Undetectable Motion, Etc.

I mentioned last month when we put up our breezeway ceiling fan that we were gathering electrical projects that might require professional assistance. There was one more we attempted to do ourselves before giving up and calling in the experts. We have a security light at the back of our house that has never worked.

We don't really anticipate using it much, but it would be nice to turn on for parties and, you know, maybe scare away potential robbers. The point was that it was there but non-responsive, so we wanted to know what was up with the electricity?

The good news is that it is strategically placed to be accessible from the bathroom and side bedroom windows, so no scary ladders were necessary for us to take a closer look. From the bathroom, we could see the switches and tried turning them to every possible variation. We thought we had fooled the system to believe it was dark out but, just in case, we also tried at night. Nothing worked.

The only obvious part we could fix was the lightbulbs. And, conveniently, we just happened to have some. Unfortunately, that didn't get us very far - still no lights.

Funny enough, we actually own a new motion sensor light kit - well, an old-new kit that my parents gave us when we moved in. It's pretty much identical to what's already there. But the problem is that we don't have a clue which circuit to turn off and we suspect that to really get access to the wires, we would need to get at at the light from outside the house on a ladder. Time for a professional estimate.

The electrician came to take a look and confirmed that the sensor was dead but that we have electricity to the right place. He explained that any lamp we would buy at Home Depot or Lowes would only be guaranteed for 90 days. His lamp would be guaranteed for 5 years. According to the estimate his company provided, the lamp itself would cost $110 plus installation would bring the price to $325. Our electrician also told me, "off the record," that since we were repeat customers he might be able to knock the price down a little. He did mention that it would require ladder access from the back of the house, which is pretty high and scary. However, since this is a light we have never used and will never miss, we're on the fence as to whether it's worth it.

The second project we wanted an estimate on will be a tad more destructive. Somewhere in our lawn and garden escapades, we must have severed the line that runs from the house to our lamppost. One day it worked, and another day, it didn't. We had come across the wire before, just a flimsy white rubber-coated wire, and thought we knew well enough to avoid it. Obviously somewhere, we missed.

The electrician confirmed that we had power at the light switch but none to the post itself, meaning that the connection got lost somewhere along the way. We reasoned that if we did most of the grunt work of digging up the wire (and reburying it), that we would save a lot in labor cost. The electrician would run a line inside a PVC pipe, making it a lot more difficult to cut in the future. He'd also add a plug at the base of the post, which would be nice for stringing up holiday lights or anything else we might want to plug in. So minus all the cost of dealing with the trench, this would cost us about $380. If we get it done at all, we will wait until fall after the grass is mostly dead. No sense in digging up all our precious lawn work now.

So now we have the plan and we just have to decide if the price is worth it. What do you think?