Randy (Losatazhell)

Is that white stuff zip-cord going into the boxes?! I know the yellow one looks like a flat three-conductor extension cord...

Why do i get the impression that that panel in the last picture is inside a bathroom?

Good (bad) pics!

Is the flex in Pic. 2 going to a fitting, or it is just terminated inside the box somehow, or is it hidden by the box cover? (noticing the conduit connector beside, and nothing near the flex)

There's a panel in one of those pictures?

Oh, wait, there it is! I didn't see it because they disguised it as a rats nest!

-John

I think thats white Romex, Sven.

Sven... The "white stuff" is indeed 14/2 Romex.. You also win the "eagle eye" award... That panel is indeed in a bathroom! Story is, that the bathroom was created from what "was" once part of the back porch.. Hence, the original location of the fuse box when this 1928 house was built...
I'm curious how long it's been illegal to have a panel in a bathroom... since the homeowner states the bathroom was there when he bought the house in 1952 & so was the fuse box... A relative installed the Murray subpanel sometime in the early 90's..
The cloth ground wire entering the back of the panel through the hole goes down under the house & "wraps" around a water pipe!

Doug... There is a flex connector there.. the disconnect cover overlaps the can a little.. No ground in the flex BTW...

-Randy

The sticker in picture #2 should say "Turn off power before working inside or outside"
Actually "Turn off power" might be better.

Picture #3 shows what to do if you forgot your pipe stretcher at home.

Picture #4 shows what happens if your pipe stretcher is out of adjustment.


steve

Randy: What are they using for a power source to the bathroom panel? All I can see is a pair of wires (blue and white) coming out of the end of a 1/2" piece of iron pipe stuck through the top of the can.
I guess they only needed half the panel energized...?

Mike (mamills)

Mike,
That IS whats feeding it... & that feeds the ENTIRE house! Except for the garage..
The other end of the #6THHN is coming from something similar to this


It comes from one pole of a "multi-breaker" (rated 35A!) & feeds one phase on that subpanel, thus why the 3rd cb is skipping spaces..

-Randy

Sparked said:


Oh okay. My bad. Yeah if I look closely enough I can see that it's NM (especially in the first of the two shots that show the cable going into the box).

Thing is, I'm so used to seeing people use white 16-AWG/type SPT-2 cord as fixed surface-mount wiring that if I see white cable with that groove running down the middle the first thing that pops into my head is zip cord.

The fact that we don't use NM cable in most New York City construction also doesn't help.

P.S. Local code ammendments require type BX cable on multi-story buildings (I think more than two or three stories, I'll check tonight) and obviously commercial structures.

Ask them if the toilet is the same one. Then look under the lid to the water tank. Usually the date is stamped there

Thinkgood...
As I remember the commode wasn't that old.. But the Square D Multi Breaker panel was on the outside wall of the bathroom here, leading me to believe that the bathroom has more than likely been there for quite some time... Didnt the Multi-Breakers come out in the 30's or 40's?

Sven...
I heard NM-B wasn't allowed in NYC... Period!

-Randy

My house (prefab) was built in 1943 and had couple of SQ D multibreaker panels in the kitchen. The XO line succeeded the multibreaker, and then the Cutler-Hammer CH and SQ D QO replaced the XO, my guess about 1960.

The customer requested to 86 the panel in the bathroom,& get rid of the multibreaker setup (Along with taking care of some of the easier stuff in the pics)

Wellll, suprise! suprise!.. Installed the new service & reran 3 circuits to the bathroom subpanel & rendered it into a J-box... Beings that the house was running on 1 phase for God know's how long, the homeowner never noticed that 2 circuits were looped together! That is, until now we wired them to separate phases & the backfeed causes a 240V short..

Needless to say, this isn't a good situation so I proposed to find a location to split things apart... The only tie-together I could find was in a severely overpacked 4/O box in the same bathroom that had the panel (cloth wiring in this thing has had it!.. I capped off one of the wires & put everything back....
Now the kitchen light doesn't work... I open it, another jammed pack box full of deteriorated cloth wire, some romex & a couple later added flexes.. I redo a couple loose, taped up connections & now I have a situation where if I connect a neutral going to the bedroom lights, their refrigerator shuts down, If I leave it open, the fridge comes back, but I have no bed/other bathroom lights!!

I've already thrown the rewire angle at them & they don't seem to have the money for it.. (They NEED it drastically!) but how far do I have to go into this place now! I can't walk away from an unsafe situation like this, if not just for liability since my hands have been in everything, but my own conscience if something bad were to happen! All I did was cap off a wire that was backfed from another circuit & redo some old "soldered at one time, now crusty & dangerous" connections!
AAARRRRGGGHH!!!!
If this house had NEVER been screwed with & still had the original 20's wiring complete & intact, I would've figured this out easy.. But John Q HACK has to think he knows something & screw up the works! I've gone in the attic trying to follow things... about 12 J-boxes scattered in an area about 25'X 20' flexes, romexes, shooting everywhere! (at least there were covers & straps on what could be seen) but piecing this thing into a safe & working installation is'nt going to be fun!

-Randy

Correct about the NM-B in NYC. I heard that one of the reasons was the proliferation of rodents...

Randy,

Whenever I do residential, if I see any serious hazards or violations (usually one in the same) that are not within the scope of the work I've been asked to do, I make a note of them in writing, where they are and why they're dangerous. If there are a number of violations, I try to order them by the severity of the hazard they present, most dangerous first.

At the bottom is a little paragraph that says those problems need to be immediately addressed to insure the safety of the building and the safety of the occupants.

I make two copies, sign and date both, have the home owner sign and date one which I keep and give them the second copy.

I tell them they do not, by any means, have to employ me do the work, but that the problems need to be professionally addressed as soon as possible for purposes of safety.

That puts the ball totally in their court. It's my experience that rarely do people truly not have the money to make these repairs, that's just not what they'd opt to spend it on.

-John


[This message has been edited by BigJohn (edited 04-23-2004).]

Big John...
Thank you for the advice! I have done that on several occasions by noting things on our hand-written contracts & having the customer sign that they acknowledge what I have brought to their attention & they are declining repair/remedy of the situation, even though there is a fire &/or electrocution issue which is in need of professional attention. The thing that was bad here was that I wanted only to split the 2 circuits apart... NOTHING in the wiring in that house made any sense... I went out there again this morning with a clear mind & a nights sleep under my belt.. The circuit was looped together in 4 places... I repulled alot of the cloth wire with THHN & added ground wires... I found some wiring that just disappeared into walls, going to nothing.. I found wiring that was grounded out someplace, but was wired hot before I arrived! Demo'ed that & put things back together the way you or I would normally do & things worked again. Theres still some overcrowding in a few boxes I didn't get into,& some "built in a barn" issues with some of the lighting... but 5 extension rings, about 100' of THHN, & a few wirenuts later... I'll sleep a hell of alot better.

-Randy

PS... Looking at this place & the area, I'd be inclined to believe the lack of funds vs. the rewire issue... This part of LA doesn't have people living there because they WANT to live there, if you know what I mean!

[This message has been edited by Lostazhell (edited 04-23-2004).]

Randy,
I know exactly what you mean about the bodged-up extensions made by those who really don't know what they're doing.

I see plenty of homes in my area which have obviously been completely rewired in the 1950s, but there are many unorthodox extensions that have clearly been added from the 1980s onward.

Working on the old 1950s wiring would be fine, if it were not for the modern twist-&-tape splices, extension cord wiring, bridged neutrals across circuits, etc., turning what should be a simple 2-hr job into a 2-day rewire exercise.

Paul....
I wish I'd taken more pics out there! I could've kept everyone at ECN entertained for a few weeks! The biggest problem was something the homeowner told me.. Someone came in & redid one of the bathrooms... someone else came in & redid the kitchen... someone else came in & wired a patio in... & before all of these guys, someone turned the back porch into another bathroom... So many different people that weren't actual "code-following electricians" had their hands in things around this house... None of them ever had a clue about what the other person did..(& obviously didn't care) No one ever bothered to say "You might need a few more circuits before we can do these things." Instead, the same 3 circuits ran this house for 80+ years! The homeowner doesn't know any better.. He's not tripping breakers since he's running basically on a 40A 120V "ring circuit" so everything seems fine to him... Myself & another journeyman STILL don't know what the purpose of ½ the things we came across was.. We did thankfully come across an arcing connection in one of the bedroom light fixtures before it became serious

People that simply understand how to make something "work" are the most dangerous people out there! I feel bad for this old couple that own this house! I've offered them a pretty good deal on a complete, "gut EVERYTHING & start over to 2002 NEC" rewire.. & I even tried to get them on the bandwagon for a few dedicated circuits for bathrooms & kitchen counters now that they have a panel that'll allow them some expansion. As it is... The majority of the house is on 1 circuit... We split the "ring" so that the kitchen would be on the other, while the last circuit is handling the washer/dryer (together FLA = 19.5! I know, they should be separated also for continuous duty) But I'm hoping this homeowner thinks twice before letting a "kitchen remodeler or bathroom remodeler" touch his wiring!

-Randy

PS Suprisingly, I didn't find one extension cord wired into that house! I did find a romex that fed a recept behind their TV, that in turn popped out of the floor in a bedroom with a cordcap & plugged in there!

I once did side work with a guy like that. Dealing with K&T, and as long as the appliance started or the light turned on he didn't care that he might be overloading neutrals or paralleling or putting things in series; whatever.

Got really P.O.ed that I wouldn't just connect stuff to the first available conductors that "made it work".

-John

BigJohn...
That reminds me of someone my company sent along with me to check on his skills... I'd barely picked him up, hadn't even gotten on the freeway & he started telling me how he changed all his kitchen breakers to 30A... Made a U-turn & dropped him right back home Never saw him again!

-Randy

[This message has been edited by Lostazhell (edited 04-24-2004).]