A "contractor" built my house and lived in it for a while. we are the third owners beyond the moron that built this place. everything in this house is, well was, jacked in some way. after 21 years, we have lived here longer than all the other owners put together, and have uncovered and subsequently remedied dozens of half baked head scratchers like Joe's capacitor. house was build in 1983. every time I've had to fix something I discovered a new level of laziness and incompetence. we've replaced all the big things now, but the most moronic and egregious was when we had the roof re-shingled. both the house and garage had long ridge vents made of aluminum. several years before, I discovered a small leak in the roof. I had no trouble finding the problem. ridge vent nailed on the roof through the shingles and sheeting. nail rusted away and left a small hole. I fixed it, but when the roofers tore off those old ridge vents, they discovered that the ridge had cap shingles on it! ridge vents there just for show, apparently, presumably to pass an inspection or something. nobody is dumb enough to do that by accident. if it weren't for the gable vents and perforated soffits all around, we would have had some real ventilation problems in the attic. if you want something done right...