Thirty-five or Forty years ago, I worked on a Safeway store on the South Hill.  It was constructed on a slope, so one end of the building had a 4 foot high foundation wall.  I decided I would run my entrance conduit on that end so that I wouldn’t have to dig it in.  However the General Contractor started leveling the ground with a small “Cat”, and since I was using PVC conduit, I had to leave it out until he was done so that it wouldn’t become damaged.  That job was a loser from the start.  I wound up having to hand dig a 3 foot deep ditch to get my conduit installed.

There was a large steel beam running from one side of the building to the other.  It had been installed and the block workers had laid their block to cover the ends of the beam.  We were late into September by then and there was no heat in the building.  One Monday we came to work to find that the beam had contracted enough from the cold that it had pulled the block covering the ends, into the wall area and had busted up the block.  It became necessary to re-design the block layout to account for the expansion and shrinkage of the beam.

Another morning we came to work and found that someone had broken in and stolen some of the contractor’s tools.  Some of our electrical tools were stacked by the back door.  The thieves had apparently been scared off and did not take the electrical tools, either through anxiety or because of forgetting them in the dark.

On Christmas day that year, thieves had broken into the clothing store located at one end of the building.  They had taken a large stack of clothing off the racks.  The owner of the clothing store said that they apparently knew what they were doing, since they had taken only the most expensive items.

In the spring, when the job was nearly finished, water poured into the site and soaked some of the larger gauge wire.  I had to get the wire out in the sun and let the water drain out and dry so that it could be used.

Apparently the inspector missed it or I would never have gotten away with it.  (It has worked fine for these 35 or 40 years!)

I was disappointed in the way the job went.  I did not want my first decent sized job to be a loser.  For that reason, the last week I worked on that job I didn’t turn in any time.

Contrary to what Simon and Garfunkel sang, it didn’t all happen at the zoo.  A great deal of it happened at Riverfront Park.

When Expo ’74 closed down, the area became a city park for Spokane.  Some of the pavilions were of an exposed pole design.  The electrical wiring had to be run on the surface, and yet appear artful and neat.

There were many bollard light fixtures.  They made me think of hitching posts.

We installed street lights that were designed to appear like old time street lights that had an open flame.  The old time street lights required “an old lamplighter from long long ago” to light them up at night.  In recent years the park has removed and replaced those fine old light fixtures with new designs.  I have often wished I had access to such treasures.  I could see them fitting in just fine in my own yard.

We also installed electrical wiring for the decorative water fountains.  Not only was there lighting with the water fountains, but the fountains would spout up in changing patterns.  Do you sometimes wonder how the fountain is controlled to make the water spout up at different heights and patterns?  They require special pumps, plumbing, controls and wiring.

There are many things we look at and admire, but usually without realizing the effort and expense put into them for our enjoyment.

One time I was given the job of putting in some special wiring for a “Pigout in the Park” event at Riverfront Park.  Part of the job required me to dig in a conduit run through a portion of the finished lawn area.  The run was down an extended slope.  I had to dig up the sod carefully, so that after installing the conduit, the backfill could be done and make the sod look like it had not been disturbed.

After I was finished, at some point the sprinkler system came on.  The water ran down the slope and filled up the junction boxes I had installed on the downward portion of the lawn.  I had to do some re-designing to make it work properly.  (Because, as we all should be aware, normally electricity and water do not mix well.)

All of the work in that job had to be accomplished quickly, as the event was scheduled to open in just a couple of days.

There were many more things that occurred there.  Many of those things happened to me for the first time at Riverfront Park.

Hotels, motels and restaurants have a difficult time staying in business.  The competition for the shared customer base must be fierce.

As I have mentioned before, several investors had put a lot of effort in keeping the Old Davenport Hotel going.  It finally closed for a few years, and then was remodeled, refurbished and, after bringing it back to its former glory, it was reopened.

My wife and I stayed there for a night on our 60^th wedding anniversary.  I was unable to visit the “bowels” of the structure as I had when I was working on the building, but the surface is beautiful.  I must admit however, that I missed the stuffed Polar Bear located above the old lobby that used to greet visitors.

I recall one of the restaurants that we wired completely from the ground up that had, apparently, been designed by an inexperienced architect-engineer.  When the kitchen was finished, the installation of the appliances completely obstructed access to the back room with the electrical panel.  It was necessary to shuffle all the appliances so that access could be attained.  Shuffling the appliances meant that all the electrical receptacles and power supply locations had to be moved.

When we installed the lighting over the booths in the dining area, the plans called for a specific size of booth.  When the booths arrived they were of a different size.  This made it impossible to center the booths under the fixtures.  That wasn’t a pretty sight.

Once when I was in charge of wiring a motel, the boys working under my direction grabbed a roll of number 10 wire instead of number 12.  The umber 10 wire, being heavier and harder to work with, increased the labor hours as well as raising the material costs.  It was a waste of time and material costs, since there was no offsetting benefit.

The subject of wire gauge brings up another subject.  Many times inexperienced home owners, or other tradesmen, will tell us (or inform the people having work done) that they only want number 12 wire installed.  They don’t want any number 14 wire in the building.  This request is usually made because the requestor feels that the #12 is more of a safe choice.  What they don’t realize is that household appliances do not have a plug and cord designed for that much of an electrical load.  Most appliance cords are limited to about 10 Amps, using number 16 or even number 18 gauge wires.

The breaker required for number 14 wire is a 15 amp breaker.  As you can see there is a built in margin for safety (15 Amps minus 10 Amps = 5 Amp margin).  If you increase the capacity of the wiring in the wall to a 20 Amp capacity you have doubled the safety margin.  On the surface, this looks like a good idea at first.

However if there is a problem with an appliance it will take longer for the 20 Amp breaker to trip, leaving more likelihood that a problem will go undetected and become ever more dangerous.  Coupled with that possibility is the probability that more receptacles will be added to a 20 Amp circuit.  More receptacles invite an increase in the number of devices using the same circuit.  Thus it adds to the element of difficulty to narrow down the options in finding a problem appliance or device.

It’s better to trust the professionals that know what they’re doing.