RicodJour wrote:
Right. You can't buy experience. In this case, however, none is
needed (beyond common sense and the ability to work a screwdriver).
As for code compliance, in most of the country you can't buy that
either because it doesn't exist.

Hey! You set your new personal best! You went two whole sentences
before your bull**** started. Well...one sentence and an
ejaculation. Sadly the code thing ruined your record. All 50 states
and DC have adopted either the IRC or the IBC.
Do a little reading and learn something:
http://bulk.resource.org/codes.gov/

Thank you for the update. I stand corrected. While Houston give lip-service
to code compliance, as you point out, there is no practical enforcement
mechanism for piddly violations.

I live in the 3rd largest city in the nation and the city is
indifferent to what you do to your home. Since we don't have zoning,
I can even tear the house down and erect a gas station.

You're in Chicago? Curious, that's the third largest city, they have
zoning and they have at least their share of codes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of..._by_population
and
http://egov.cityofchicago.org/city/w...OID=-536883465

You are probably correct. I heard one of the fools running for mayor use the
"3rd largest" moniker and should have known that he was mistaken. I
apologize for leading you astray. Still, people ARE leaving Chicago (one
family I know moved to D.C last January 20th), so, at worst, my numeration
was premature. (Latest figures I could find: Chicago's population shrank by
10% from 2005 to 2007 while Houston's grew by 10%).

I attribute the difference to the number of Walmart stores in each city (0
vs 17).



Perhaps, along with everything else, you are confused about where your
burg fits in the scheme of things. Assuming that you meant the 4th
most populous city, Houston, let's see about Houston's code...nope -
doesn't support your case.
http://www.reedconstructiondata.com/...texas/houston/

As far as the zoning thing, yep, there is no official zoning code in
Houston the same way that a bribe is not an official expense/tax.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.c...ract_id=837244

Pretty good article. Thanks for the reference, but it's not particularily on
point. The author says that the common notion of No zoning = Free Market =
Urban sprawl is incorrect. That there are other reasons for urban sprawl and
that Houston is not as "free market" as one might suspect. On the latter, I
agree. We do have giant swaths of suburbia with "deed restrictions." Still,
the majority of the city is "free market;" that is, one can build a
single-family residence in the middle of downtown or a skyscraper in a
single-family neighborhood.


Perhaps you don't like Florida and you don't like lawyers, so here's
another take:
http://www.businessweek.com/the_thre...uston_get.html

I love Florida. I went to law school, so I don't like lawyers.

The reality of our no-zoning city is not dissimilar to towns with zoning.
Heavy industry is clustered near the port or rail lines, multi-family
dwellings (apartments) are slightly off the busy streets, retail shops are
on traffic-dense corner lots or clustered in shopping venues, single-family
homes are in quite spaces. True, you might have a titty-bar next to a church
or a pistol range across the street from an elementary school, but, in
general, it works out.

In my neighborhood, we have a police sub-station in the same shopping center
with a beer joint. Go figure.


Face it, you're full of ****, you give bad advice, and you either lie
about things or you just don't know your ass from your elbow about
building codes and such. It's okay - everybody starts out ignorant.
It's not okay to claim to be an expert on things where you're not, and
it's definitely not okay to give bad advice to people while claiming
to be an expert on things where you are not. Stick with the saw blade
art.


I appreciate the altruism your advice implies - I'm sure you're only looking
to improve the human condition. Still, without attaching blame or praise, we
do things differently in Texas than you do in New York.

On Nov 4, 9:04*am, "HeyBub" wrote:
RicodJour wrote:
Right. You can't buy experience. In this case, however, none is
needed (beyond common sense and the ability to work a screwdriver).
As for code compliance, in most of the country you can't buy that
either because it doesn't exist.

I'd add the above statement to the list of extremely bad advice
too. I think virtually everyone here would agree that you do need a
considerable amount of experience working with electricity before
attempting to replace a service panel. Simple things from knowing
how to correctly strip wire, what size conductors should be on a 20
amp circuti, what to do about circuits that might have been connected
improperly in the existing box, eg multi-taps off a single fuse,
etc. And all that assumes the existing fuse panel is in reasonable
condition and has not become a total rat's nest of illegal wiring that
has been added incorrectly over the years. How about if there is no
proper earth ground? Think someone with $300, a screwdriver and no
experience is going to identify that and know how to correct it?




Hey! *You set your new personal best! *You went two whole sentences
before your bull**** started. *Well...one sentence and an
ejaculation. *Sadly the code thing ruined your record. *All 50 states
and DC have adopted either the IRC or the IBC.
Do a little reading and learn something:
http://bulk.resource.org/codes.gov/

Thank you for the update. I stand corrected. While Houston give lip-service
to code compliance, as you point out, there is no practical enforcement
mechanism for piddly violations.

That is nothing particular to Houston. You can do work inside your
house that requires a permit and inspection but not get one
anywhere. In most cases, the chance that the municipality will find
out is very low.

How about the guy follows your advice, does the work, and then someone
is electrocuted or his house burns down. The insurance company does
an investigation and determines the panel was the cause, no permit was
pulled, no inspection was done. MAYBE they will just pay anyway, but
I don't think I would want to be in that position. Or when he goes
to sell the home, the home inspection by the buyer turns up that there
are obvious wiring errors in the panel. Then he gets to pay to have
someone do it over the right way.

Botton line, suggesting it's just $300, a screwdriver and no
experience is necessary to replace a fuse box with a breaker panel is
some of the worst advice I've seen here.

wrote:

How about the guy follows your advice, does the work, and then someone
is electrocuted or his house burns down. The insurance company does
an investigation and determines the panel was the cause, no permit was
pulled, no inspection was done. MAYBE they will just pay anyway, but
I don't think I would want to be in that position. Or when he goes
to sell the home, the home inspection by the buyer turns up that there
are obvious wiring errors in the panel. Then he gets to pay to have
someone do it over the right way.

Botton line, suggesting it's just $300, a screwdriver and no
experience is necessary to replace a fuse box with a breaker panel is
some of the worst advice I've seen here.

I guess then I should have sought your counsel before I did it. As it turned
out, I must have been beyond extremely fortunate I didn't kill myself, four
of my neighbors, a passing flock of sea gulls and started a fire that not
only destroyed the house but started a conflagration that consumed eight
more homes, twelve vehicles, and an abandoned burrito.

Maybe you have more experience than I in determining the level of common
sense of your fellow man. I hold that most people can figure out the simple
stuff involved in swapping out an electrical service box while other
nay-sayers here seem to be convinced that the OP stands a non-neglibible
chance of being dumber than a crate of anvils.

If so, your criticism might better be leveled at my Pollyanna attitude
toward the OP and the complexity of the project. You may very well be
correct that we have to modulate our advice to the stump-stupid level lest
some defective puts his finger in the saw.

Or, it could be you've been influenced by too many eight-page warning
brochures that come with step-stools ("do not use over much when wind is
coming" etc.).

It's a difficult call.

On Nov 4, 3:43*pm, "HeyBub" wrote:

It's a difficult call.

Not really. Let's review the events and weigh the facts:
You like to act like a bumpkin and give stupid advice to people on
Usenet.
You give bad advice when you have no clue where the person is located
or what their abilities are, and somehow these things are unimportant
to you.
You spout bull**** about conditions where _you_ live that is wrong.
You then call anything not in your area, or people that don't ignore
the things you do, benighted.
You make bad assumptions on pretty much everything.

So the call is...you give bad advice and don't know what you are
talking about.
Not really difficult at all to see when you look at it objectively.

At first I didn't believe you when you said you went to law school. I
have changed my opinion. You did not say you are a lawyer, you said
you went to law school, so that means either you couldn't hack it in
law school (my guess), or didn't finish for some other reason (you
couldn't hack it), or finished school and couldn't pass the bar
(pretty fair second guess), or you were a lawyer and got disbarred.

Most people have a low enough opinion of lawyers as it is, so you
would be doing the legal profession a favor by not mentioning your
failed attempt at law.

You would be doing everybody a favor if you thought before you started
tapping the keyboard. It's a lot to ask, I know, but why not give it
a shot - you might surprise everyone.

R

RicodJour wrote:
On Nov 4, 3:43 pm, "HeyBub" wrote:

It's a difficult call.

Not really. Let's review the events and weigh the facts:
You like to act like a bumpkin and give stupid advice to people on
Usenet.
You give bad advice when you have no clue where the person is located
or what their abilities are, and somehow these things are unimportant
to you.
You spout bull**** about conditions where _you_ live that is wrong.
You then call anything not in your area, or people that don't ignore
the things you do, benighted.
You make bad assumptions on pretty much everything.

So the call is...you give bad advice and don't know what you are
talking about.
Not really difficult at all to see when you look at it objectively.

At first I didn't believe you when you said you went to law school. I
have changed my opinion. You did not say you are a lawyer, you said
you went to law school, so that means either you couldn't hack it in
law school (my guess), or didn't finish for some other reason (you
couldn't hack it), or finished school and couldn't pass the bar
(pretty fair second guess), or you were a lawyer and got disbarred.

Actually I went for a year and a half (about half way). At the end of my
first year I was ranked 18th out of 193 freshmen. I came to the view that,
while your lawyer is a nice guy and mine is a prince, the rest are thieves.
So your surmise, based on incomplete information and preconceived notions is
at least as faulty as your evaluation of my contributions.


Most people have a low enough opinion of lawyers as it is, so you
would be doing the legal profession a favor by not mentioning your
failed attempt at law.

It wasn't failed; I made the Dean's List.


You would be doing everybody a favor if you thought before you started
tapping the keyboard. It's a lot to ask, I know, but why not give it
a shot - you might surprise everyone.

I've given your suggestion all the consideration it deserves and have
concluded that it would be shameful indeed to deprive those, such as
yourself, the opportunity to rise up in righteous indignation. Fulminations
don't bother me; in fact I think advanced adrenaline levels are good for
some people.

So, until someone asks what to do about a red, oozing and fungating mass on
their inner thigh (or similar), just bide your time. I'll be back with more
outlandish suggestions. But all is not lost.

In deference to your refined sensibilities, I'll try to preface my remarks
with the following prelude:

"If you have (advanced, moderate, basic) skills and observe all the legal
niceties in your jurisdiction, then the following may be considered..."

Will that satisfy you?