David Nebenzahl wrote:
On 9/10/2009 5:09 PM Mike Paulsen spake thus:

David Nebenzahl wrote:

But there are a couple of places where a *single wire* is routed up
out of the basement into the house above. In these cases, the wires
are all hots. No corresponding single neutral wire anywhere nearby.
Presumably the neutral side of the circuit is tied to the neutral of
another pair of wires.

This, of course, makes it difficult to map these circuits, since I
can only assume that the neutral connection is made to the neutral
wire corresponding to the hot wire. That's my operating assumption,
anyhow: my plan is to simply replace these single-wire runs with
Romex, using only the black wire. (Hmm, wonder if they make 12-1
Romex w/o ground? Probably not.)

Anyone ever seen this situation in an older house?

I'm pretty sure you can't run a single wire.

"All conductors of the same circuit and, where used, the grounded
conductor and all equipment-grounding conductors and bonding
conductors shall be contained within the same raceway, auxiliary
gutter, cable tray, cablebus assembly, trench, cable, or cord, unless
otherwise permitted"

I believe you. However, think about it: the only way to rectify the
situation so as to bring it in line with the current code would be to
rip out the existing wiring in the walls of the house and replace it.

I can tell you that ain't gonna happen in this case.

What I plan to do will make it safer than it is now and satisfy the
client, plus make it possible for them to insulate under their floor
(which can't be done now since K&T wiring cannot be embedded in
insulation).

By the way, in answer to another respondent, I have figured out where
that single hot wire goes: I cut it, and found that most of the lighting
in the front part of the house quit working.


In the town I went to college in (long before they tore them all down to
put up 4plexes for rich yuppie kid students), there were lots
of older K&T era houses split up into student slum housing. Most common
approach was to disconnect and abandon the K&T in place, and rewire the
house with conduit and/or raceway on the walls.

Is this a viable temporary workaround in your situation? A conduit riser
in the back of a closet to small subpanels, and then out like a
spiderweb into the rooms? Not pretty, but livable, and a lot cheaper
than opening walls.

Oh, and on that single wire? By any chance, was the house old enough
that it originally had gas lights? I have seen once or twice, a
cheapjack conversion, where they used the old gas lines as the return
path....

--
aem sends...