ECN Forum Forums Photo Discussion Forums Photos for General Discussion Not a good start to the day.

I was called to a house last week that had a wierd kind of twist to it.
The lady of the house complained that some things in the house were working and other things weren't.
I checked the switch-board (Panel) and opened it up, all new wiring in there.
She then mentioned they had the house rewired about 2 years ago.
I then removed a socket in the kitchen to check for voltage and found old brittle, dry Tough-Rubber-Sheathed wire.
I switched off the Mains and took off a light fitting, same thing, rubber!.
I got up in the roof with a torch and this was the first thing in there that I saw:



There were actually 2 of these boxes up there, with new Tough Plastic Sheathed cables going in to the boxes and Rubber leaving them.
The TPS cables came from the switch-board and went no further than them junctions.
Cheap-skate sparkies had done a quick re-wire alright!.
I told the lady what I had seen and she rang the Electrician back, she wasn't too impressed!.

I almost got stuck with that once. Someone allready had a new panel and wiering in pipe. Checked out when pricing looked ok. The outside meter was never done and had problems. I did the outside service and everything looked fine but the inspector found a mess like that in the attic. The homeowner wanted me to include that with the service. NO WAY. He would not pay more so GOOD BYE.

Tom

I got into the biz re-wiring my house. Found a bunch of the old linen/rubber wiring, that had ozoned to useless for the last 3-6" in each box. Inside the pipe was fine, of course.

When they upgraded as part of a grant back in the 80's, they installed a new CB panel to replace the 60A fusebox.

They upgraded with brand new THHN... right up to the first 1900, where it transitioned into the old wiring.

Never bothered to upgrade the circuit arrangement, either. A 1600 ft2 house operating on 3 circuits?

Now you can understand why a proper service change can take a week to do!
There's more to a service change than going to the home center, buying a panel, then replacing the fuse box. Too often, each (overfused) circuit has to be replaced by three breakers, or more. I have seen homes that had all the 110 off one fuse, and all the 220 (stove, dryer, water heater) from another pair.

I try to break off all the obvious dedicated loads- furnace, a/c, fridge, etc. Nevertheless, I often find myself called back to further separate circuits. Those 15 amp breakers are obviously not as 'good' as the old 30 amp fuses!

What is beginning to alarm me are the self-appointed "experts" who want you to see just how easy it is to replace a breaker!