David Nebenzahl wrote:
On 9/11/2009 9:27 AM bud-- spake thus:

bob haller wrote:

does the clients homeowners insurance know they have K&T?

The home really needs a complete rewire bringing up to current code

once you muck with this a future fire can see you on the hook for
damages and insurtance company can go after you.........

K&T is very obsolete and what of attic insulation? as you said you
cant imbed K&T in insulation and the roof is the largest loss of heat
in a home......

The only links I remember on K&T (originally posted by Phil Munro) a
http://www.waptac.org/sp.asp?id=7190
is a report to the Illinois Department of Commerce and Community
Affairs on adding building insulation around existing K&T wiring. No
record of hazard was found in the large number of K&T installations
that had insulation added around them. (Larry Seekon, whose comments
are quoted, was head electrical inspector in Minneapolis.)

http://web.archive.org/web/20040825060154/http://www.maine.gov/pfr/ins/hearing_2003-13680.htm

or
http://tinyurl.com/297uk7
is the record of a complaint to the Maine state Bureau of Insurance by
a homeowner against an insurance company. The insurance company denied
renewal of a policy based on K&T wiring. The insurance company was
ordered to renew the policy because the insurance company "provided no
justification for its position that knob and tube wiring per se
automatically provides grounds for nonrenewal".

In my opinion insurance rejection of K&T is the latest version of
redlining.

And if I remember right, the electricians in this newsgroup think K&T
is not significantly more hazardous than other wiring methods. If it
has been abused it can be a problem, as can other wiring methods.

Thank you very much for those useful links, which are a good antidote to
the previous poster's paranoia.

I must say, though, that as comforting as the findings there are (that
insulating around K&T wiring poses no dire threat), I won't do it. When
it comes to wiring I always like to err on the side of caution.

But yes, the previous poster's shrieks of alarm are unwarranted.
Properly done K&T wiring in good condition (as the wiring in this
particular house is) is no less safe than modren wiring methods.


That's a fact jack. And covering it with insulation does nothing to it
either. Well, it might keep the mice and squirrels off it. LOL! As for
being a fire hazard, well a 14 ga wire on a 15a breaker is not going to
get hot, and it is almost always at least 10" away from it's partner
wire, so there's not much chance of a short, so I would go so far as to
say the K&T wiring methods in many ways are much safer than the
practices we use today.