What year was your house built? When many of the houses were built in the Bay Area, “cable” was what connected “rabbit ears” to your television, an “entertainment center” was a record player with a built-in radio and kitchen appliances. they were operated mainly by hand.
If your house was built before outlets had three pins, it might explain some of the weird things that happen when you turn on an appliance. We like to call homes like this “Homes with Character.” Recently, a customer called because his kitchen light had gone out once again. She was tired of having to get the ladder to replace the fluorescent lights and decided it was time to upgrade to LED lighting. He had no idea how much his home would become!
While we were replacing the old light, she mentioned that she was concerned about the wiring because the house was old and had a reputation for being “remodeled by a maniac.” This was not our first visit to repair your home. Problems like sealing the sink to the counter with white glue and improperly installed kitchen cabinets (and peeling off the walls) had become “normal” and we had fixed some of them.
Shortly after we replaced the light, she was greeted with “that electric light smell “ so back we went. It turns out that when the kitchen was remodeled, the “maniac” decided to move the location of the light to the “new center” of the room, away from the safe and with wiring that does not comply with the current code. Oh, and did we mention that the insulation they used was periodic? (Yes, you read that correctly) In essence, your house is an outdated fire trap that needs to be completely reconfigured. Better to find out now than when there is a fire.
Does your home show any of the same symptoms as hers?
- When you turn on the dishwasher, the cable reception is pixelated
- Cable boxes keep “shutting down” and need to be replaced
- You can only have two appliances running in the kitchen at a time or a fuse blows
- You have fuses (instead of a switch box)
- When you turn on your modern entertainment center, the lights in the adjacent room blink
- When you turn on the washing machine, the lights in the upstairs bathroom blink.
- When you turn on the light in the bathroom, there is a 2 to 3 second delay before the light turns on.
We see problems like this in older rental homes all the time. The tenant calls the landlord because the expectation is that when he rents a house, all his modern electronics and kitchen utensils will work. When the house is yours, you may have learned to live with inconveniences like this because it is part of the character of the house.