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Odd home lighting / electrical situation
Here is the situation I am trying to understand:
An 50 year old house (late knob and tube wiring). No distributed grounds to electrical outlets or junction boxes. Everything works fine electrically for a long time. When doing some electrical work, a wire was cut. If you want the details, it was supposed to be a wire to an electrical outlet that work was to be done on. Turns out this was not the wire to that outlet. The breaker was switched off for the outlet, but the wire was hot. Only other info is that this was a white wire running parallel with a red wire. What happened was that when the wire was cut, the 110 recessed lights in the room near by (the kitchen) went to double brightness. Everythign was shut down, the wire was reconnected and the kitchen lights were back to normal brightness. How is this possible?? Presumedly the house circuits are divided between the 2 phases of a 220 feed into the house. And somehow cutting that one wire put 220 across the kitchen lights, since that is the only way I can understand the double brightness (and measuring with a voltmeter betweent the 2 cut ends, about 210V was measured). But I can't visualize how the house wiring would be such that a 110 light circuit works fine normally, but cutting one wire only somehow puts 220 to that circuit. Any thoughts? -Jim |
Odd home lighting / electrical situation
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Odd home lighting / electrical situation
On Feb 19, 2:08?pm, wrote:
Here is the situation I am trying to understand: An 50 year old house (late knob and tube wiring). No distributed grounds to electrical outlets or junction boxes. Everything works fine electrically for a long time. When doing some electrical work, a wire was cut. If you want the details, it was supposed to be a wire to an electrical outlet that work was to be done on. Turns out this was not the wire to that outlet. The breaker was switched off for the outlet, but the wire was hot. Only other info is that this was a white wire running parallel with a red wire. What happened was that when the wire was cut, the 110 recessed lights in the room near by (the kitchen) went to double brightness. Everythign was shut down, the wire was reconnected and the kitchen lights were back to normal brightness. How is this possible?? Presumedly the house circuits are divided between the 2 phases of a 220 feed into the house. And somehow cutting that one wire put 220 across the kitchen lights, since that is the only way I can understand the double brightness (and measuring with a voltmeter betweent the 2 cut ends, about 210V was measured). But I can't visualize how the house wiring would be such that a 110 light circuit works fine normally, but cutting one wire only somehow puts 220 to that circuit. Any thoughts? -Jim You have a REAL SAFETY HAZARD! Open neutral, which allowed near 240 volts on that circuit! How old is your main panel? Fuses. I suggest for safety insurance and resale value you replace your knob and tube COMPLETELY! A total rewire! That wiring is likely a 100 years old, how many things do YOU own that last that long? New wiring gets you all grounded outlets with GFCIs and AFCIs, adding greatly to safety and resale value. Its likely you cant sell your home because homeowners doesnt want K&T and neither do mortage companies...... You have 2 issues, a op[en neutral which MUST be fixed IMMEDIATELY! and K&T more of a long term issue........ |
Odd home lighting / electrical situation
In article .com, " wrote:
On Feb 19, 2:08?pm, wrote: You have 2 issues, a op[en neutral which MUST be fixed IMMEDIATELY! Missed this part, didja? :-) Everythign was shut down, the wire was reconnected and the kitchen lights were back to normal brightness. How is this possible?? -- Regards, Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com) It's time to throw all their damned tea in the harbor again. |
Odd home lighting / electrical situation
On Feb 19, 1:26 pm, " wrote:
On Feb 19, 2:08?pm, wrote: .... An 50 year old house (late knob and tube wiring). ... When doing some electrical work, a wire was cut. ... not the wire to that outlet. The breaker was switched off for the outlet, but the wire was hot. Only other info is that this was a white wire running parallel with a red wire. What happened was that when the wire was cut, the 110 recessed lights in the room near by (the kitchen) went to double brightness. Everythign was shut down, the wire was reconnected and the kitchen lights were back to normal brightness. How is this possible?? .... You have a REAL SAFETY HAZARD! Open neutral, which allowed near 240 volts on that circuit! When he cut it, yes, it was open. See Doug's response on Edison circuit (shared neutral). How old is your main panel? Fuses. I suggest for safety insurance and resale value you replace your knob and tube COMPLETELY! A total rewire! That wiring is likely a 100 years old, ... Well, since it was given that the house is only approximately 50 years old, it's highly unlikely the wiring is 100... You have 2 issues, a op[en neutral which MUST be fixed IMMEDIATELY! He did fix it and it wasn't open until it was (inadvertently) cut. and K&T more of a long term issue........ Or non-issue. It would certainly be nice if you didn't knee-jerk react to every mention of K&T you see, haller... :( There's absolutely nothing in OP's post that indicates any reason whatsoever that the k&t in his house is of any concern whatsoever. The dual bogeymen of sale value and insurance don't hunt in many jurisdictions as we've already gone 'round with and there's not even a hint here that either has any bearing on the question or work undertaken. |
Odd home lighting / electrical situation
On Feb 19, 3:07�pm, "dpb" wrote:
On Feb 19, 1:26 pm, " wrote: On Feb 19, 2:08?pm, wrote: ... An 50 year old house (late knob and tube wiring). ... When doing some electrical work, a wire was cut. ... not the wire to that outlet. The breaker was switched off for the outlet, but the wire was hot. Only other info is that this was a white wire running parallel with a red wire. What happened was that when the wire was cut, the 110 recessed lights in the room near by (the kitchen) went to double brightness. Everythign was shut down, the wire was reconnected and the kitchen lights were back to normal brightness. How is this possible?? ... You have a REAL SAFETY HAZARD! Open neutral, which allowed near 240 volts on that circuit! When he cut it, yes, it was open. *See Doug's response on Edison circuit (shared neutral). How old is your main panel? Fuses. I suggest for safety insurance and resale value you replace your knob and tube COMPLETELY! A total rewire! That wiring is likely a 100 years old, ... Well, since it was given that the house is only approximately 50 years old, it's highly unlikely the wiring is 100... You have 2 issues, a op[en neutral which MUST be fixed IMMEDIATELY! He did fix it and it wasn't open until it was (inadvertently) cut. and K&T more of a long term issue........ Or non-issue. It would certainly be nice if you didn't knee-jerk react to every mention of K&T you see, haller... :( There's absolutely nothing in OP's post that indicates any reason whatsoever that the k&t in his house is of any concern whatsoever. The dual bogeymen of sale value and insurance don't hunt in many jurisdictions as we've already gone 'round with and there's not even a hint here that either has any bearing on the question or work undertaken. you ignore the complete lack of safety grounds, GFCI, AFCI, and the lkely overloading of such circuits and excess use of extension cords since K&T had few outlets very far apart....... Obviously you havent walked thru whats left of a home after a fire, and seen the devastation both physical and menta such a event can bring. It AMAZES me people will think NOTHING of spending 15 grand and up for a new vehicle but refuse to invest a fraction of that on a critical home system. yeah whatever,,, I think the biggest protesters are those who have K&T and are trying to justify THEIR decision to ignore the issue. |
Odd home lighting / electrical situation
On Feb 19, 4:30 pm, " wrote:
On Feb 19, 3:07?pm, "dpb" wrote: .... It would certainly be nice if you didn't knee-jerk react to every mention of K&T you see, haller... :( There's absolutely nothing in OP's post that indicates any reason whatsoever that the k&t in his house is of any concern whatsoever. The dual bogeymen of sale value and insurance don't hunt in many jurisdictions as we've already gone 'round with and there's not even a hint here that either has any bearing on the question or work undertaken. you ignore the complete lack of safety grounds, GFCI, AFCI, and the lkely overloading of such circuits and excess use of extension cords since K&T had few outlets very far apart....... Obviously you havent walked thru whats left of a home after a fire, and seen the devastation both physical and menta such a event can bring. It AMAZES me people will think NOTHING of spending 15 grand and up for a new vehicle but refuse to invest a fraction of that on a critical home system. yeah whatever,,, I think the biggest protesters are those who have K&T and are trying to justify THEIR decision to ignore the issue.- Hide quoted text - I don't know that there's any justification for a blanket assertion of anything here-- All OP really said was there aren't grounds on the lighting and receptacle circuits. Doesn't address whether there are grounded appliance circuit(s) or even, possibly, GFCI outlets, etc. elsewhere. Maybe, maybe not -- but that wasn't the question raised and there's insufficient data to confirm/deny. Same goes for extension cords, etc., -- maybe, maybe not. I've seen k&t houses wired quite adequately for numbers of outlets and others not so much. Again, it's simply a leap to assert what the situation is for any given house sight unseen. You also have no idea of how many house fires I have seen nor who I know directly or indirectly that have been involved. I'll only say the number is greater than zero and of that number the number is zero wherein k&t wiring was to blame. We had this discussion only a short time ago and as I noted there, I have been involved in old housing retrofits for quite some time and have found cases where deemed it mandatory to replace it where it was in bad enough condition and others where it just wasn't the most cost- effective thing to do with limited funds. Again, my real problem is the universal "one size fits all" advice on the basis of no firm data other than a preconceived notion of "k&t bad, must go". |
Odd home lighting / electrical situation
On Feb 19, 3:07 pm, "dpb" wrote:
- -- That wiring is likely a 100 years old, ... - - Well, since it was given that the house is only approximately 50 years - old, it's highly unlikely the wiring is 100... Unless the electricians worked really, really slow when the house was first wired... |
Odd home lighting / electrical situation
I'm curious as to how you propose he has 100 year old wiring in a 50 year
old house. Please enlighten. -- Steve Barker wrote in message oups.com... That wiring is likely a 100 years old, how many things do YOU own that last that long? New wiring gets you all grounded outlets with GFCIs and AFCIs, adding greatly to safety and resale value. Its likely you cant sell your home because homeowners doesnt want K&T and neither do mortage companies...... You have 2 issues, a op[en neutral which MUST be fixed IMMEDIATELY! and K&T more of a long term issue........ |
Odd home lighting / electrical situation
On Feb 19, 9:06�pm, "Steve Barker"
wrote: I'm curious as to how you propose he has 100 year old wiring in a 50 year old house. *Please enlighten. -- Steve Barker wrote in message oups.com... That wiring is likely a 100 years old, how many things do YOU own that last that long? New wiring gets you all grounded outlets with GFCIs and AFCIs, adding greatly to safety and resale value. Its likely you cant sell your home because homeowners doesnt want K&T and neither do mortage companies...... You have 2 issues, a op[en neutral which MUST be fixed IMMEDIATELY! and K&T more of a long term issue........- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - MOST K&T is near a 100 years old today. I didnt read his post closely but the issues still remain |
Odd home lighting / electrical situation
On Feb 19, 9:00 pm, " wrote:
On Feb 19, 9:06?pm, "Steve Barker" wrote: I'm curious as to how you propose he has 100 year old wiring in a 50 year old house. ?Please enlighten. -- Steve Barker wrote in message roups.com... That wiring is likely a 100 years old, how many things do YOU own that last that long? New wiring gets you all grounded outlets with GFCIs and AFCIs, adding greatly to safety and resale value. Its likely you cant sell your home because homeowners doesnt want K&T and neither do mortage companies...... You have 2 issues, a op[en neutral which MUST be fixed IMMEDIATELY! and K&T more of a long term issue........- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - MOST K&T is near a 100 years old today. I didnt read his post closely but the issues still remain And there's the rub -- reaction w/o reading and "issues" raised that don't know exist... :( |
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