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My home built in 1952 in NYC uses the cloth BX with no bonding wire. It's all being ripped out now, replaced with minimum #12 BX even though NYC code now allows Romex. Surprisingly though, the house had 100A service (Murray) with breakers, only 12 of them, which needless to say got a lot of trip use.

There are 4" boxes (also now gone) above every ceiling fixture serving as J-Boxes for receptacles, other lighing fixtures... everything, a real mess. The insulation in the boxes are so bad you can strip it all off with nothing more than your fingers! The insides of these boxes show signs of excess heat, and perhaps even arcing. There were FEW home runs that my Fluke meggar DIDN'T find bad.

I can't imagine other homes in the area being any better. Surprised there aren't fires. Whats worse, is many folks are adding on second stories without ripping out the old stuff, covering over J-boxes previously accessible in the former attics. Hate to be the one to have to troubleshoot the inevitable problems this old wiring will pose in the future. Wonder how this stuff passes? And it always seems to.

I thought I got the shock of my life (no pun intended) when I saw a few runs with those evil silver colored conductors. I said to myself no way, aluminum wasn't used in branch wiring in the 1950's. Apparently, it was some kind of aluminum or silver "coated" copper, as the center of the conductor was indeed solid copper. Not that it makes any difference now with most all of it ripped out, but has anyone ever seen that kind of BX with the silver/aluminum coated conductors?

Something tells me in 20 or 30 years (perhaps less) a lot of sparkys will be laughing about all the miles of CAT5 wiring houses now have today.

Joe

HEY Joe!
I have seen that BX to which you are reffering to... Many times!
If I remember correct my X G/F's apartment building was full of it... It was a steel armour cable with cloth covered rubber with a tin plated copper conductor and it might of had a bonding "strip" inside.. I guess at that time it wasnt bad BUT I noticed it started to break down, the rubber is literally drying out, cracking and falling off so changing out fixtures or devices gets really tricky... I guess the building to have been built in the mid to late 50's or early 60's because I also found Romex in some of the walls that contained grounds BUT there were ungrounded 2-pronger outlets installed, as well as all sorts of odditiesthroughout the building from that time period.

A.D

Cambric is cloth Tom. It's usually in decent shape in outlets, but it deteriorates with heat. Also the light is the major juncion box in the room and usually a small pan box. Sometimes you pull on the wires & all the insulation flakes off so you're left with a batch of bare wires.

The Dole Mansion with addition was the property of First Congregational Church of Crystal Lake for the past 20 or so years. Friendship House was the day care center...our children went there and we're members of FCC. The day care, church offices, banquet hall and third floor rooms were all in the large addition.

No halfway house. I don't know about community service, but the daycare had security entrance & fencing. The mansion itself was not occupied. I did some wiring in the day care center, but not the mansion. It would be a black hole for time.

It was recently sold to Lakeside Legacy and major repairs have been made with donated money, with a huge amount donated by Sage, a local company. It has a new roof with copper gutters and interesting carpentry details.

Dave

If I'm not mistaken, the old copper was nickel plated.

I have a quick and easy method for dealing with old, flaky insulation:

Strip a few inches of NM conductor, and push the empty insulation onto the old wire, as far as it will go, then re-strip. If the fit is tight, use insulation one gauge up.

Usually, the splices themselves will keep the sleeves in place, even up inside the sheath/armor. If need be, secure them with a wrap of tape at either the emerging end or the stripped end.