More heat than light.

Ok, that's only a reference to one of the Veils greatest songs. True story: the album it's from, Runaway Found, is the third greatest album of all time. Finn Andrews was, after all, just a kid. Seventeen years old. F yeah.

Back to what this is about which is much less exciting than brilliant rock music from British wünderkids.

But seriously, just listen to the mind-blowing Vicious Traditions. You have to give it all the way to just about the end to take in the grandiose crescendo that is basically the entire song. Or there's the melodically-epic The Leavers Dance. I asked Finn to play that song when I saw them with about eight other people at a bar in St. Louis but he didn't want to go there. I get it.

Ok, electrical and our basement. For real now. After plunking down a hundred bucks for a 1000W 120v Cadet heater, we now have a little more heat in our basement. The light is pretty much unchanged.

S has gotten old enough that he now goes downstairs to play with the toys we've always kept down there. During winter though it hovers around sixty degrees. There are only two furnace registers, both of which are up near the ceiling: one in the wax-slash-gear room and the other near the door to the garage, around the corner from the playroom.

So I spent the afternoon installing this little bad boy to make it more comfortable.

Step 1: turn off power at the breaker.

I'm not sure which two circuits the dual-pole 20A breaker serves, but I could only find three outlets it switched off. That's good since I was planning on inserting the 1000W heater into the circuit.

Step 2: cut some holes in the wall and run the required electrical cables.

Side note #1: in my big electrical bin I still have the cardboard templates I made for various electrical boxes and cans many, many years ago. Sometimes I impress myself.

Side note #2: it seems electrical cable has gotten exponentially more expensive than I remember it. I paid nearly $30 for fifteen feet of 12-2. Sheesh.

Side note #3: since the mounting box for the heater is meant to mount directly to the stud and there was a cable running down it to the outlet below, I had to get clever (see the middle photo above). My solution was to rip down two scraps of 1/8" plywood and tuck the cable in between them. The mounting box would screw into that and the stud to which they were glued.

I tied into the live wire going into the outlet just below the cutout for the heater and ran that cable up through the mounting box to where I'd install the thermostat. Then ran another length of the 12-2 from the thermostat location to the heater box.

Step 3: the electrical was straightforward and I was quickly finished. I fit in the heater unit and flipped the breaker back on to test. When I walked past it I felt heat. Weird.

Also, something else had appeared in the short time it took me to run out to the garage to flip on the breaker…

What the!? 

Well, it's really nice to walk down there and not feel like we've walked into a fridge. It's toasty. Now maybe I'll put the Runaway Found on our turntable. Or watch Mr. Brooks with K.