locally I helped gut a home after a fire, that wasnt electrical in
nature. cat knocked over a lamp 139K in damages.

I could see places where the K&T had overheated, the house was on
breakers, K&T connections were buried in walls, not accessible, much
of the wiring was missing its insulation even in areas undisturbed by
the fire.

no where did i say rewire today

but its a good thing to replace, at least off all outlet circuits.

hey at resale time buyer will want discount for rewiring, or just
plain not buy.

and K&T isnt getting any newer, and insurance just more picky.........

I've stripped to studs all the houses i've come in contact with. g.
Seriously, though, i've stripped out the ones that had K&T as a matter of
course.

s


"Terry" wrote in message
...
How often were you tearing down walls looking for them?

It was comon for splices to be in the walls. Unless you were tearing
the walls down how would you know?


On Thu, 7 Feb 2008 16:42:11 -0600, "S. Barker"
wrote:

I've never found ANY connections that weren't in an attic or basement. In
fact, there would be no reason to make a connection in a wall behind
plaster
and lath, any more than there's a reason to do it with romex.

s


wrote in message
...
On Feb 7, 11:46?am, wrote:
On Thu, 07 Feb 2008 10:34:12 -0600, bud--
wrote:

it would be interesting to try to hire the electricians here to
inspect K&T.

exactly how does someone inspect something they cant see?

All connections in properly installed K&T are accessible.



just how, have you ever wqorked on or around K&T apparently not
because connections were generally made in walls and latheand
plastered
over. no boxes at connections in most cases.........

and before you claim i dont know, do note one of the posters
troubleshooting this problem reported making a buch of holes in walls
looking for a bad connection.

"Terry" wrote in message
...

From what I have read in the last couple of days, you can repair an
existing K&T circuit if it met the code requirements at the time. So
if BETA had a "proper" 3-way switching arrangement and a broken hot
wire, the way I see it, he could just butt splice a new piece of wire
in it's place. You can still use K&T to repair K&T.

I don't think the switching arrangement we are assuming BETA has was
ever code compliant so it would not be legal to repair it.

One other thing BETA should consider is that the neutral wire could
still be in use. And splicing a neutral together that is still in use
can cause dancing.


Thanks Terry and everyone else for all of your suggestions and the time and
energy you put into trying to help me get this fixed.

I finally decided to give up. I took up 2 more boards in the attic floor
and got better access to the wiring to the hallway light from above. Then I
used the inductance tester to see if I could find any "hot" wires. Neither
wire going to the hallway light was hot, and I traced both back as far as I
could and got the same thing. Those wires and all 6 wires to the two 3-way
switches all showed no power.

On Feb 7, 10:27�pm, "BETA-33" wrote:
"Terry" wrote in message

...



From what I have read in the last couple of days, you can repair an
existing K&T circuit if it met the code requirements at the time. �So
if BETA had a "proper" 3-way switching arrangement and a broken hot
wire, the way I see it, he could just butt splice a new piece of wire
in it's place. �You can still use K&T to repair K&T.

I don't think the switching arrangement we are assuming BETA has was
ever code compliant so it would not be legal to repair it.

One other thing BETA should consider is that the neutral wire could
still be in use. �And splicing a neutral together that is still in use
can cause dancing. �

Thanks Terry and everyone else for all of your suggestions and the time and
energy you put into trying to help me get this fixed.

I finally decided to give up. �I took up 2 more boards in the attic floor
and got better access to the wiring to the hallway light from above. �Then I
used the inductance tester to see if I could find any "hot" wires. �Neither
wire going to the hallway light was hot, and I traced both back as far as I
could and got the same thing. �Those wires and all 6 wires to the two 3-way
switches all showed no power.

i would get really interested in your wiring, since you dont know what
failed there might be more and the next failure could start a fire.,

in my job i see wiring burn up all the time.

12 and 14 gauge wire burned up carrying 15 amps. they are connected to
a switch

might be a good idea to get a electrician to look at
everything.........

house fires are nasty,,,,,

it would be sad to have a fire, open walls and find the same failure
that caused the fire had caused this outage.,,,,

wrote:

Old wiring was installed in
open spaces so that it would stay cool. The insulation around the
wires was made of rubber that burns at a relatively low temperature.
If surrounded by house insulation, the wires will not cool and could
heat up enough to burn.

This must be the stupidest thing you have written. (Recently.)

Obviously you haven't read
http://www.waptac.org/sp.asp?id=7190
a report specifically covering K&T in insulation.

K&T was installed to keep the wires apart. Far as I know the same
insulated wires were fished into pipes.

And still missing:
Links that show a hazard of K&T wiring in contact with insulation.
Links that show the fire hazard of K&T wiring.

And a link that says rubber insulation "burns at a relatively low
temperature".

--
bud--