We are having a great time hanging out here at Nancy Kissack‘s place in Atwater, California. A couple of days ago we rebuilt four security light fixtures on the front of her garage and installed an automatic dusk till dawn switch for them.
Not wanting to overstay our welcome and looking for something else we could do around here to earn our keep, I asked Nancy if there was anything else that needed attention. She mentioned that the three bulb light fixture hanging over her front door had one light that would not come on and that she had swapped bulbs before with no success. So that was yesterday’s project.
And this one turned out to be a lot easier than the garage lights. I got up on a ladder, took the bottom of the fixture off and was able to access the wiring. It all looked good, but the socket itself was funky. So Nancy set off to the local Home Depot and Lowe’s looking for replacement sockets. Yes, sockets, because my feeling is that if one has failed the others also will, eventually. They don’t cost all that much and it is as easy to replace all of them then to do one and then have to come back another time and do another.
When she returned with the sockets it was pretty easy to disconnect the wiring, remove the old sockets, install the new ones, and reconnect the wires again. Then, after testing to make sure that all three worked, I put the bottom back on the fixture and we were done.
Nancy also mentioned that there was a recessed light fixture in the vaulted ceiling over the tub in her bathroom that was not working and that she could not figure out how to get to the bulb to check it. So we set a ladder in the tub, Terry went up and checked things out and figured out how to get the cover off to access the bulb. It was held in place by spring-loaded wire clips, and once she opened them it was a simple matter to put a new LED bulb in, put everything back together, and we were good to go.
With the ladders and tools put away, we took a break and visited for a while, then I went back to the motorhome to answer a bunch of emails and work on upcoming blog posts while Terry and Nancy set about making pizza for dinner. Following the recipes in Terry’s cookbook, Miss Terry’s Kitchen, Nancy had already made the dough and sauce two days before. And this was the end result, two huge, absolutely delicious pizzas that were so good that my taste buds had an orgasm with the first bite.
I’m not sure what the game plan is for today. Nancy says there’s nothing else left to fix, so I may have to break something to have an excuse to hang around longer. Or, I may do some light replacement here in the motorhome. Friday I ordered three more of the Green LongLife LED tubes to finish upgrading the florescent light fixtures in the front of our Winnebago. I was surprised that the post office delivered them yesterday, on a Sunday, but they showed up during the afternoon. They should be a quick project to finish.
Congratulations to George Rawley, winner of our Free Drawing for an audiobook of Big Lake Lynching, the second book in my Big Lake mystery series. We had 151 entries this time around. Stay tuned, a new contest starts soon.
Thought For The Day – You do not need a parachute to skydive. You only need a parachute to skydive twice.
Nick Russell
World-Famous, New York Times Best Selling Author, and All-Around Nice Guy!
Nick, can you replace just one tube in a 2 tube fixture or do you have to replace both? I’ve replaced all the bulbs in my 5th wheel except the florescents because their so pricy.
Careful, Nick. You are starting to become useful and no good can come from that! 😉
Bob, using the LED tubes you can just put one in, but you have to disconnect the ballast so it would be the only light in the fixture. In other words, you can’t have one LED tube and one fluorescent.