Electrically Charged

We have been in Dunedin one week as of yesterday, and thankfully we have crossed off quite a few things on our "to do" list.  While last week was a lot of planning and calling, this week has started to be a week of doing those tasks.

We took Sunday off.  After being reacquainted with friends at church, we spent a delightful afternoon with my nephew and his new bride at their home.  We brought them some goodies from Wisconsin, and they treated us to a wonderful meal.  Thanks, Rachel and Jon!

Yesterday was one of those days where we worked hard but had little to visibly show for our labors other than the afore-mentioned items crossed off the list.  Rick started the day in old clothes so he could spray insecticide all around the perimeter of the house.  He always says that if people left Florida for a time, it would totally revert back to the jungle in about 18 months.  Just being gone five months this summer allowed every bug and spider within a 10 mile radius to try to take up residence at our house.  Thankfully, most stayed outside, so we are just fighting the webs and insects that are crawling around outside.  For those of you interested, we have not seen any mosquitoes.  Zika is not in the area and poses no danger to us.

While I tied more branches of the spreading bougainvillea to the trellis by the fence, Rick sprayed a different kind of insecticide to the gardenia tree in the back yard.  The tree is trying to bloom again, but something is making a smorgasbord of the leaves on that tree.  Hopefully the spray we bought at the nursery will help.  It seemed to have a positive effect on the tree when I used it last year.

More outside work included adding fertilizer to our bottle brush tree in the back.  I also fertilized the flowers planted under the Florida room windows.  I hope they don't grow too much, though, or they will block the windows!

Our last task yesterday was to prep the garage for the work we had done today.  The electricians arrived early this morning to move the electrical mast and service on the house from the back to the north side.  We needed to have the service moved because the wires originally were over where we want to add a roof and lanai to the slab.  Codes state that electrical wires must be at least 10 feet above any aluminum structure, so the wires had to be moved before we can move forward on the lanai.

The new meter box awaits installation on the
north wall of the house.

The gutted meter box hangs next to the cable box.
By the end of the day, the meter box was gone and
the service in the mast above it was moved to the
new location.

We were without electricity most of the day, and I found watching Rick very interesting. He is so addicted to researching any question that pops into his head, that being without his trusty computer almost drove him nuts.  I say "almost" because he still had his wireless connection on his iPhone, so he continued to research what he wanted even without a full screen on his computer.  (Yes, we know that we could have run the computers on battery, but we chose not to do that.  Had Rick not had a phone, however, I think that the computer batteries would been quite worn down by now.

One of the two electricians inserts the new mast
through the roof to connect to the new box.

The removed box left a BIG hole to patch.

At the end of the day, we had the meter box removed from the back of the house and a new box and meter installed on the north side.  We asked the electricians to put the connections from the breaker box to the new box inside the garage to avoid having that conduit on the outside of the house.  The cool thing is that we now have a meter and shut off outside the house, and we also have room for eight new breakers (16 circuits) in the outside box.  The electrician told me that if we want any new electrical service outside (like lights...  or a fancy outdoor kitchen...or perhaps an electric fireplace???), we can use this outside box.  Smile!

The new mast and wire location sits securely behind the garbage
cans on the north side of the house.

The new box easily is accessible to those who
want to read the meter.

The connections between the two boxes runs along the back of the garage.

We still have to get the cable box moved from the back wall.  (That's another story in itself!) Then we will be able to patch and paint the wall in preparation for it to be a nice wall inside our someday lanai.