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John Carmack reviews your home's user interface. (media.piefed.world)
submitted 10 months ago by to c/whitepeopletwitter@sh.itjust.works
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[–] 146 points 10 months ago (31 children)

My favorite is when one of the switches does nothing you can visibly see and you never find out what it’s for.

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  • [–] 58 points 10 months ago (8 children)

    Had one of those. Eventually figured out that a prior owner had a lamppost in the yard. How did I figure that out? I found the buried romex. Not conduit. Romex.

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  • [–] 21 points 10 months ago* (6 children)

    I’m no electrician and even I know that you don’t bury Romex lmao. Good lord.

    Edit: now that I think about it, the previous homeowner of my house used to have a fountain out front that has since been decommissioned… I found the wiring for it in a box under some gravel around where the fountain was.

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  • [–] 22 points 10 months ago (5 children)

    There is direct burial cabling, so that could have been it. (Not Romex branded, but same thing)

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  • [–] 12 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    I don't think they want my European curiosity

    altr

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago

    It’s just grey colored 3-4 conductor cabling.

    I still like putting it in conduit so you don’t have to worry about someone hitting it with a shovel.

    You see it under porches and decks with power outlets a lot too.

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  • [–] 22 points 10 months ago* (10 children)

    No shit, an old house I moved into had about half the lights just hard wired to mains so they were always on. They had the switch runner in the box, but it wasn't connected when I moved in so the switches did nothing. The previous tenants just screwed and unscrewed the bulbs (I rewired them correctly).

    Still to this day I will lay in bed and wonder how in the ever loving fuck this happened, who did it, what they were thinking, if it was intentional, and then come to the terrifying realization that the person or people involved in this are probably still out there somewhere, operating motor vehicles on public roads, putting us all in danger. They probably even think they are smart. I mean they do their own electrical work after all.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago (5 children)

    What I want to know is what is the science called of placing outlets and switches exactly where furniture goes?

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago (4 children)

    You've heard of the Chinese art on Feng Shui? The Chinese art of locating outlets and switches in places that get covered by furniture is called Fook Uho. Every interior designer studies that.

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  • [+] 1 point 10 months ago (4 children)
    [deleted]
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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (2 children)

    The majority of those $5 extension cords are generally a fire waiting to happen. They are useful if you plug nothing more than a lamp in to one. Nor should one just leave them lay about on the floor, behind furniture or not.

    Source: retired firefighter that has been to more than one electrical caused house fire as 2am.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago* (1 child)

    I bought my house two years ago and it had been retrofitted with baseboard radiators. They covered up the lower receptacles in every outlet so you could only get a plug into the top one and then the wire ran over a hot radiator. Just mind-boggling that anybody could do that and not see a problem with it. Granted, the outlets were embedded in the cinderblock walls so it wasn't an easy matter to move them up, but laziness kills.

    For good measure, these plugs were not grounded and they all had the polarity reversed.

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  • [–] 9 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    There's always one that needs to be turned on for any of the other switches to function, too.

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  • [+] 6 points 10 months ago (3 children)
    [deleted]
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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago* (1 child)

    or fan/light switches but no light kit was installed with the fan

    Or no fan was installed with the light.

    I was going to get smug about how I was diligent enough to blank off the switch when I removed my garbage disposal, but then I remembered I have switches that do nothing in my fanless bedrooms.

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