Ceiling-fans

Over the 20 years we’ve lived in this house, most of our rooms have had bare bulbs.
We had specced ceiling-fans for each room, but the cost of our house was escalating out of sight, so we installed only one ceiling-fan.
All the other rooms were set up and supposedly wired for ceiling-fans, but we decided we’d install them later.
That is, the bare-bulb fixtures were in circuit-boxes tied to ceiling joists; i.e. the circuit-boxes could support ceiling-fans.
The one ceiling-fan we installed had two circuits; one for the light, and one for the fan.
Apparently all the other rooms were wired with only one circuit, which was okay, since current ceiling-fans have two internal pull-switches; one for the light, and one for the fan.
Our house was constructed brand-new in 1989.
It’s a special design we designed ourselves.
It’s super-insulated with foot-thick exterior walls.
It’s extravagantly insulated with 23 (I think) inches of blown fiberglass insulation atop the eight-foot interior ceilings.
I.e. no cathedral ceilings — which waste heat.
There isn’t much heat-load.
With all that insulation, most of the heat stays inside.
We aren’t heating the outdoors.
Same with cooling.
We don’t have to turn on the central air-conditioning until mid-June.
Outdoor temperatures have frequently already exceeded 80 degrees.
Our house was built by a contractor I felt I could work with.
It wasn’t built by us.
I was intimately involved in its construction.
Quite often it was me and the contractor working out construction details.
The plywood shell still has Magic-Marker lines I marked inside to explain how the double-wall was to be built.
I don’t know as our contractor made much money building our house, but I saw him driving a new pickup truck later.
Ours was the last house he ever built.
He was always too accommodating, unlike other contractors who would tell you to get stuffed.
We also owned what he had built.
We weren’t buying a finished house from him. We were paying him as he went along.
I.e. we owned the house and land.
Usually it’s the contractor who owns the house and land.
In which case he can sell to someone else.
Beyond that he was a poor manager.
His crew could be lazy layabouts.
We got running reports from our neighbor-to-be about the crew sitting and doing nothing.
We or he would show up and his crew would spring into action.
Only one guy on his crew was conscientious.
Our house is mainly him, that is the finish-details therein.
The contractor’s electrician was a youngish dude who had done stuff for him before.
I specced all the wiring to avoid costly wiring later.
There was confusion.
Our overhead porch-light only works from the garage; the switch inside our house turns on a flood.
A lot of the lights have multiple switches, so they can be turned on from both ends of a room.
Or off from bedside.
We had specced five ceiling-fans, but could only afford one.
So we had four unused ceiling-fan fixtures.
A stroke intervened making post-construction finishing of our house almost impossible.
We were going to finish our porch-decking ourselves, plus build a deck and steps behind our house.
I had built a deck at our old house in Rochester.
The porch deck got finished before my stroke, but the railing still had to be done.
Doing so became one of my stroke rehabilitation projects; it involved extravagant analysis — brain-work.
I managed to pull it off successfully; it doesn’t look like it was built by a stroke-survivor.
It came out so well the stroke rehab place had a picture of it up for some time; an example of my so-called “miraculous” recovery.
To my mind it was more orneriness, wanting it to look professional.
A while ago we had a contractor install steps off our back porch.
It looks okay, but compared to what I did it’s a cheap-shot.
The rungs are side-nailed; mine are direct.
And I had to pre-drill the nail-holes so the rungs wouldn’t split.
Some of the side-nailed rungs are split.
I scoped out ceiling-fans on the Internet.
Hunter Fans has a site.
Our single fan was a Hunter; it looked great.
Supposedly Hunter makes the best ceiling-fans.
I went to Mighty Lowes in Canandaigua to check out their ceiling-fans.
They had Hunter, as well as 89 bazilyun other brands.
As always, the old stroke waazoo always applies; difficulty interacting with people — in this case the salesman.
“I need to talk to someone about ceiling-fans,” I said.
“Well that would be me.”
I’d managed to ask the head of hardware.
“I need four fans,” I said. “One 52-inch and three 44-inch.”
The project would be an “install.” Apparently a Lowes-authorized contractor would come out and install the fans.
“We’ll first need to inspect the circuit-boxes, if they can support ceiling-fans.”
“I think they were specified for that,” I said; “but I’m not sure. That was 20 years ago.”
“Our contractor will call.”
One did, but abstained from the inspection which only paid $35.
“I can’t afford it,” he said.
A second contractor called, claiming he could do the inspection for only $35.
“All I hafta do is look at one box.”
He came, but I hit him with two other projects; “if you can.”
One was to replace all our outdoor fixtures, which were rusty, and second was to replace a broken fluorescent fixture over our cellar stairway.
That cellar fixture is so hard to get at, I’d let an electrician do it.
Replacing that single fixture might cost 89 bazilyun dollars.
I figured it would cost way less if my ceiling-fan electrician did it.
Including the fans, the four outdoor fixtures, plus the cellar fixture, is nine installs in one visit.
Start piecing it out one visit per fixture, and it costs a fortune.
So we ordered everything at Mighty Lowes, and the other day (Saturday, October 9, 2010) their electrician came to install.
My wife likes it; “for once we don’t look like a hospital.”
$1,561.99 charged to our credit-card.
“I’m trying to do all these things before you expire, if it’s you first,” I said.
My wife has cancer, although it’s supposedly manageable.
She doesn’t look or act like she has cancer.
We’re both 66, which surprises people.

• “We” (“our”) is me and my wife of almost 43 years, “Linda.”
• I had a stroke October 26, 1993.
• “Mighty Lowes” is Lowes, a nationwide home-supply chain. They have a large store in Canandaigua. (“Canandaigua” [“cannon-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city to the east nearby where we live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” —It’s about 15 miles away.)