Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Let there be light...

One of today's chores was to work on the lights in the breeze-way and the garage.

The light in the breeze-way is a motion activated light similar to this one.  We have four people and three dogs living in our house.  The comings-and-goings are nearly continuous.

Mrs ERJ informed me that the light was not meeting her requirements.  This was the easy fix.  Somehow the little switch that controlled duration had been bumped over to "Test" mode.  The light would switch on for approximately a second and then switch off.  I moved the switch to 1 minute.  We will see if that makes my "client" happy.

The garage


The garage is a classic case of bandages pasted on top of bandages.  The interior of the garage is 24' by 24'.  At night, it has been known to harbor were-wolves, zombies, vampires, panthers, wolves (of the canine sort), serial murderers, space aliens, subpoena servers, repo men and IRS collections agents.

Back-in-the-day, 4' fluorescent light fixtures and tubes were expected to last for twenty years.  We have advanced to the point to where they now have a life expectancy of 18 months.

I checked each fixture with a new set of tubes.  I ended up removing four of the six fixtures as lost causes.  I left one as-is, except for a new set of tubes.  The other had a bad cord.  I replace the cord and tubes. 
Those fixtures are on a timer similar to the one shown above.  Dads get very tired of hollering at kids to turn off the lights.  I expect to get flack from their future spouses for not training them to turn off lights but I will burn that bridge when it hoves into sight.

Discussion with Mrs ERJ suggested that a motion activated light might be handy in the garage as long as the switch controlled version was also available.  It is a well established fact that big cats, subpoena servers and were-wolves are a twitchy lot and will trigger motion activated lights.  Motion activated lights are of little utility against vampires, zombies and IRS agents given that they are cold blooded and motion activated lights operate in the infrared spectra.

So the current set-up in the garage is two, two lamp, forty Watt fluorescent light tubes on a wind-up timer and two 60 Watt incandescent floods in a motion activated fixture with a one minute "on" duration.

I am eagerly awaiting feedback from my client.

2 comments:

  1. I doubt very much that a wife being referred to as a "client" will be pleased. Unless she doesn't read your blog.

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  2. Hmmm. When I do something or make something for another they are a customer. Unless they are a client. In the business world, the difference between a customer and a client is $45/hour with the client being more "upscale".

    When I make somebody "a client" I put my ego aside and work to make them happy. Especially when I think I know better than them. I do it their way.

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