Electrical inspection

[Updated below.] Wednesday afternoon I got a call from the Home Depot District Services Manager saying the electrical inspector would be coming to my home today between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. I also got a call from the electrical contractor saying the electrician would be here between 8 and 10. I called the City of North Miami and tried to get a more specific time of arrival, but they couldn't give me one. So I took today off from work as a vacation day.

The electrician got here at 9:00 (not the same one who was here last Friday) and we waited till almost 2:00 for the inspector. The inspector approved the latest work but then started probing around the recessed lights in the soffit, which were installed over a year ago when I had the ceiling redone. He said recessed lights can no longer be wired with "romex" (a heavy-duty plastic-coated wire, pictured)--and sure enough, these had been.

So, the next step is to schedule a time for the electrician to come back in and rewire the recessed lights, which will entail further damaging the ceiling where the lights are located (i.e., the soffit). As you know, I had spent so much time and energy awhile back correcting the handyman's sloppy details, spackling and sanding and then priming and painting the area with the correct paint.

The inspector will come back when the recessed lights are rewired and the drywall on the walls around the electrical boxes is repaired/replaced. Also, the recessed lights have to be left dangling so the inspector can see that they've been rewired properly--with flexible metal conduit. Meanwhile, I may loosen the recessed light housings from the soffit myself in an effort (maybe futile) to minimize the damage. We'll see. They're stuck to the drywall with paint.

P.S. Last night I (almost) painted the rest of the kitchen ceiling. (I ran out of paint.) It's ready for the fan to be installed, however.

Friday update: I've decided to score the drywall around the rims of the light housings with a razor blade or X-acto knife, cutting through the layers of paint and primer. Thus the electrician should be able to pull the housing out without taking my new paint job with it.

I didn't hear anything from anybody today about coming back in and doing more electrical work, etc.