I can only try,
Thank you for your clear, accurate, informative advice. It is (literally) a lifesaver.
We live in a 1908 house. A few years back the original-issue galvanized steel plumbing in the bathroom gave up the ghost. We had a contractor come in to redo the whole thing. I got a call one day “Could you drop by on your lunch hour? We need to talk about a change-order.”
When I got there he had the electrician. The electrician was deep inside the wall which connects the bathroom and my man-cave/study. They showed me how the outlets and lights in my study were in series with a light light in the closet. The juice only flowed when the light was on. There was no light bulb. The outlets only got power because someone had wedged an old shotgun shell under the switch to create a partial short.
Just about the first words out of the contractor were “Please, please, please let us fix this. Otherwise, when the house burns down and you die I won’t be able to make any more money off you.”
I think I broke a few important laws of physics with how fast I signed the change-order….