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Posted By: electure House of Horrors - 06/06/04 11:43 AM
Submitted by CT Wireman
He'll explain these


[Linked Image]


[Linked Image]


Take it away, Peter!...S
Posted By: CTwireman Re: House of Horrors - 06/06/04 01:29 PM
Pic 1- Romex embedded in 1/2 inch of plaster. After I took down the light, I grabbed the wire, and down it came!!

Pic 2- Well ventilated octagon box. Every knockout removed. The shabby looking wires on the right emerge from disintegrating AC cable. No connectors obviously.
Posted By: BigJohn Re: House of Horrors - 06/06/04 01:46 PM
Quote
Romex embedded in 1/2 inch of plaster.
I knew an industrial electrician who specialized in that method: Notch drywall to put in some NM-B and then just run a strip of tape and some compound overtop of it.

The H/O sees how easy it is to do, assumes it's code compliant, and suddenly you find that everywhere in the house. [Linked Image]

-John
Posted By: Texas_Ranger Re: House of Horrors - 06/06/04 01:58 PM
Quote
Romex embedded in 1/2 inch of plaster.

Here in Austria that would be an acceptable wiring method, though no one would do that in a plaster & lathe ceiling since it'd be much easier to fish the wires parallel to the joists. One small hole where the wire enters the ceiling and one at the fixture, viola! Done that many times (though I _always_ used flexible pvc conduit). Removed loads of such wiring from our walls here. Old time geniuses here used THHN instead of NM in order to bury it in plaster! _That_ is scary!
Posted By: iwire Re: House of Horrors - 06/06/04 02:04 PM
We are allowed to do that in some instances with the right kind of cable, but we would also need to follow this rule.

Quote
In a shallow chase in masonry, concrete, or adobe protected against nails or screws by a steel plate at least 1.59 mm (1 /16 in.) thick and covered with plaster, adobe, or similar finish
Posted By: CTwireman Re: House of Horrors - 06/06/04 02:05 PM
Oh yeah, forgot to mention, what's really dumb about the NM in plaster is there's a wide open attic above that ceiling! [Linked Image]

The NM was going to a 3-prong outlet down on the wall, which was also pretty stupid considering they tapped it from old AC cable and "forgot" to connect the ground wire to anything.

Bob, I don't think this comes even close to meeting any of those rules. I think out West though, where concrete and adobe houses are pretty common, you would see a lot of this.

[This message has been edited by CTwireman (edited 06-06-2004).]
Posted By: SteveMc Re: House of Horrors - 06/06/04 04:13 PM
No wonder homeowners think it's okay to do this, I saw on one of the home shows the "electrician" running NM under the cove molding around the ceiling for some recessed cans.
Posted By: iwire Re: House of Horrors - 06/06/04 04:35 PM
Peter

Quote
Bob, I don't think this comes even close to meeting any of those rules. I think out West though, where concrete and adobe houses are pretty common, you would see a lot of this.

I agree with you 100% I was mostly responding to Texas Ranger. [Linked Image]

Bob
Posted By: Lostazhell Re: House of Horrors - 06/06/04 04:38 PM
CTwireman wrote:

Quote
I think out West though, where concrete and adobe houses are pretty common, you would see a lot of this.

Cant say I've come across this before! (the embedded romex) ! It's amazing how much work someone can put into doing something the wrong way!
Now on the other hand... The open air rated 4/O box is a California homeownered classic [Linked Image]
-Randy
Posted By: pauluk Re: House of Horrors - 06/06/04 09:10 PM
Cable buried directly in the plaster and only a fraction of an inch below the surface is also very common in many old British houses.

To be code-compliant, the cable needs to be protected by channeling.
Posted By: Texas_Ranger Re: House of Horrors - 06/07/04 04:43 PM
Here the cable is only required to be covered by at least 4mm of plaster. That's _darn_ thin.
Anyway, doing so in a plaster & lathe ceiling is just ridiculous.
But horrors? *shrug*
Posted By: CTwireman Re: House of Horrors - 06/07/04 08:10 PM
Thanks for all the replies. More pics are on the way as soon as Scott posts them, since I forgot to attach all of them the first time.

As far as the "horror" goes, the wiring on every floor of this place (It's a 3-family triple decker) is in equally bad shape.

The good news? It's all being ripped out and replaced.

Peter
Posted By: electure Re: House of Horrors - 06/08/04 01:06 AM
Here they are. [Linked Image]


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[Linked Image]
Posted By: CTwireman Re: House of Horrors - 06/08/04 01:27 AM
Top pic- "fan rated" octagon extension box. Yeah, a fan was actually hanging off that. 2 sheetrock screws holding up the whole mess.

2nd pic. What do you need a box for? Old ac cable feeding a light, with most of the insulation crumbling off. 75 watt bulb in a 60 watt fixture. Insulation removed from top of fixture. I cut the other wire to show everything.

3rd pic- Out of sight, out of mind. Chime transformer sitting in a pile of crap in the attic. I don't even know why they bothered with the box. It's hard to tell, but the cloth insulation on the ancient NM cable left of the box is gone. Even futher to the left, the cable went from partially insulated to not insulated at all. It was down to 2 bare copper conductors sitting in the same dusty mess. [Linked Image] I think some rats chewed it up.

Last pic- another "out of sight, out of mind" found above a suspended ceiling in one of the bathrooms. No explanation required. I think the keyless had a 75 watt bulb in it. Nice and toasty. Besides the obvious, can you spot what else they did?

The sad part of all this is, until recently, all of this was energized and there were low income people living in these apartments. There were lots of other similar problems that I did't get pics of, but you get the idea.

As I said, this is all being ripped out and replaced. The apartments are also being completely renovated in the process, with all new plumbing and heating systems too. Urban renewal at its finest. [Linked Image]

Peter
Posted By: Lostazhell Re: House of Horrors - 06/08/04 05:38 PM
Apartments??? [Linked Image] Are we seeing the works of tenants that did things on their own or a maintenace man gone wrong?? :sad: Maybe this is why renters insurance is so high!
Good to hear this is all going bye bye! [Linked Image]

Great pics Peter! [Linked Image]

-Randy
Posted By: DougW Re: House of Horrors - 06/09/04 03:39 AM
Reminds me of the work I did @ my wife's grandma's 1950's era house prior to replacing the overloaded fusebox (see pics if you want).

About 6 months earlier, we "surprised" Grandma by buying new paint, outlets & switches; also light fixtures and plates in a bright brass finish. Started removing the old fixtures and found wood screws instead of machine screws... (BS alarm starts buzzing).

Dropped fixture, found ceiling, NM cable poking through a 1/2" hole and no box.

(To a Chicago conduit born and bred boy like myself, I was, to put it mildly, a bit surprised...)

Wound up installing the "winged" NM retro ceiling boxes throughout most of the house.
Posted By: CTwireman Re: House of Horrors - 06/15/04 01:07 AM
Randy,

Sorry for the late response. Anyway....by my guess, the last time any work was done by an electrician in this place was sometime in the early '90s.

The crap you see is most likely the result of the slum lord that owned the place. Needless to say, I was pretty horrified when I started doing the demo on the electrical system. The keyless screwed right to the lath is a new one on me.

Just for general interest, the pics taken are in Providence, RI. As anyone from the area knows, many of the homes here are over 70-80 years old with the original wiring still in operation. A large number of homes in the city have wiring in the same bad shape. [Linked Image]

Peter
Posted By: WELLGROUNDED! Re: House of Horrors - 06/15/04 01:38 AM
I live in a newer town home,only 2 yrs old.Being the worrier i am,I inspected the electrical with a fine tooth comb after i had a tripping brkr on my dryer and saw the mantanence man my lovely management sent to repair it.The problem was a week brkr easily fixed (BY ME).What i found later was evidence of prior rentors failed attempts at the trade i know and love.The repairs i made cost me approximately 50$ in mats..I did it all with a smile.Cause I new that sad excuse of a mantanence man wouldn't be visiting me ever again.
Posted By: Lostazhell Re: House of Horrors - 06/15/04 04:48 AM
Ok... I take back never coming across the embedded romex.... I did today! with a strip of duct tape over it, above a fireplace mantle, with glass mirror tiles over it... (rats chewed the wires! [Linked Image] )


-Randy
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