All the devilish details

The house work continues: wiring, mostly, and some plumbing.

Wiring is kinda fun (for me, since I am not the one who had to figure out where all of the wires need to go. I just help shove it through holes in the wall. D.H. had the headache of actually figuring out the details, but he seems to enjoy that sort of thing). However, he has sore shoulders, because he has to keep holding the drill above his head to drill holes through the ceiling joists to put the wires through.

The drill is a massive, heavy thing, but it drills holes beautifully. Since there are some places where it had to drill through four two-by-fours set together, it needed to be quite a powerful device, and despite the weight, D.H. has been blessing it, and his foresight in acquiring it. He has also inquired whether I really need lights in the closets. Yes. Any other questions?

The water heater is now installed, but there are several gadget-y things that need to be ordered so they can be wired in: A ceiling fan, bathroom fan, smoke detectors, etc. The damn fire sprinklers (which require plumbing, not wiring), but nonetheless, they need to go in asap. Which may be a problem.

Last time D.H. called the man to get started on designing the sprinkler system, he said someone (???) had accidentally wiped his hard drive, and he'd get back to us when he could.

This is not reassuring. How does one accidentally wipe a hard drive?

Meanwhile, I commenced researching smoke detectors, which also was not reassuring. Last night, I ranted to D.H. about the apparently poor quality of all modern smoke detectors. This morning, our smoke detector went off for no apparent reason at 6 a.m.. D.H. said it heard me bad-mouthing its kind.

I told you they're lousy.

One improvement, however, is that you can now buy ones that shout "Fire!!" at you, instead of that infernal beeping which has permanently traumatized the terrier. I want that kind. D.H. is proving recalcitrant (he says hearing a strange voice shouting "fire," in the middle of the night sounds pretty traumatizing to him. I say having a fire in the middle of the night -- or any other time -- would be pretty damn traumatizing, and being beeped at would not improve my ability to concentrate on what to do about it). But then, he's recalcitrant by nature, so we'll see.

 If I (and the terrier) never have to hear another damn ear-splitting beep, it will be too soon. The one in the trailer is mounted right by the stove and goes off every time something browns in a frying pan. We've devoted hours to perfecting the art of preventing it from going off. D.H. also suggests that not mounting the smoke alarm next to the stove seems a sensible way to help prevent false alarms.

I also want the kind that you can shout "Shut! Up!" at, to silence, instead of abandoning your burning onions (thus risking an actual fire), to run locate the mute button. And a step ladder, if you, ahem, are short. Apparently, there is such a thing as a voice command detector, although I don't know if you get to program in the exact silencing command.

And yes, of course I talk to (and rudely shout at) my household installations; doesn't everyone?

As to what to Do about this hypothetical fire ... well, the usual thing is to have ladders attached to the sills of the upper windows that you toss out and climb down. This strikes both of us as a dubious prospect. Especially when we're half asleep and trying to climb down what seems an immense height, while clutching squirmy, unhappy dogs and cats. A slide has been proposed, but that does seem a tad ... impractical. See, this is why we need those damn fire sprinklers.