Serious update.

[khms]

Earlier today I ended up with first and second degree burns on most of my left hand...and it was a relatively silly kitchen accident. I slipped while carrying a bowl of boiling-hot soup, and when my knee hit the floor, I tilted the bowl and spilled most of it over my hand. If you've ever suffered a liquid burn, then you know what it feels like.

Just reading this makes my hand hurt. Almost exactly the same happened to me sometime 1980, while I was home for the weekend from the German Air Force (conscription, 15 months). The pot handle was poured around a metal skeleton, and had worn enough so the metal came to the surface ... on the underside where you couldn't see it. The moment I touched it (and the reflex to avoid hot stuff fired), the pot dropped on the left side, and the soup poured over my left hand. And it was thick soup, so it stuck to the skin and transferred quite a bit more heat than thin soup would have.

I don't remember all the details, but I lost a bit of skin from this, and for years afterwards, my left hand was significantly browner than my arm or my right hand.

Get well soon.

[Sasijade]

Hope you are fully healed as I saw you have posted a new chapter.

[drowsy19]

A tree fell on Fels house and knocked a conduit off the wall so there will be no writing in the near future as he doesn't have internet

[Fel]

I just got my internet back, and yeah, that's almost what happened. The tree actually fell on the power lines leading to my house, but instead of breaking, those power lines partially ripped the line conduit that runs up the side of my house out of the wall. The power meter and the lower part of the conduit managed to stay in the wall, but it ripped the top part out and bent the conduit. As a result, I still have power and cable, the lines weren't damaged, but I'm looking at significant damage to the outside of my house and a very expensive replacement of the conduit.

I put pics up of the damage on twitter, if you're morbidly curious. I'm gonna go out and take one more pic of the lower part of the conduit to show where it bent.

Law in my state is that only the power company can come clear that branch, because it's laying on the power line. And they said they won't be here for another day or two because of all the damage in my region from storms last night.

Because of this, I'm not going to have time to do much writing in the near future. I'll be spending most of my time trying to get things cleaned up, arranging for the repairs, and so on.

This is been a rough month for me. I burn my hand, I throw out my back, My car breaks down, I had 2 broken water pipes inside the house happen 3 days apart, and now this. I swear, when bad luck comes, it makes sure to kick your ass before it moves on to someone else.

But it coulda been WAY worse, so I'll count my blessings. That limb missed my house by about half a meter and my CAR by barely 5 centimeters. If I'd have lost my car to that branch, which my insurance does not cover, I'd have been in a world of hurt. The branch fell right between my house and car, I still have power and cable, and the damage isn't so severe that my house in uninhabitable. I'll take those facts as good grace and be thankful that a few headaches is all I'm taking out of this.

[konman]

Glad to see you made it thru OK. Cleanup can be a bitch.

You may need to have an electrician on hand when the utility company sees the bent couduit they may just shut you down until an electrician can replace it.

Hope it all works out for you.

[Hillybob]

wow, it has been tough month for you. Do what you need to do. We're just glad you're okay.

[gnume]

can you do batter photos of the damage to the house ?

[Andygal]

A tree almost hit a family friend's car one time when it was parked outside our house. Bad windstorm. Took out trees all over town.

As for burns, I badly scalded two fingers of one hand once trying to make tea. Spent hours with the fingers submerged in cold water. Liquid burns suck.

[Fel]

The damage to the outside of the house wasn't as bad as I feared. I went out for my first assessment at night, and the darkness made things look worse than they actually were. I thought that the conduit mounts had ripped out all the way down, but they held. I'm looking at one hole in the siding of my house where the top mount bracket was torn out when the tree landed on the lines, which THANKFULLY did not take out my siding. That was my biggest fear, that my siding had come loose. All I have up there is a hole from where the bracket mounts were ripped out of the wall and a severely bent conduit. It's still a hole, but it's not nearly as big as I was afraid it was. There's an outside chance that the conduit can be bent back up without having to replace it...which I fervently hope is the case. Believe it or not, replacing that conduit will be VERY expensive, not because it's a pricy piece of pipe, but because of all the work required to run the lines through the new one from the meter to the pole. That's a lot of labor hours to pay for. If I can just bend the existing conduit back to some semblance of straight, it will seriously reduce the repair bill.

From the look of it, I might get out of this with a smaller repair bill than I initially feared, but I'll have an additional cost in that I'll have to have the tree cut down. The split in the trunk goes halfway down to the ground, and it's now too unstable to stay up. That tree is around 20 meters tall (around 70 feet), and if it falls, it could completely wipe out my entire house. It's that big. For that matter, its' big enough to land on my neighbor's house across the road, so it's a threat no matter which way it falls.

[gnume]

whats the problem with pulling the lines thru a new conduit ? if you prepare it ahead of time (the conduit before install on the wall) the pulling itself can be done in under an hour. more likely 20 min if the wires are not to thick.

[Fel]

The problem is that these wires are on the other side of the meter, which means that the electric company has to be involved. They have to come out, disconnect the lines from the pole, then reconnect them once the new conduit's in place. And I have to pay for it, since they're not responsible for that. That's how the power company up here works, I have to pay the power company to come out and disconnect/reconnect the lines because they're not responsible for the conduit. Their responsibility ends where the lines connect to my house...which IS the conduit. Had the lines snapped without my conduit being damaged, the power company would have repaired everything with no cost to me...but I wasn't that lucky. Since the conduit is part of my house, they aren't responsible for fixing it.

I also have to pay for the contractors that install the new conduit.

It's not that it's a long hard fix, it's that it's going to be an expensive one. That's why I'm hopeful I can just bend the one I have back into place, to avoid all of that. If I can do that, I'll save a LOT of money.

[gnume]

what about you putting in the primary pull string your self ? http://www.wikihow.com/Fish-Wires-Throu ... it-or-Pipe
it should shorten the install time by significant margin if done correctly. and most likely cheapen the price of the installation. just an comment.

[J-Man5]

Wiring that services a house is usually to large to pull with string. I'm betting it's probably only 6-10 feet of conduit. The expensive part is the Electric company coming and doing the disconnect/reconnect and requiring a "licensed" electrician to do the work and possibly pull permits. If you can get a stronger pipe next to it you might be able to pull it back into a straight enough section with come along clamps Fel. Place the straight strong pipe along the straight portion of the conduit and gradually pull it back straight by attaching clamps along the way and slowly tightening them till it bends the conduit back into shape.

J-Man5

[nicolai]

If the bent conduit is kinked, I wouldn't even try, the risk is much too high. That sharp edge in the kink can easily cut through the insulation and short out your service.

If the bend is an arc, then it might be possible to bend it back. Just use extreme caution, that is 220V AC, and short circuit will be in excess of 20,000 amps. It will shut power down for a significant part of your neighborhood, i.e. everyone on that circuit.

To prevent further damage to the house, put about a half sheet of plywood (the thickest that will fit) behind the bend to spread the pressure across as large an area as possible. Be aware that too much pressure could rip the meter box and service connection out of the wall, as well. Whatever pressure you apply above the bend will be applied in the opposite direction below the bend, with the bend itself being the fulcrum.

Also, the wire that makes up your service drop has been stretched. The power company may require that the entire drop be replaced. If they do, the only thing you can do is bite the bullet and pay. Unfortunately, home insurance does not cover anything outside the boundary of the foundation. I feel your pain, I went through this about 20 years ago.

[Fel]

Well, I finally have some good news. I will NOT have to replace the conduit. I already have a guy lined up to come and bend it back in place, and since it's my cousin, he won't charge me for it.

So all I have to do is repair the hole in the side of the house and have the tree removed. My repair costs just went WAY down.

It's all going to hinge on how much it'll cost to remove a 20 meter tall tree. I'm going to call a tree removal service tomorrow and get an estimate.