Many thanks, indeed, ilimzn. Let me add my thanks to Goldie's, whose first paragraph says it better than I could. I greatly appreciate your very thorough explanations, and your willingness to share your extensive experience. I especially appreciate that you took the care to explain about the differences about protections in the low current (nominally, at least) circuits vs. the high power circuits, and the power rating considerations if replacing fusibles with standard. I've learned a lot from your post.
That's a pretty nifty crimper!
Good luck on the house additions. Your local volcano was a shield volcano (think Hawaii, Iceland, and not Mt. St. Helens) and as such will be mostly if not entirely of flows rather than loose pyroclastics. Flows generally should provide very secure footings as long as your contractor avoids the major joints/fractures that virtually all flows develop as or shortly after they cool from magma. In your case, that was several 10's of million years ago.