# Early days of household electification: What did it "look like" from the consumer's point of view? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 20, 2012, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-days-of-household-electification-what-did-it-look-like-from-the-consumers-point-of-view/613467 "2012-02-20T23:14:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-days-of-household-electification-what-did-it-look-like-from-the-consumers-point-of-view/613467/21 "2012-02-21T14:09:32Z")
> [@engineer\_comp\_geek](#): > > You still find knob and tube wiring in homes sometimes. It’s actually quite common to find the remains of it in older houses: wiring has been upgraded, but the ceramic knobs (and often at least some of the wire they support) have been left in place. ---
**Author:** ![Dorjan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dorjan/32/12440_2.png) [@Dorjan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dorjan)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-days-of-household-electification-what-did-it-look-like-from-the-consumers-point-of-view/613467/22 "2012-02-21T14:18:56Z")
My home (built in 1952) still has a mixture of knob/tube and modern wiring, circuit breakers and fuse boxes. One of these days I’ll finish the job and have the whole house upgraded to modern wiring. ---
**Author:** ![BubbaDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bubbadog/32/333_2.png) [@BubbaDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BubbaDog)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-days-of-household-electification-what-did-it-look-like-from-the-consumers-point-of-view/613467/23 "2012-02-21T14:47:50Z")
Just popped in to point out that one of the reasons that the screw bulb adapters were so common comes from the fact that light alone was the initial selling point of household electrification. Grain mills and other industrial processors realized that they could run wires from their plants and sell lighting to the local residents. In some cases the homes had one single circuit that fed the light build located in the living/ dining area. A bright incandescent light was a fantastic improvement over oil lamp lighting and gave a family the ability to be more productive into the evening hours as well as socialize longer. Like all inventions that become common other entrepreneurs saw the opportunity to create enhancements, in this case electric appliances and naturally needed a way to adapt them to the power source. ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-days-of-household-electification-what-did-it-look-like-from-the-consumers-point-of-view/613467/24 "2012-02-21T15:01:47Z")
Short of breaking through some walls, is there a way to know if knob and tube wiring are still in the walls of old buildings? I know the building I live in was likely built around 1910-1920 at the latest (I’ve seen a photo dated 1933 where the whole neighbourhood was well established). The wiring here is old, in the sense that we are told not to plug in things like air conditioners, but the sockets are all typical in appearance and the breaker box was clearly replaced newish sometime in the past 20ish years. There really aren’t a lot of sockets in this apartment, and it’s a constant source of frustration. Nearly every socket has a powerbar or splitter on it - there also aren’t any ceiling lights in many rooms, so at least one socket has to be used for a lamp, let alone any TVs, DVD/videogame consoles, computers, stereos, small appliances, etc. The phone and cable wires are all _external_ to the walls, running along the baseboards and around door frames through the entire apartment. These things are supplied through the back alley, but the TV and most phones are at the front of the building, in the office and living room :smack: So I’m just idly curious what kind of wiring might be back there, and what it might look like. I don’t own the place, so I’m not about to break down the walls to find out! ---
**Author:** ![Khendrask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3e96dc/32.png) [@Khendrask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khendrask)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-days-of-household-electification-what-did-it-look-like-from-the-consumers-point-of-view/613467/25 "2012-02-21T15:24:31Z")
Retrofitting electricity in most homes wasn’t even as neat as the knob and post wiring… A fairly good example (though a recreation) can be seen at GE’s “Carousel of Progress” exhibit at Disney World/Land. Act 2 is pretty close to the mark, wires just run everywhere, totally unsafe. [http://www.yesterland.com/progress.html](http://www.yesterland.com/progress.html) ---
**Author:** ![Snnipe\_70E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5a626/32.png) [@Snnipe\_70E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snnipe_70E)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-days-of-household-electification-what-did-it-look-like-from-the-consumers-point-of-view/613467/26 "2012-02-21T16:13:52Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > Do you mean a house on a real ranch, or a single-story suburban tract house? If it’s the latter I’m in my fifties now and grew up in a then-contemporary tract house in that style. I well remember a general lack of outlets; people generally used a lot of “octopus” extensions as this was well before the era of power strips. Houses and apartments built in the 1950s and not rewired do tend to have noticeably fewer outlets then more recent structures. But even so by that time a wide variety of portable electronics and other appliances had come into widespread use, so it’s quite a bit later than the really early period I’m interested in. > > I’ve always been impressed by the early phone systems, in which the power to the handsets came over the wires from the phone company. Even today, with a basic landline telephone you can still use the phone during a local power outage. Come to think of it, I now suspect that the early telephony engineers and technicians realized that phone technology was far ahead of power distribution technology, so didn’t want to offer phones that needed to be plugged in. > > **janeslogin** , thank you for a fascinating and informative answer! I didn’t know there were places that still hadn’t been electrified that late, at least in the 48 contiguous states. ``` On the Ranch out in the country. As for the phone it had a 6V battery. ``` ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-days-of-household-electification-what-did-it-look-like-from-the-consumers-point-of-view/613467/27 "2012-02-21T19:59:22Z")
> [@johnpost](#): > > knob is an insulator like a miniature of those on power poles. also ceramic bars were used with a groove for the wires. > > tube is a ceramic tube placed where a wire passed through a wall, floor or ceiling. > > **the wire was bare** and mounted on these ceramic devices out in the air, or through the tubes. the only solid objects the wire could touch were these ceramic insulators on its path from fuse box to light switch or socket. :eek: Not completely bare, I assume? ---
**Author:** ![Motorgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e36b37/32.png) [@Motorgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Motorgirl)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-days-of-household-electification-what-did-it-look-like-from-the-consumers-point-of-view/613467/28 "2012-02-21T20:34:56Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > **janeslogin** , thank you for a fascinating and informative answer! I didn’t know there were places that still hadn’t been electrified that late, at least in the 48 contiguous states. My grandparents’ house was electrified in 1950. The government (probably New York state, since they lived in an unincorporated area within the township) made a big push in the late 40s and early 50s to run powerlines along rural roads. My mom remembers the workmen putting up the poles and stringing the lines, and running a line to the house. Like **janeslogin** ’s father, my grandfather had to figure out all the wiring inside the house himself. ---
**Author:** ![Blakeyrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecd19e/32.png) [@Blakeyrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blakeyrat)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-days-of-household-electification-what-did-it-look-like-from-the-consumers-point-of-view/613467/29 "2012-02-21T20:39:04Z")
> [@engineer\_comp\_geek](#): > > Technically if all of that old wiring is properly maintained it’s still acceptable under current electrical codes, as long as you only replace like with like and don’t change anything. As soon as you change something though you have to bring everything affected up to current code. You still find knob and tube wiring in homes sometimes. Personally, the stuff gives me the willies and if I had it in my house I would rip it out ASAP. You’re not alone; the insurance company will require you to rip it out before they’ll insure the house. This was a huge PITA when I moved into my 1927 house-- I was ok with the knob-and-tube and didn’t ask for a discount based on it, then a few weeks later the insurance company said I needed to spend $1200 and get it all redone. Sigh. ---
**Author:** ![Blakeyrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecd19e/32.png) [@Blakeyrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blakeyrat)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-days-of-household-electification-what-did-it-look-like-from-the-consumers-point-of-view/613467/30 "2012-02-21T21:03:29Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > :eek: > Not completely bare, I assume? Completely bare in my house. Remember, 1927 wiring-- this is before durable plastic insulation existed, and cloth insulation (which was used for appliances and such) rotted away quickly, especially in a behind-the-wall environment. This was also before things like blown-in insulation that could short-circuit the lines. They didn’t wire this way because they \*wanted \*to start fires, they just hadn’t invented any better way of doing it yet. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-days-of-household-electification-what-did-it-look-like-from-the-consumers-point-of-view/613467/31 "2012-02-21T21:13:31Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > Would he be able to plug in and use any modern appliances, like an MP3 player with its power cord? If you can get the wires connected, most modern electronics equipment would just work. Most stuff these days uses what’s called a switched mode power supply, which is often happy to run at any voltage from 90 to 240, and any frequency (including DC). So even those funny 25 hz systems would work just fine. ---
**Author:** ![Arjay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@Arjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arjay)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-days-of-household-electification-what-did-it-look-like-from-the-consumers-point-of-view/613467/32 "2012-02-21T21:45:29Z")
My sister’s house was built in the late teens and part of the main floor still has knob and tube wiring.I would say it has maybe one outlet per wall at the most.There were few electric appliances at the time,but it looks like they had the forsite to install outlets anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Arjay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@Arjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arjay)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-days-of-household-electification-what-did-it-look-like-from-the-consumers-point-of-view/613467/33 "2012-02-21T21:48:56Z")
> [@mnemosyne](#): > > Short of breaking through some walls, is there a way to know if knob and tube wiring are still in the walls of old buildings? I know the building I live in was likely built around 1910-1920 at the latest (I’ve seen a photo dated 1933 where the whole neighbourhood was well established). The wiring here is old, in the sense that we are told not to plug in things like air conditioners, but the sockets are all typical in appearance and the breaker box was clearly replaced newish sometime in the past 20ish years. > > There really aren’t a lot of sockets in this apartment, and it’s a constant source of frustration. Nearly every socket has a powerbar or splitter on it - there also aren’t any ceiling lights in many rooms, so at least one socket has to be used for a lamp, let alone any TVs, DVD/videogame consoles, computers, stereos, small appliances, etc. > > The phone and cable wires are all _external_ to the walls, running along the baseboards and around door frames through the entire apartment. These things are supplied through the back alley, but the TV and most phones are at the front of the building, in the office and living room :smack: > > So I’m just idly curious what kind of wiring might be back there, and what it might look like. I don’t own the place, so I’m not about to break down the walls to find out! The wiring was most likely replaced when the newer panel was installed.If you have access to the attic,you can take a look there. ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-days-of-household-electification-what-did-it-look-like-from-the-consumers-point-of-view/613467/34 "2012-02-21T22:52:09Z")
> [@Arjay](#): > > The wiring was most likely replaced when the newer panel was installed.If you have access to the attic,you can take a look there. No, we don’t have access to an attic (we live on the 2nd floor of a 3-storey walkup). There are a ton of different inlets and connectors and mysterious stuff hanging from the brick wall facing the back alley, though - clearly different iterations of power and other stuff going into the building over the years. It’s rather fascinating. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-days-of-household-electification-what-did-it-look-like-from-the-consumers-point-of-view/613467/35 "2012-02-21T22:52:36Z")
> [@Dorjan](#): > > My home (built in 1952) still has a mixture of knob/tube and modern wiring, circuit breakers and fuse boxes. One of these days I’ll finish the job and have the whole house upgraded to modern wiring. Finally got the knob & tube wiring replaced last summer. That knob and tube means that you can’t pull the new wire cable through with the old wire. We had to cut access holes in the walls. I ended up with a new tool because none of the saws could get through the lath and plaster. So now I own an angle grinder. Not all of the wiring was knob & tube. Some had been installed later, along with the breaker box. The old wiring was paper-wrapped and may have had some sort of insulation under the paper. There was bare wire showing through relaxed paper spirals in the attic, though, so maybe not. > [@Blakeyrat](#): > > You’re not alone; the insurance company will require you to rip it out before they’ll insure the house. > > This was a huge PITA when I moved into my 1927 house-- I was ok with the knob-and-tube and didn’t ask for a discount based on it, then a few weeks later the insurance company said I needed to spend $1200 and get it all redone. Sigh. Oddly, the insurance didn’t say a thing about the old wiring. It was specifically noted on the inspection papers, too. Sometime soon way may get around to patching the holes in the walls. My son is pushing for removing the lath and plaster and putting in drywall. I’m resisting. Sounds like a gawdawful mess. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Downtown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Mr\_Downtown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Downtown)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-days-of-household-electification-what-did-it-look-like-from-the-consumers-point-of-view/613467/36 "2012-02-22T04:49:41Z")
Back to the OP. I always wondered how long it took to achieve standardization of things like the Edison base for light bulbs, and more notably the standardized plug and socket, with tines of a certain shape a certain distance apart. The Edison base was probably pushed along rapidly by the company’s dominance in lamp sales, but there must have been several alternatives to the now-standard NEMA plug and socket. Think of what we’re going through with various device chargers these days, even though the electrical requirements are often identical. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-days-of-household-electification-what-did-it-look-like-from-the-consumers-point-of-view/613467/37 "2012-02-22T07:01:38Z")
Lots of this is scary, though I’m pushing 60 and experienced it firsthand. What was weird about our house, built in '58 in suburban Chicago, is that we have one duplex outlet with one socket on one circuit and the other on a completely different circuit. Made swapping out the outlet at night, in the dark, with the only illumination coming from touching the wrong thing with my screwdriver…challenging. But not so bad as finding which breaker controlled the other outlet. I was in a hurry. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 9:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-days-of-household-electification-what-did-it-look-like-from-the-consumers-point-of-view/613467/38 "2012-02-22T09:18:06Z")
> [@Mr\_Downtown](#): > > Back to the OP. I always wondered how long it took to achieve standardization of things like the Edison base for light bulbs, and more notably the standardized plug and socket, with tines of a certain shape a certain distance apart. The Edison base was probably pushed along rapidly by the company’s dominance in lamp sales, but there must have been several alternatives to the now-standard NEMA plug and socket. Think of what we’re going through with various device chargers these days, even though the electrical requirements are often identical. There is still the Mogul lamp base, which is rather like the standard Edison light bulb base, only much larger. Used mostly on high-wattage lamps, often 3-way bulbs. There are also some other lamp sockets used for stage lighting. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-days-of-household-electification-what-did-it-look-like-from-the-consumers-point-of-view/613467/39 "2012-02-22T13:48:07Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > Finally got the knob & tube wiring replaced last summer. That knob and tube means that you can’t pull the new wire cable through with the old wire. We had to cut access holes in the walls. I ended up with a new tool because none of the saws could get through the lath and plaster. So now I own an angle grinder. > > Not all of the wiring was knob & tube. Some had been installed later, along with the breaker box. The old wiring was paper-wrapped and may have had some sort of insulation under the paper. There was bare wire showing through relaxed paper spirals in the attic, though, so maybe not. > > Oddly, the insurance didn’t say a thing about the old wiring. It was specifically noted on the inspection papers, too. > > Sometime soon way may get around to patching the holes in the walls. My son is pushing for removing the lath and plaster and putting in drywall. I’m resisting. Sounds like a gawdawful mess. When I lived in a residence house in college, it still had some of the old wiring. The basement had knob and tube. For outlets, they had the intermediate tech - the wire was that cloth-insulated stuff, I think there was tar or something inside black and sticky. To do outlets - lucky if there were two in the room - the wire often ran along the wall to a wall-mounted box. Soft wire running exposed along the wall? Totally not code nowadays. I suspect that was put in during the 40’s give or take to retrofit the rooms for “modern” college use. The toaster was constantly blowing the breaker for the floor. BTW, a frat house down the way did replace lathe-and-plaster on one wall when the building inspector came by and said an open hole was not allowed (one punch too many on the wall?). Yes, it was messy. The stupid thing - these had been relatively nice homes, big front rooms, servants rear staircase, fancy entrance. They ripped out the plaster wall over an inch thick, and replaced it with drywall half as thick. There was a gap between the wall and the fancy ceiling cornice more than a inch wide. Basically, once you start you can’t stop or it looks awful. Plus, typical teenagers, once they had nailed up the drywall to satisfy the inspector, they never finished the joints. I’m surprised the gap at each corner didn’t set off the inspector. ---
**Author:** ![Kevbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e47774/32.png) [@Kevbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kevbo)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2012, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-days-of-household-electification-what-did-it-look-like-from-the-consumers-point-of-view/613467/40 "2012-02-22T21:39:19Z")
> [@CutterJohn](#): > > Back in the late 20s he installed a wind turbine that charged a bank of batteries, and these were used to power lights at night, along with a radio. Sometime in the 50s it was all removed when the REC brought power out there. Sadly, the REC had a rule that a farm could not connect to the grid if it had a functional wind charger. Many were disabled by a couple shots from a rifle to save climbing the tower. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-days-of-household-electification-what-did-it-look-like-from-the-consumers-point-of-view/613467.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/early-days-of-household-electification-what-did-it-look-like-from-the-consumers-point-of-view/613467.md?page=3)