I took today off of work to get some personal stuff done.  I met PG&E up at the barn project and talked to them about my electrical service.  The new guy thinks he can get the service installed without needing to add a pole.  That will save me some money which I’m quite pleased about, but I’ll have to add bracing to the service mast.  The service drop will be 135 feet long, which will put a lot of tension on the cable.

I installed a dishwasher today!  After having lived in this place for nearly eighteen months I finally got fed up with hand washing dishes, and I ordered a Maytag from Sears.  They called me this morning to let me know that it had arrived, and I was able to get home from the barn in time to pick it up and install it in my kitchen.

There’s nothing remarkable about this particular model, it’s a dishwasher that washes dishes.  I did have some trouble finding a unit which has a food grinder like they all used to have instead of a filter that you need to clean manually.  According to the sales guy ultra-quiet operation is a big selling point in dishwashers these days; most manufacturers have switched from grinders to filters in order to reduce noise.  I don’t really care if I can hear it running and with a grinder I never have to clean out the filter.  Ever.  🙂

I discovered in the process of installation that the receptacle under the kitchen sink isn’t wired for a dishwasher. Usually you would wire it so that one side of the outlet is operated by the disposal switch and the other side is always on for the dishwasher.  In my kitchen however they wired it with both sides switched.  For now I just unplugged the disposal and turned the switch on but I’ll want to fix it properly at a later date.