Electric circuits in old houses--the Random Approach

Thanks for the comments. It could have been one multi-wire circuit. I didn't trace out all of the connections and its been a few years - about 4 years since I respliced the last neutral.

However, the problems happened repeatedly in 4 different houses - three homes were owned by me and one was a neighbor's.

In most cases, when the neutral opened, one or more outlets simply went dead.

In one case however, when a neutral opened, the return current tried flowing thru the BX ground, got to a light switch box where the clamp screws may have been loose, made the switch cover plate screws hot and scorched the wall. Luckily there was no greater fire. That's went I went into high speed mode replacing the soldered neutral pigtails in as many houses as possible.

I went room by room in each house, checked every visible switchbox, outlet box or junction box. ALL of the junctions were made in the boxes for the overhead lghts.

In the time since, there has never seemed to be a neutral overload issue.

Doug

Reply to
Doug
Loading thread data ...

\\ just got rid of my old van it had 400,000 miles on it. great vehicle...

everything wears out, please list stuff that lasts 80 years or more......

come on I dare you!

Reply to
hallerb

On *one* engine/tranny?? What make? Call'em up, get yourself on TV!

Reply to
Proctologically Violated©®

Plus you can add all the necessary switches and outlets necessary today. K&T often had just ONE outlet per room, totally inadquate today.....

Reply to
hallerb

It occurs at much lower frequencies than that. I'm retired from NASA, and worked on the electrical system for the Space Station. The original power plan was for 20 Khz power at 160 volts, and we had numerous testbeds running 20 Khz switchgear and instrumentation. It most definitely exhibits surface effect. The most efficient wires we tested were thin, flat ribbons about 2 inches wide and maybe 0.010" thick. They were stacked together for higher amperages, each ribbon insulated from the others.

On of the claimed advantages of the 20 Khz power was safety, the current would flow around the outside of an astronaut if they contacted a live conductor.

-- Dennis

Reply to
DT

trouble with crimps if something needs changed you may not be able to get the crimp apart necessitating wiring replacement. some leave no spare cable at all, i hate that

Reply to
hallerb

And probably NO outlets in the bathroom.

Reply to
Mark Lloyd

I'm not aware of where frequencies, other than 60Hz, are specifically covered in the NEC. There are tables for wire reactance at 60Hz which would not apply. Power other than 60Hz (or 50Hz, some 25Hz still?) is probably rare and would be engineered. There are some NEC provisions for harmonics.

There used to be a NEC correction table for converting DC resistance to

60Hz "AC resistance". For wires not in metal conduit I think that is primarily skin effect. The table was in the 1978 NEC, removed by the 1990 NEC. A few values wire size correction multiplier 1 1. 0000 1.004 500MCM 1.018 2000MCM 1.233

The correction is under 2% at 500MCM which is really big wire.

-- bud--

Reply to
Bud--

I have some clocks that are over 250 years old. They run fine.

-- Doug

Reply to
Douglas Johnson

Doug:

Yikes. So apparently some connection came loose , the neutral touched the box, and BX showed one of its endearing properties? Of course K&T and old Romex aren't grounded, so the box would just have been live, and maybe electrocuted somebody, instead of possibly going unnoticed long enough to burn the house down. So the choice that these three old wiring methods seems to give in this situation is between diurnal electro- cution and nocturnal incineration. There's a Hobson's choice for the insurance actuaries. :(

It still puzzles me that only the neutrals failed. Very curious. Some kind of de facto or de stulte multiwire circuit is all I can think of, unless the original installer just didn't think neutrals mattered. Ideas anyone?

Cordially yours: G P

Reply to
pawlowsk002

I've never heard tell of such an action in all my days. Maybe a picture or two from the outside, but that's it.

Reply to
Steve Barker LT

I know of 3 people who went thru this, one was denied insurance completely home had really bad roof....

One had to replce their K&T wiring and rebuild their porches....

One was required to replace their sidewalk, tree roots had lifted slabs, it was a trip hazard.

state farm will not insure homes with K&T I asked the other day when I was in their office....

insurance companies dont want claims....... homeowners used to be a cash cow but the hurricanes changed all that........

its just like car insurance, have a DUI or two, espically a license supension? its assigned risk for you..

Reply to
hallerb

Well I don't know about most K&T houses left today, BUT, I can assure you the romex job I tore out of our recently purchased 1871 home (wired in the late '40's) was a whole hell of a lot more dangerous than any K&T jobs I've seen. In a few months, I'll post the links to some pictures.

Reply to
Steve Barker LT

Started with a Commodore Vic20. Later onto a 386 with DOS 4.0 and Windows 3.0! Fell in love with the command line. Then Windows became all GUI's, then I found Linux. Now I can run as much or as little in the command line as I want. Been running Linux exclusively for last 6 years now.

Reply to
user

I did too. I wrote a lot of programs for that, and the later Commodore

64 & 128 machines.

I always feel that a command line lets you tell the computer what to do, and a GUI lets it tell you what it's willing to do. It's a matter of who's in control.

Reply to
Mark Lloyd

HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.