You can buy white (and lots of other colors) electrical tape. It wont hurt to put white tape on the neutrals. When I was working as an electrician, I did that regularly on those old cloth wires. Besides providing the color, it adds a little insulation to keep the cloth intact. If you have any red wires in the panel, put red tape on them too.
you will have to upgrade the main entrance cable, meter can etc, to a heavier cable upgrading from 100 amps to 200 amps.
your project probably requires a permit. with 2 20 amps circuits to the kitchen, removal of all knob and tube wiring. its the kind most frequently covered by cloth.
basically you will need to upgrade to all current rules for a brand new home
what the OP is using power wise can be meaningless.
at home sales time the buyers inspector will flag stuff, like no outlet for future garage door opener
the buyer can ding you sales price, and that costs you money
And changing a bunch of things like that which don't have to be changed, on the theory that a future home inspector of unknown competence, will bitch about it, doesn't cost money?
My wife had the AC on a few days ago
17 degrees a few nights ago. 80 tomorrow.
I remember I had my AC on for Christmas.
If it ever got much below 32 here I would move. 40 is unusual
We have about a 100 degree span over the course of a year. I suspect that has been true of most places I've lived; I can recall close to 100 in Chitown and a low of -26.
Denver was more moderate.
Highs in the low hundreds and lows down to -40 or more, depending on the year here in the "interlaken" region of south central Ontario.
Over the last week alone we've cone from the high sixties above to arounz Zero F in a week.
You don't like the weather here? wate a day or two. You DO like the weather here? Wait 5 minutes, or mabee an hour - - -
snipped-for-privacy@unlisted.moo posted for all of us...
Does anyone believe this guy was an electrician?
I like them but never knew the US name for them. We always called it a chocolate block.
Perhaps not a terribly GOOD one?
Weather here is fairly consistent. Winter is the exception. Our normal lows are usually in the 30's for the FEW coldest nights. But, we get these fluke periods every few years where we'll see several consecutive nights much colder. Our forecast lows the past few nights were 28, 30 and 32. We actually saw 17, 22 and 30.
A few years back, we had four or five consecutive nights in the teens (lost three citrus trees in the process).
Summer shows far less day-night variation; maybe 70 or 80 overnight and 110 during the day.
Monsoon is known for most *rapid* temperature changes -- 20-30F in an hour or so.
Our particular problem is due to local microclimate. We're ~3 degrees colder, in general, than the folks two blocks south of us. Yet, if you drove those two blocks, you'd be hard pressed to understand *why*!
...a lot snipped...
Reminds me of when I built my deck. I had to dig about dozen post holes
4' deep to meet the frost line code. For safety sake, I covered each hole with a scrap of wood as I went along.It was raining the day the inspector came over. He slid one piece of wood off with his foot and asked me "How deep is that hole?"
"At least 4 feet." I said.
He looked around the yard and said "And I'll bet there's a four foot hole under every piece of wood, right?"
"Yep"
"You're good to go. Have a nice day."
my post, pasted
what the OP is using power wise can be meaningless. at home sales time the buyers inspector will flag stuff, like no outlet for future garage door opener he buyer can ding you sales price, and that costs you money.
my point is this. sounds like your clothe covered wiring is likely K&T.
generally not grounded, clothe covered and is not to be insulated around. usually 14 gauge wire but overfused with 20 amp or even 30 amp fuses.
kinda sounds like your home.
you probably need a complete rewire. which is a ton of work. but your original wiring is 70 years old....
anything else you have thats 70 years old?
your vehicle? how about your washer dryer, fridge or stove ??
its easier and cheaper to do it all at once, do it once, do it right, then relax.
now lets assume you have lived in your home for 50 years.. take that times 100 bucks a year.
do you see my point? just face facts, and do the job right.
oh and your new panel buy one with the most breaker slots available, and choose one that allows safe code complaint back feeding.......
might be useful someday
If I recall the OPs original message, the wiring is from the 1950s. K&T was no longer used in the 50's. But the BX cable from that era had cloth covered wire, as well as wire run in conduit, which was common in the
50s (conduit in the basement, BX in the walls).K&T was actually a very safe wiring method. The wires were separated so they could not easily touch each other and the porcelain insulators were a good way to keep wire from direct contact with flammables such as wood. Also connections were all soldered back them. But the drawbacks were a lack of grounding and the fact that the old fuse boxes could use up to a 30A fuse on #14 wire.
A 30A fuse or a penny. ;-)
However, the ability to use a 30A fuses in a fuse box wasn't a drawback of K&T wiring, it was a drawback of fuse boxes. In fact, it was a drawback of fuse boxes that remained long after K&T wiring was abandoned.
In fact, there is nothing to stop the use of a overrated breaker today. That drawback is unrelated to the type of wiring used.
By the 50s I would expect to see the asphalt and paper covered Romex with TW insulation on the conductor. By then BX or AC cable would have TW insulation too. I assumed he was talking about the jacket
My parents house was built in 1951. It had all BX with the cloth insulated wire inside the metal spiral (in the walls). The basement had steel EMT conduit, with a thick plastic coated wire inside which was probably TW. I worked on several homes in the neighborhood, all which were built from 50 to 55. All were wired the same. Romex was not allowed in the city at that time, but I did see some of it in rural areas nearby. It was the asphalt/cloth outer jacket stuff, with TW coated conductors.
In the older part of the city. The wires were all cloth coated wire. Much was K&T, some was the original (Thick) BX. The basement conduit was a threaded steel pipe, more like water pipe, than EMT. (Which was a pain in the ass if it needed to be modified in any way).
But I suppose it was regional. Wiring seems a lot more consistent today.
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