous owner had left in the pipe a live wire with household current and power. This wire was not visible at the top of the pipe where the sprinkler wires were sticking out.
As I proceeded to saw the pipe I made it shake back and forth, and suddenly "by chance" I noticed that there was a solid looking household type wire (12 gauge) coming out of the house into the pipe. The thought occurred to me, "I wonder if the previous owner never got around to disconnecting this wire from the power grid?" I quickly dismissed this thought. "He can't have been so stupid." And I really wanted to finish this job now that I had started it.
So, I continued to cut away with my all-metal hacksaw, until the impression came to me strongly, "Don't cut anymore!' I resisted this impression. I argued with it. I couldn't believe that the wire I saw coming out of the house actually went up the pipe where I was sawing. I certainly couldn't see it coming out the end with the other wires. I bent down to cut some more. Again the impression came to me, "Don't cut anymore!"
So, I decided to cut a notch in the pipe and look into it. When I did I found that there was indeed a hefty household current wire in there. In fact, I had cut through the insulation of part of the wire, and another stroke or two and I would have cut through both wires. So I stopped cutting.
This weekend I found that the wires were definitely live and hot. I hate to think what might have happened if I had disregarded the prompting to "Don't cut anymore!"
I recently had an experience that I thought I would share here.
I need to explain that about 16 years ago I moved into my present house. The house is about 35 years old, so before I moved into the house some changes and repairs had been made to it. When I moved in there were a couple of sprinkler control boxes attached to the outside of the house, with wires running to some sprinkler valves. There were also some loose sprinkler wires sticking out of the end of a plastic tube that came up out of the ground. Evidently at some time in the past the owner had decided to put in a new system of sprinkler valves, wires, and control boxes, and had simply left the old dead wires in place.
Because I didn't have to do anything about it, I just left them there. Then a couple of months ago I needed to install a new control box, replacing the two old boxes. The old wires and pipe were now a little bit in the way of the new box. The old wires and pipe were kind of an eyesore anyway, so I decided to get out my hacksaw and cut them off near the ground.
What I didn't know until last weekend was that the previous owner had left in the pipe a live wire with household current and power. This wire was not visible at the top of the pipe where the sprinkler wires were sticking out.
As I proceeded to saw the pipe I made it shake back and forth, and suddenly "by chance" I noticed that there was a solid looking household type wire (12 gauge) coming out of the house into the pipe. The thought occurred to me, "I wonder if the previous owner never got around to disconnecting this wire from the power grid?" I quickly dismissed this thought. "He can't have been so stupid." And I really wanted to finish this job now that I had started it.
So, I continued to cut away with my all-metal hacksaw, until the impression came to me strongly, "Don't cut anymore!' I resisted this impression. I argued with it. I couldn't believe that the wire I saw coming out of the house actually went up the pipe where I was sawing. I certainly couldn't see it coming out the end with the other wires. I bent down to cut some more. Again the impression came to me, "Don't cut anymore!"
So, I decided to cut a notch in the pipe and look into it. When I did I found that there was indeed a hefty household current wire in there. In fact, I had cut through the insulation of part of the wire, and another stroke or two and I would have cut through both wires. So I stopped cutting.
This weekend I found that the wires were definitely live and hot. I hate to think what might have happened if I had disregarded the prompting to "Don't cut anymore!"
posted by Nectar | 12:45 PM
1 Comments:
phew... that was a close one.
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