K & T wiring

[Steve Barker]

BS, I don't believe a word you wrote.

[hallerb]

it doesnt effect me at all.......

perhaps its a local issue? i dont know

[Chip C]

Fascinating. Great pics!

Chip C

[J Burns]

How did the others sell? Some companies won't insure with K&T, but if no buyers could get policies, perhaps inspectors had found specific problems. For example, K&T rated for 15 amps might be connected to a circuit protected by a 20-amp breaker. Some K&T wiring has the neutral side switched. Some may have splices in walls.

Steps that are not equal are dangerous.

Last year I got a refusal-to-renew notice because an inspector had swung buy and seen peeling paint on the fascia board of a 10x12 open shed, a crack (60 years old) in the wall of my cement garage, and lifting shingles.

My agent immediately found me cheaper coverage from a company with higher ratings.

The five missing shingle tabs had disappeared on a day of 60-mph sustained winds. I had assumed this meant I'd have to reroof soon. I discovered that the roofing was still pretty good. The broken shingles were easy to replace.

Was disaster imminent? K&T uses air to prevent shorts and dissipate heat in the event of a hot connection.

[hallerb]

well your post confirms homeowner companies are doing drive by inspections

my friends connection was burning at the time he found it, which could happen with any wiring but his K&T has no boxes.

he had stuff on shelves under the burning connection he coud of lost the entire home.

around here news has had stories where cracked uneven sidewalks can get your existing homeowners not renewed, trip hazard.

one elderly lady had a tree towering over her home, insurance said no renewal, the tree mght have fallen and flatened the house

in this case a tree company came to her rescue and removed it for free, she was near 90 years old and couldnt afford the several thousand dollar tree removal bill.

remember insurance companies goal is to make money and part of that is to minimize risks

[Chip C]

Seems to be local/regional, and maybe come and go in some kind of fashion swing. When we got insurance on our Toronto place in 2003, several insurers declined to cover a K&T property; one major insurer would do so only if we had it home-inspected by a particular (large, well-established) home inspection firm.

So it's real for some people, in some places, at some times. And apparently not so for others.

Some years prior the big thing was exposed "insul-brick", this roll- asphalt fake-brick stuff that got applied over the clapboards of essentially every house in the city sometime in the prior 50 years. Couldn't find an insurer to cover a house with the stuff -- after signing the offer to purchase. So we got the seller to agree to let us, at our expense, have aluminum siding installed over it, prior to closing. Obviously a risk that should the deal fail to close, we've paid to improve someone else's house. Ehh, you take some chances.

Chip

[J Burns]

I imagine a smoking connection will not itself cause a fire if the insulation will not support a flame and nothing flammable is against it.

When I've replaced ceiling lights that had K&T wiring, I've replaced the wiring with NM cable. I think a porcelain fixture with screw terminals a couple of inches apart was safe with K&T, but I can't remember if I've seen fixtures that weren't connected as safely.

A national company had taken my policy from a regional company. I wonder if inspectors had orders to find reasons to dump a lot of policy holders in order to limit the company's exposure in this area, in case of a disaster.

In this state, an insurer can put up to half their policy holders into the reinsurance facility. Ostensibly it's for high-risk drivers, but the insurer doesn't have to give a reason. In more than 40 years of driving I've never had a ticket or been involved in an incident that resulted in a claim, but I'm in the facility and they won't say why. What it really means is that if I ever get a ticket, I'll have to pay my insurer a huge surcharge. Insurance can be profitable when the industry owns the government.

[hallerb]

If you owned a insurance company would you want to insure homes in poor condition? thus putting you at greater risk to pay claims?

remember homeowners insurance is pretty cheap.

600 bucks a year to insure a home and contents worth easily over $200,000.00 and perhaps far more

[keith]

$300K, plus $150K contents, plus $300K liability. Yep, pretty cheap.

[Evan]

Its not so much in what they don't ask, it is more about the list of exclusions in the policy coverages that MOST consumers never read and are baffled when some claim is denied...

Read all several hundred pages of your insurance policy contract including all of the fine print before you start making statements you really can not prove that are sweeping generalizations about insurance policies that are incorrect and not valid...

~~ Evan

[bud--]

The K&T I have run across has insulation that is in good condition after all these years. The exception is at light fixtures, where the heat of the lamp, or especially a ballast, has raised the electrical insulation temperature far beyond what was intended. The same problem happens with BX, and other wiring.

K&T is actually still in the NEC (article 394 - with very limited use) and is intended to be concealed (some exceptions in attics).

The refeed I have seen is to put a j-box near the knobs and run wires into a box with "loom" over the wire from the knob to inside the box. RBM's picture show loom. I have seen the loom just go through a knockout (preferable both wires through the same knockout). The K&T is spliced inside the box to Romex, or some other wiring system.

[hallerb]

with K&T concealed in walls how can you be CERTAIN its in good shape? theres no way to see it unless you open the wall, and once you do you might as well just replace the K&T

I helped gut a friends fire damaged home. It was amazing the bad wiring I found in the walls.

The owners finally agreed to a complete rewire.

the fire wasnt electrical, a cat knocked over a lamp the damage to the home 135,000 exceeded the homes value by far.

sadly their old homeowners insurance had been canceled when their insurer went out of business. K&T, bad roof, broken sidewalks etc etc. they had forced place insurance on structure only, and lost much of their possesions

[RBM]

with K&T concealed in walls how can you be CERTAIN its in good shape? theres no way to see it unless you open the wall, and once you do you might as well just replace the K&T

I helped gut a friends fire damaged home. It was amazing the bad wiring I found in the walls.

The owners finally agreed to a complete rewire.

the fire wasnt electrical, a cat knocked over a lamp the damage to the home 135,000 exceeded the homes value by far.

sadly their old homeowners insurance had been canceled when their insurer went out of business. K&T, bad roof, broken sidewalks etc etc. they had forced place insurance on structure only, and lost much of their possesions

You know it's in good shape the same way you'd know if Romex is in good shape. There are no open, or flickering circuits. K&T has no less integrity than NM, and at least it's mounted on insulators, and whenever it passes through wooden framing it goes through ceramic insulators

[hallerb]

oh yes and connections are exposed. so the connection begins overheating just a little and gets worse over time.

one day the connection comes apart and sparks.perhaps just dust from a

100 year old home starts a smoldering fire

Machines I fix for a living do this all the time, melt holes in side covers etc.

my problem with K&T is the lack of boxes

[RBM]

oh yes and connections are exposed. so the connection begins overheating just a little and gets worse over time.

one day the connection comes apart and sparks.perhaps just dust from a

100 year old home starts a smoldering fire

Machines I fix for a living do this all the time, melt holes in side covers etc.

my problem with K&T is the lack of boxes

If splices come loose, regardless if they're inside boxes, or suspended on insulators, everything on the circuit flickers, and becomes apparent to the user, that a problem exists. Typically, a loose connection becomes an open connection, and no longer heats.A connection is not going to overheat unless it's loose, or overloaded.

I get it, every best friend, neighbor, uncle, nephew, etc. you have, has had a disaster of some sort caused by K&T. It's more likely that you should stop helping your aquaintenances with their wiring problems

[hallerb]

.

yep attack the person when shown the truth, since you cant discredit the solid info i posted

[RBM]

I don't think that Hallerb empirical evidence would constitute "solid info" in anybody's book.

[David Nebenzahl]

On 6/3/2010 5:17 PM RBM spake thus:

Of course it doesn't.

I a lot of direct experience working on houses with knob & tube wiring. With no exceptions, it is in perfectly safe and serviceable shape.

It is, of course, possible that somewhere there are houses with problematic K&T wiring, and the hallerb had a bad experience with one. That in no way negates the overwhelming majority of houses that have perfectly intact K&T. So we can safely ignore his ravings and rantings.

[Nonny]

Are there any old timers out there who know TWO ways to wire a

3-way switch using the K&T way? I once won a sizeable bet from a PhD that it can be done.

Nonny

[RBM]

There are several ways to wire a 3 way switch system, each slightly different depending upon where the feed is located, and where the load wires are located, however, I think since you're asking "old timers", you are probably thinking of a "Carter 3 way" circuit, which was commonly used in the early 20th century