I had an electrician come by to ground a couple of outlets so that we could plug our computers in (through surge protectors). I learned a few things in the process, like the reason why many outlets in houses are installed (annoyingly) upside down is that the latest version of the electric code requires it - apparently if a plug begins to hang out of the wall if a piece of metal (e.g. a knife) falls on it then if the outlet is installed in the conventional fashion it’s possible for the knife to short the two connections. With ground up, this is impossible. I wouldn’t care, except a good number of electrical products that are still on the market have cords that are designed to hang down, not up, making them more susceptible to falling out which I would think would be its own safety problem…

But I digress. I also discovered (thanks to the electrician pointing this out) that the electric hot water heater that supplies the east wing of the house was “wired” using an extension cord plugged into an outlet on a lighting circuit. He fixed that.

But the other positive to come out of his visit was the removal of a fair bit of scary looking wiring:

Sadly I did not get a chance to photograph one particularly awesome looking outlet outside under the deck, where it was nailed to one of the outbound support posts, fully exposed to the elements, with no cover plate (not even the one that hides the outlet box), wired in by a piece of romex (indoor rated) wire that draped loosely across the top of the underside of the deck, again fully exposed. This outlet was used to power…wait for it it gets better…a water fountain on the deck above by means of an extension cord.

Another interesting element of the home-built outdoor/crawlspace electrical system is this power strip:

We weren’t sure, but felt it was possible this strip might power much of the lower level. It was removed. Time will tell what outlets and spotlights down there will no longer function.