Having a good friend that is a lawyer is like have a fully loaded Dobie-O-Matic It gives you are assurance that you are equipped to handle anything.
So here is the deal. My son bought a condo in a building that had been an apartment, until it was bought and rehabed into condos.
He and his girl friend moved in and a week or so later when they plugged in their hair dryer, a circuit breaker popped. Then it did not want to reset. Then they found out that they had almost 1/3 of the unit on one 15A breaker. :smack:
So I go over to check it out. The breaker won’t reset because it has come unclipped from the bus bar, no biggie. The problem is the load on the circuit. One entire bathroom, the plugs on the common wall between the two bedrooms, the lights in the living room plus a few plugs in the living room are all on this one 15A circuit. They way the furniture is laid out, they lost TVs in both bedrooms, all three computers, plus the lights in the bathroom.
When I discovered just how much was on this circuit I freaked. I told them to get a hold of the contractor and let them know that this does not meet code, and was not acceptable.
So today I get a call from my son’s GF, the electrician is there and he wants to swap the 15A breaker for a 20A and call it good. I tell the electrician that this is no good, the circuit is wired with 14 ga wire not 12 so this won’t fix the problem. he starts to whine that it isn’t his fault, and I point out that the can lights in the living room were added as part of the remodel. He added them to an all ready overloaded circuit. Now I wasn’t going to blame him for what was done before, but since he added loads to the circuit at least part of the problem was caused by him, and therefore he had to fix it.
he then said that to fix it, they would have to open up the walls. Fine I said fix the problem. He said that the owner wasn’t going to go for that, he was just told to come change the breaker. I reminded him that anybody that knew anything about electricity knows that you can’t just go putting a bigger breaker into a circuit without upgrading the wire. I told him our lawyer would send a letter with my son’s demands to the owner.
After I said goodbye, I called my lawyer buddy. The conversation went like this:
Me: So what is the going rate for a nasty gram from a lawyer, if I draft it and all you have to do is put it on your letter head?
Lawyer: What? (laughing)
Me: (Repeat the above)
Lawyer: What’s going on?
Me: (Explain the problem)
Lawyer: It’s going to cost you at least a nice dinner
Me: SOLD!
Lawyer: Ok, you will have to research it, cite code sections, and offer a solution. And NO SNARK! (I think my lawyer knows me a little too well)
Me: Not even a little bit?
Lawyer: NO SNARK.
Me: OK if you insist.
lawyer: send it to me, I will double check the code sections, and such and send it out.
Me: No blem.
So I call the GF back and tell her that the letter from the high class lawyer is going to cost her a dinner at her restaurant (she bookkeeps for a high end dinner house) where she gets an amazing discount on food. Laughing she says deal. I ask her to get the name and the details for the owner/construction company.
Fifteen minutes later she is back on the phone to me, the electrician wants to talk to me. He says they will add 2 new 20 Amp circuits one for the bathroom alone, and the other for the common wall between the two bedrooms, and leave the existing circuit for the living room. This was exactly the solution I was going to propose in the letter, so we discussed the details for a couple of minutes and hung up.
I called my buddy back and told them that this had to be the easiest dinner they had ever earned. Huh? came the reply, I didn’t do anything. The threat was enough to get them to see the path of virtue and righteousness I replied so you earned a dinner.
Works for me, they said.
Like I said, I love my lawyer.