Home electrical

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

(Images for illustration. Not my house.)

I’ve complained more than once about the wiring in my house, which was built in 1934. The knob-and-tube wiring prevents me from insuring the house with my preferred carrier. I have a fuse box, not a circuit breaker panel. The meter is in a round housing/base. I called an electrician a few years ago to see about upgrading, and was verbally quoted five figures. Really frustrating when I talk to coworkers when they say, ‘Oh, that’s too much! I had my whole house rewired for $2,000!’ Yeah, that’s fine if you have a family member who is in construction, who knows people he can trade favours with. And when you’re in Seattle where there are a lot of FOAFs and family, and have lived your whole life there. :rolleyes:

We had some weirdness a couple of weeks ago. My watch winder was ‘chittering’. That is, it wasn’t rotating, but just sort of vibrating. Power went out in the kitchen. I pulled a fuse block and one of the 60 amp fuses was hot and loose. I replaced it. I had to jiggle the block to get a solid connection. This worked, but Mrs. L.A. said the power went out Thursday when I was in Seattle. She fixed it, having watched what I did before. I was telecommuting yesterday. I heard an annoying hum. I went around the living room, and finally tracked it to the fuse box. (It’s humming now, too.) Mrs. L.A. said it had been humming for a couple of days. OK, humming means resistance. Resistance means heat. Heat bad. I found a different electrician. Only two reviews, but they were outstanding.

He (the owner – apparently he has one employee) came out, and he’s a really nice guy. A breaker panel won’t fit where the fuse box is (a ‘column’ on the wall), and there’s nowhere within five feet to reasonably put one. So that means we need arc fault breakers that cost five or ten times what a regular breaker does. But it’s a small house, so they’ll only add $500 or so to the cost. The electrician said he can install a new meter box in a new location that meets Code, install a circuit breaker panel behind the door of the front bedroom (behind where the meter box is), empty the fuse box and just make it a glorified ‘junction box’, use the arc fault breakers (to comply with Code), do the ‘grounding-and-[something]’, get the permits, handle the inspection, and do a temporary hookup so that we have power until Puget Sound Energy does a permanent hookup, for about $3,600. I have to pay PSE for the new hookup, so the whole job might cost $4,000 – less than half of what the larger electrical contractor quoted.

I can’t afford it, but I’d rather not have the house burn down. Good thing I have some room on a credit card. And Mrs. L.A. said she can pay for half of it.

2

State and local codes are not specified here, but I would inquire whether you can replace or repair the existing fuse box. In many jurisdictions, you can replace a single component without having to bring the entire wiring system up to current codes. You can get new fuse boxes.

It sounds like you are getting some 60 HZ hum from the main power. This often happens when a bus bar inside the panel is a bit loose, or a cable connection has loosened up a bit. There might also be some corrosion. A new fuse box would probably solve your (immediate) problem at very low cost IF LOCAL CODES PERMIT IT.

3

I can replace the fuse box with a breaker panel if the new panel is within five feet of the current location. Unfortunately, the space isn’t big enough for a breaker panel, and there’s nowhere to put a breaker panel within five feet that is aesthetically pleasing. The Missus doesn’t want a metal hatch in the middle of the wood panelling. (Which is another thing. The panelling is ship lath that is an inch thick. Why can’t we have a normal house with nice, clean drywall?) So the breaker panel will go to someplace unobtrusive, which will require the arc fault breakers. Fortunately, we don’t have to re-wire the whole house. The electrician said we can replace the meter box and get the breaker panel, and then upgrade the rest later.

The hum is a higher frequency than 60 HZ. If the power goes out again, I think I’ll take some steel wool to the prongs that hold the bullet fuses, and to the prongs on the block.

4

Why does the new box need to be in a different location?

Also, check on the price again, there are a lot of new regulations that could be in place in your locality. I’m wiring a new addition and I have to use AFCI circuit breakers, a fire stop between floors (just fire-retardant foam), wires can’t run right on top of each other so have to separate them or use staples called stackers, and who knows what else I’ll run into. At the same time I can leave the old house wiring alone, although it is pretty close to code already since I replaced the fuse box, the knob and tube wiring, 2 wire lines, and other goofy stuff done over the years.

5

I can leave the old wiring. I think that’s the lowest price I can find without ‘knowing someone’. It’s just the way it is.

The new meter box needs to be relocated because PSE requires a certain amount of clearance, which is not available in the present location. The meter can be moved over a bit, and then there’s something about a mast for the lines.

6

Sorry that all I can give you is sympathy. I had a house built in the 1890’s for about twenty years. It had been incompetently “upgraded” and “repaired” the entire time, because it was never owned by rich people (including me). Luckily, I do know how to correctly rewire things and do basic construction, so I was able to find and replace or repair hundreds of prior owner’s mistakes while I was there.

The only place I found knob and bare wire stuff, was in the 1935 three car garage. Since it was only partly finished on the second floor, I was able to completely rewire it myself, without as much work as redoing the interior of the house would have been.

As I went through the house over the years, tearing out collapsing horse-hair plaster walls, repairing damaged structural members and correcting reinstalled windows, I also replaced all the wiring with modern grounded stuff and new receptacles. I didn’t finish before my wife divorced me and forced the sale of the place, but I was making good progress.

I especially sympathize with the problem that any professionals I called in, always insisted that I had to change EVERYTHING AT ONCE, if they were to do anything at all. Whether that was really the local law, or just that all the local tradespeople were equally corrupt, I don’t know. But it did mean that I also had a choice between doing it slowly myself, or getting a five-figure loan on top of the mortgage.

7

Fortunately, this guy understands the hardship of doing everything at once. He’ll replace the meter box and swap in a breaker board, and the rest of the stuff can be done… eventually.

8

Just so you know, it’s against code to put an electrical panel behind a door*. I would be a little leery of any electrician who suggested doing that.

*In CA. Your state might be different, but CA uses the International Building Code.

9

Does anyone want to give an estimate of what percent of the safety risk he is taking is because of the fuse box/meter vs the rest of the wiring? My guess would be that only a very small fraction of his safety risk would be fixed by his $4,000 expenditure and suggest he instead just replace the fuse box with another fuse box as suggested by ZoneandScout.

10

I don’t think the electrician can replace a fuse box with a fuse box. Anyway, I want circuit breakers. And the arc fault breakers are safer than fuses, especially (I believe) with the old wiring.

In order to have a circuit breaker panel installed, I have to have the modern meter box.

11

Once the new box and panel are installed, and I can afford it, this is what I want to do:
[ul][li]Install a switch and wiring so that I can run the house off of a generator when necessary[/li][li]Install an air conditioner (probably a split unit) with a dedicated line[/li][li]Install a wall switch for the flood light on the deck (right now, there’s an electrical cord with a switch on it that goes through the wall and plugs into an outlet inside – no, I didn’t do it)[/li][li]Install an outside outlet on the deck[/li]Re-wire the house[/ul]

12

I’m totally in favor of upgrading the system as much as possible and only suggested the “replace in kind” option because it addresses the immediate problem very cheaply. “Replacement in kind” is often overlooked as an option, even where code and local ordinances allow it.

Good luck!

13

In the meantime, I would make sure you have readily accessible fire extinguishers, and smoke detectors.

Good luck.

14

It often has a lot to do with liability.

Trade professionsls (or their insurers) are afraid that if anything bad (like a fire) happens within a year or two of their working on the house, they will get sued. And it’s hard to argue in court that the fire started in the old wiring, not in your new part. And sometimes juries will award against them anyway, because ‘they should have fixed the old part at the same time’ or just because they feel sorry for the homeowner rather than a ‘company’.

This happens enough that many trade professionals don’t like ‘partial’ jobs.

Plus there can be a lot of time-consuming extra work dealing with the old part of the job – which of these old, unlabeled wires go to which circuit? That can take a lot more time than just ripping it all out and putting in all new, fully code wiring.

15

Finally…

I don’t know what the holdup was, but after that there was the 4th of July holiday. Then the electrician got an ember in his eye and burnt his cornea, which put him out of action for a bit. Then there were a couple of jobs in Seattle that took priority. At least the fuse box seems to be holding up… until I tried to make pudding the other night, and the stove wouldn’t work. I had to remove and re-insert the block that holds a pair of bullet fuses for the stove.

Finally, the electrician came out with his assistant yesterday to look things over one more time, make a list of things he needed, and give me the written bid. I called him several minutes ago, and he’s just waiting for his assistant before he starts on replacing the ancient meter and fuse box with a modern (to-code) meter and a Siemens circuit breaker panel. He’ll have temporary power on tonight, he’ll finish up tomorrow, and then we need to get PSE to [del]demand money[/del] sign off on the installation.

No doubt there will be much re-plugging of stuff.

16

Good news: New meter base and circuit breaker panel.

Bad news: In the kitchen, the coffee pot is plugged in. The hood light on the stove is on. I tried to microwave a couple of hot dogs, and the microwave oven tripped the 20 amp breaker. Before, we could have the hood light on, the ceiling light on, the toaster oven on, the microwave oven on, the coffee pot on, the refrigerator, and maybe even the dishwasher. (I don’t knot if the fridge is actually on the same circuit.) Last week I replaced the 1-foot power strip into which the microwave oven and toaster oven are plugged (as well as a phone charger and the Keurig pot) with a power strip that’s attached to the wall. Running both the microwave oven and the toaster oven tripped its 15 amp breaker. Before that, when we could run everything, there was a 30 amp fuse. Of course when a fuse blows, people are like ‘Oh. I’ll put in a stronger one!’ No doubt either I did this at some point a dozen years ago, or my friend I bought the house from did before that. I don’t want to do any rewiring yet (I can’t afford the current work!) but unless the electrician has a solution when he comes out tomorrow, I may have to have it done.

He’s not going to have to turn off all of the power tomorrow, so I’ll be able to work. If he does decide he needs to turn the power off, I started the generator briefly and I can power what I need with an extension lead.

17

I dam well HOPE things trip when the microwave and the toaster are on at the same time!

Your looking at north of 2500 watts. They should be on separate circuits. The fridge needs to be on it’s own circuit.

Home wiring is not rated for 30 Amps–and the K & T really is not.

I would be raising an eyebrow at 12ga romex and a 20 Amp breaker, sounds like multiple circuits are needed for your kitchen.

18

No, they’re not on at the same time when the breaker tripped. The 15 amp breaker on the power strip tripped last week when both oven were on. My point was that the microwave oven on its own does not trip the 15 amp breaker on the power strip.

As for the kitchen 20 amp circuit breaker, the things that were on were: The refrigerator (new(er), efficient), the stove hood light (LED), the ceiling light (3 LED/CFL), and the clock on the coffee maker.

19

The Kitchen 20 Amp breaker sounds like a problem, but it could have been a weird thing when the fridge started up and sucked a lot of juice when it started. LED’s do things different, as I discovered when I had the dining room light changed over to LED’s, I had to replace the dimmer because I lived through the 70’s once, did not need to revisit the Disco era.

20

They’re going to make three circuits in the kitchen, instead of only one. There’s another kilobuck – that I don’t have – but it needs to be done.