Caveman Conclusion: Marriage should not be entered into.
My Father will be selling his house in a few years. Before that time comes there are things he would like to fix with the house so that he will not have a difficult time selling. One of the things he has decided to do was replace the electric stovetop with a new smooth stovetop.
If I wasn’t around he would pay some “professional” way too much money to do it. He is not very skilled in do-it-yourself stuff, plus he’s an old man. So, I volunteered.
Here is the stove I am replacing. This thing is begging to be put out of it’s misery. It’s like the old dog down the road with one leg and diarrhea you used to throw rocks at for fun when you were a kid. Ok, maybe that was just me.
It reminds me of the electric stovetops that was in the ghetto apartments I lived in when I was in college. It’s definitely time to get this thing replaced.
Getting electrocuted is not fun, well, unless there’s nipple play involved. I first found and turned of the breaker. Stoves use 220v, so look for a double-breaker.
After looking around underneath the stovetop, I found two screws that held this thing in place. I removed the screws then pushed the unit out the top. I then disconnected the electrical wires from the bottom of the appliance.
I had Pops scrape off the 50 years of gooey grease and dirt that had found it’s way under the edge of the stovetop. We were sure to save it so we can make gravy later.
Here are the installation instructions. No really. They are pretty useless. They might as well just said, “Just do it.”
Here is the new smooth top unit I will be installing. The front right burner can be either a small one or a big one. Options are good. I can’t wait for the model to come out that has the wipers on the headlights.
I had to modify the hole a bit to get the new unit in. I had to take my jigsaw and square up the round corners. I then set the new unit in. The new unit was to be wired a bit differently than the old one. With the old stovetop, the house power was attached directly to the unit. In this installation, the new stovetop came with an already attached power cable. This meant that I had to get a junction box installed so that I could wire them both together.
You don’t want to have electrical connections out in the open. It’s against code and you’d really hate to reach under there to get a pot and grab a wire by mistake! So I installed the junction box, wired it up, and put the cover on.
Because it is 220 volt, there are 2 positive wires (black and red) and a neutral/ground wire (white). I wired the red to red, black to black, and ground to ground and white.
There was no way that I could see to secure the new stovetop to the cabinet, so I guess it just sits in the hole. This makes getting the hole size very important. You don’t want the stovetop sliding from side to side. Below is the new electric smooth stovetop installed.
I flipped the circuit breaker back on and took it for a test drive. It worked great. Mission accomplished. Guiness time.
Caveman Conclusion: Cooking is for people that don’t have wives.
Just over a year ago I bought my first house. I was so excited about having a home of my own that I didn’t really care about some of the little things that were wrong or missing when I bought it. Since it was a brand new home, there are several of these things. One of them was the trim around the window in the garage.
It’s the garage, it doesn’t need to be all fancy-pants right? I want my garage to look like a mans area. The walls are finished in drywall, so the rustic look will take some work. I thought I’d start with the window. The builder did not bother putting any trim it, so it’s up to me.
My garage window without trim
The builder also did a crappy job of caulking, so I caulked it up good. I was cracking up when my wife and I were having a conversation about caulk and I thought about sending her to the store for me just she could ask the guy where she could find some “caulk” (sounds like “cock” when you say it).
“Excuse me, will you help me find some cock?”
I thought the easiest way would be to use 1×4s. When I went to get them, I thought the wood looked too new. I looked at the fir instead of the pine. The fir had a great look to it, but cost more than I thought it should, about $25. So I went back home and thought on it more.
Hey, I have some old 2×4s in the garage! I used my table saw and cut them down to 2 3/4 x 3/4 which worked out perfect. I then used my miter saw to cut them to length and I thought it would look better if I didn’t miter the ends at the usual 45 degree angle. When cutting them, I had to be sure to cut off the ugly stamps they place on the wood so I wouldn’t have to sand it. I also decided not to stain them or anything, I just nailed them up.
Window with my highly skilled trim
Then I put up one of those generic vinyl mini-blinds that costs about $4.
Caveman Conclusion: I’m a man that really knows how to handle my wood.
*This is my most popular post. If you have any questions about anything, please ask. Happy reading!
Does your household have more than one computer? Do you have these computers strategically placed around the router? Sick of it? So was my brother. Wireless still kinda sucks in certain situations, like gaming, so we decided to do something about it. We burned his house down. Just kidding, here’s how I did it.
My brother added 2 rooms to his basement. While it was being built, I ran the cable for the network, cable TV, and the phone. I made a homemade box to hold the battery backup, cable modem, wireless router, and switch. I mounted this box on the wall in the center of basement for several reasons. It was the best location for wireless, and it was a centralized place that all the cables could easily reach. I should mention that this was my first time running cable for a network, but luckily not my first time consuming whiskey.
By looking at the diagram below, you can see the 2 new rooms on the left. The X marks the location of where I mounted the homemade network rack/box and where all of the cables eventually run to.
My crappy photoshop skills at work
While the framing was still exposed, and after the electrician did all of his wiring, I went to work. I mounted the blue “electrical outlet” type boxes which would become the drops. My Brother decided that he did not want to only add 1 per room and have to add another router per room if he wanted multiple computers in there. Since one room was to be an office he wanted 4 connections in one room, and 2 in the second bedroom. This meant I had to run 6 lines.
Next, I decided on my cabling routes then drilled 1 inch holes in the studs. I started with the CATV Cable using RG6. I used some underground orange cable I had laying around. I ran the cable from the main location (see diagram) where it comes in the house to the drops. For each CATV location I ran it’s own cable, just like the professionals do. Here is the cable confusion I had to deal with. Messy!
Looking at the diagram, you’ll notice that I had to go up and over 2 doors to run the cable to each room location. We’re going to have to patch those holes I guess. That might require a second bottle of whiskey.
I used strippers and crimpers to add the ends to the cable. I had to replace the first set of strippers though, because after explaining again and again that while I appreciated what they were showing me, I was running out of singles and they still hadn’t even finished one cable end yet.
If you do not have these tools do not worry. There are cheapy screw on ends that you can buy. You will still need to strip the wire back somehow.
Next, I reorganized the cable mess. Notice the new orange cables. Those little white nail clips come in handy. I ended up using them everywhere. I also ran another cable to where my homemade box/shelf will go, which hooks into the cable modem.
Now that the cable was finished, the phone was next. Cat 5 is not only used for networking, but phone as well. I bought a box of 1000 ft. of solid copper wire in blue. Be sure not to kink or nick the cable in any way or you may damage it.
There are 8 small wires inside and can be used to carry 4 phone lines. Here’s the main box where the phone came into the house (purple on diagram). I connected them up, only 2 wires (one line) on each, and added green tape to each end because the network cable and phone cable will be following the same path through the house. There is one phone outlet per room, which I placed opposite each other on the same wall.
Each phone line requires 2 wires to be connected. Look for the red and green wires and strip and connect one to the red and the other to the green. If using regular phone line you will already have red and green wires, but if using network cable like I did, just choose any 2 wires, but remember which ones so you can connect them later at the other end. If you want to run more than one line through here then the next set you will hook up will most likely be black and yellow. Again, when using network line, you have the ability to run 4 phone lines through it.
When choosing the phone jack that will be at the other end, be sure to get one that is for the number of phone lines you are running. If you are not sure, just look at the hole in the jack where the phone line connects and count the wires. There will be 2 wires for each line, and on the back or inside where you connect everything, there will be the required hookups.
This is what it looked like after running the network and phone cable through the walls of the basement.
I numbered both ends of every cable with some numbered stickers I got from Home Depot in the electrical department. I rolled up the cables and stuffed them in the box so they’re out of the way when we put up the drywall. Again, I placed them opposite each other on the same wall, one on each side of the stud.
This is the end where the rack/box will go. I just kind of hung the cables there until it was up.
Before I made the network box/rack, I was sure to take measurements of all of the equipment. Minus a few minor mistakes and trips to the hospital, it came out well. Then I drilled some holes for the cables to run through. The big hole at the bottom is for the battery backup power cord to plug into the wall outlet below the box.
I then wanted to mount this 16 port Keystone Patch Panel above the box. I accidentally dropped my burger and and got mustard all over his chair. Sorry bro, maybe your wife can get it clean with the Martha Stewart scrub brush and cleanser set I gave her for her birthday.
I forgot to purchase the mounting bracket so I had to make my own. I cut off a square piece of a 2×4 then used a hole saw and made a hole. Then, I simply cut the thing in half across the hole. This gave me two nice strong brackets, and with the arc I was easily able to drill pilot holes and screw it into the wall.
So far so good. Now here’s the crummy part. Having to punch down all of those little wires into the Keystone Jacks. There are 2 standards for wiring, A & B. What you choose doesn’t matter as long as you are consistent and wire each end the same. I chose B. There’s even a handy color code on the side to help out.
Again, this was my first time. It wasn’t very difficult, just tedious. I read and followed these wiring directions. I bought these tools when I bought all of this stuff. The strippers (black) are for removing the blue casing from the cable which revealed the 8 tiny solid copper wires. The punchdown tool is used to punch the wires down into the keystone jacks.
Don’t strip the tiny wires before punching them down, the wire insulation is exposed and the connection is made when punched down into the jack. I added the Keystone Jacks to the patch panel. The other end would have to wait until the drywall was up.
Here is the box with the patch panel mounted above it. I also got the cable ready to run to the cable modem.
Then I connected some 3 ft. patch cables to the patch panel. These will go into the switch. I also connected the cable to the cable modem.
Almost finished, I added the battery backup, wireless router, and switch. Now we just had to finish the drywall.
Connecting the equipment
The reason to do all of this is to connect multiple computers together and for them to all share the internet. You will first need to have a router, I used the Linksys Wireless-G Broadband Router. You will connect your cable or dsl modem to your router with a patch cable. Look for an “internet” port (see pic). There will probably be at least 4 other ports, which are used to connect up to 4 computers.
If you need more ports because you’re an uber geek and have too many computers in your house, like in my case, then you will need a switch. I got a Linksys 8-port Workgroup Switch. On the back of the switch is an “uplink” port (see pic). Run a cable from the “uplink” port to any port on your router. You can then use the ports on the switch AND also on the router. You can add more switches simply by doing the same thing again.
After our crappy drywall job, which will obviously need more attention, I punched down the wires into the jacks, added the wall plates and numbered the jacks carefully matching them to the other numbers on the patch panel.
I tested each line and they all worked great. Having never done this before, I must admit, I was a bit nervous that it would work.
Now if we wanted to add a new line to another room we could just do it the same way, and with the 16 port patch panel there is plenty of room for adding new lines.
This was a fun project and I learned a lot. I’m sure I left some details out, but I think you get the idea.
I bought most of the cabling, panels, jacks, tools, etc. online from LANshack.com. My total cost was around $200. So, give it shot and try it at your brother’s home. Use him as the guinea pig before you try it at home like I did. After all, why mess up your own stuff.
Please feel free to comment or ask me a question. Thanks.
Caveman Conclusion: Only real men put in home networks.
Loading ...
Subscribe By Email
