What causes a wall outlet in your house......

[ggdad1951]

ahh the glory of short cuts taken by the PO.  I've found a few at my new place.  Also hate the stab connectors, if I find one I pull the duplex and do it right.  HATE, HATE, HATE the stabs, but it's quick and easy for those wiring.  And as for doubling up wires...in the "new" place the PO TRIPLE wired onto a screw in one spot I found, ran 3 different circuits into ONE breaker, and used 14 GA wire on a 20A breaker....but hey it was cheaper and "easier"...moron...

[Grdpa's 50 Dodge]

IF an insurance company gets a whiff of knob and tube wiring in an older house they will cancel coverage in a heartbeat.  In mine MOST of the wiring was in the attic and dropped down from above for switches and outlets.  When they decided to splice off an existing they just bared the wire and wrapped another wire around it, no box, no solder, no nuts, barely a minimum of tape.  AND the whole house ceiling lights, the outlets and switches were on ONE circuit.  Thats how they did stuff back then.  No frigs,no vacums,no hair dryers.  Just didnt NEED much more than one small bare bulb hanging from ceiling in one room or so.

 

Electrician gave me a huge estimate to rewire and was probably too low compared where it should end up.  He said you dont have to be an electrician to run your own wires, label them and I will hook up the ends.  I put in many extra outlets and 3 way switches for rooms with 2 doors, new box and mountings and the end bill was peanuts.  Dont put up with K and T for any amount of days.  I did this whole house in less than a week and that was working ALL BY MYSELF.  If I had someone who could fog a mirror, or even a small child that could grab a loose wire(all dead unconnected wires) it would have cut time in half easy.  I had to crawl up, push wire or fish wire then crawl down, oops not there,crawl up, move try again.  LONG ORDEAL!!  You can do it!!

[Dan Hiebert]

Household wiring is nowhere near as mysterious as many make it out to be.  Good job doing it yourself!  The last two houses we lived in were nightmares when it came to doing any electrical.  One was built in 1946 and was "updated" before we bought it, but all they updated was the service panel.  The next was built in 1955, and had three extensions put on it that the Three Stooges must have done the electrical for.  The one we're in now makes up for it, built in 1980 by an engineer with attention to detail, 200 amp service (which we'd never had before) with a 32 space service panel, so there's enough circuits that none are close to being overloaded, and spares for any hare brained ideas I may get.

[1950 Special Deluxe]

I was on a Service Call one time at a previous job.

I was sent to a trailer park to check out a mobile home that had lost power to an addition that had been added to the side of It.

I started to check a few things and discovered that whoever had wired the addition had used cut up extension cords.

I traced the wiring thru the addition and ended up in the space below the addition, it was built about 3 feet above the ground to match the mobile home.

I found that this space was used for storage and they had recently put some more boxes in storage.

When the new boxes were pushed in, they had knocked the end of the extension cord wiring from the existing outside plug on the mobile home.

The whole addition was wired with cut up extension cord and then plugged into the side of the mobile home, running off a 15 amp breaker.

I plugged the cord back in and power was restored.

I explained the call to my boss and left it up to him to advise the owner.

 

 

[DonaldSmith]

Wiring through the years.  

 

My house was built in the 20's.  

 

6-circuit fuse box in a kitchen wall cabinet, flexible metallic conduit.  

Updated panel in the basement, (1950's?) circuit breakers,  large breakers for range and to feed the old panel, 15-amp for newer circuits.  Non-metallic-sheathed cables. 

 Newer 100-amp panel a few years ago, large breakers for range and other panels; several newer circuits.  Newer cable, with thinner but better insulation.  

 

Wire connections - soldered back in the day,  wire nuts lately.  Old ceiling boxes flush with the plaster, with the wiring connections housed in the fixture canopies.  New recessed boxes.  

 

Wall switches  with ceramic bodies,  supplanted by thinner plastic assemblies,with all manner of gadgets.  GFCI outlets guarding circuits.  Dimmer switches.

Incandesent bulbs, fluorescent tubes, compact fluorescent lamps (junk!), LEDs.  

   

[Young Ed]

14 hours ago, Grdpa's 50 Dodge said:

IF an insurance company gets a whiff of knob and tube wiring in an older house they will cancel coverage in a heartbeat. 

 

The house we bought last year could barely get insurance just because it had fuses instead of breakers!

[DonaldSmith]

I put several mini-breakers in the original fuse box.  

[Merle Coggins]

26 minutes ago, Young Ed said:

 

The house we bought last year could barely get insurance just because it had fuses instead of breakers!

 

When I bought my house in Waukesha, in 2001, I could get insurance on it, but I had to have the fuse panel replaced with a modern breaker panel within 6 months or they'd drop me. A co-worker's brother was a licensed electrician that did side jobs on the weekends. He pulled the necessary permit and replaced my panel for about 1/2 the cost it would have been through an electrical contractor.

[Young Ed]

6 hours ago, Merle Coggins said:

 

When I bought my house in Waukesha, in 2001, I could get insurance on it, but I had to have the fuse panel replaced with a modern breaker panel within 6 months or they'd drop me. A co-worker's brother was a licensed electrician that did side jobs on the weekends. He pulled the necessary permit and replaced my panel for about 1/2 the cost it would have been through an electrical contractor.

We ended up with some weird company that was really expensive. Even with just hiring an electrician straight up the work paid for itself in two years with the $500 a year insurance drop.