On 03/26/2012 10:11 PM, RBM wrote:
On 3/26/2012 7:51 PM, The Daring Dufas wrote:
On 3/26/2012 3:51 PM, RBM wrote:
On 3/26/2012 2:56 PM, The Daring Dufas wrote:
On 3/26/2012 1:01 PM, RBM wrote:
On 3/26/2012 12:41 PM, bud-- wrote:
On 3/25/2012 8:13 AM, The Daring Dufas wrote:
On 3/24/2012 6:14 PM, RBM wrote:
On 3/24/2012 6:54 PM, dpb wrote:
On 3/24/2012 4:26 PM, Doug wrote:
I thought about buying an older home built in the 50's in around
Houston, Texas but I was wondering about the electrical wiring.

a) does anyone know if aluminum wiring was used, when this area
switched over to copper wiring?

b) briefly what advantages does copper have over aluminum?

c) without pulling off outlet/switch plates, is there an easy
way to
tell if the house has aluminum or copper wiring? Can aluminum
wiring
use a breaker box or only fuses?

d) for a 1 story 1500 sq foot home circa 50's, what an
electrician
might charge to switch wiring?

e) advice buying an older home with respect to electrical wiring?

The Al branch circuit wiring craze was generally in the mid-60s;
the
chances of it in a 50s house are nil.

Not exactly nil, but pretty close. As with a number of electrical
materials, some things were available long before anyone cared to
use
them. Small gauge aluminum building conductors were around since
the
40's, possibly because of the war, but the era of aluminum wiring
that
strikes fear in homeowners, is primarily from 65' to 73'. Sometimes
earlier conductors with tinned copper is mistaken for aluminum.


Al tends to oxidize and has higher thermal coeff of expansion so
tends
to loosen connections w/ time more than Cu. The biggest issue is
the
oxidation layer and contact resistance at connections that acts
as a
miniature heater and eventually can reach combustion
temperatures if
gets bad enough.

You'll have a home inspection done, anyway, wiring is just one of
the
many issues to have verified and discover if there needs to be
either
work done prior to the sale or discount the offer to cover the
cost to
yourself after the sale.

--


A lot of early copper house wiring was tinned because connections
were
soldered then wrapped with friction tape.

I read tinning was to protect the copper from the rubber insulation
(sulfur?). (I don't know.)


As usual, the Budman is correct. According to the electrical wiring
historian, David E. Shapiro, without the tinning, the rubber coating
would have to be scraped off of the copper because of "gluing
caused by
catalytic action. It certainly didn't hurt in the process of soldering
the conductors either.


That's what I get for listening to Old Sparky and not researching it
for
myself. He told me that his tools included an old fashioned blow
torch and a big honking soldering iron. The first wire nuts he ever
saw were ceramic or porcelain. I understand the sulfur because that
was the magic ingredient Charles Goodyear discovered was the missing
element needed to cause latex to vulcanize into something useful. ^_^

TDD


My dad did electrical work as a kid, then when he got home after ww2, he
started his own electrical contracting business. I started working with
him in the early 70's. I remember a drawer in the shop's workbench that
had a couple of those big honkin soldering irons. I'm sure they got
kicked around for years and finally got tossed. I don't remember seeing
any kind of lead melting pot, just those massive irons. I never did ask
him if or when he used them, but I'll be sure to do so next time I see
him.

I did a bit of searching and found this:

Electricians used blow torches in their work as well. You may have
noticed the hook on top of the burner head and the vee groove at the
mouth of the burner head. These were used to hold a soldering iron in
the flame of the torch whereby the electrician would use the soldering
iron to solder wires together. The soldering iron was used by radiomen
as well as electricians. The other interesting technique used by
electricians is that they would twist the wires together in a junction
box, then take a ladle that had a swivel mechanism. The ladle was at the
end of a steel handle about 18 inches long. The object of the swivel was
so no matter what angle the handle was in, the ladle, which held molten
lead, would always be vertical. The electrician would walk through his
new construction project, hold this ladle up to his freshly twisted
wires, and dip the wires into the lead. This was done so the electrical
connections would not work loose.

Zangobob's Blow Torch Heaven

http://www.blotorches.com/

TDD

My understanding is that they use the pot or ladle when they were doing
new construction or rural electrification upgrades, and used the irons
for "non production" splices. What a PIA. Every day I thank my lucky
stars for never having to use a blow torch, massive soldering iron,
brace & bit, or knobs & tubes, hell I hated having to use a 3/16" star
drill to hand drive rawl plugs. I'm just spoiled

Brace and bit is still handy when you have just a couple holes to drill
and it's quicker than running an extension cord ('cause you're running
wire, and the power in the area is cut off.) Yeah, I have one and it
has a place in my tool stash.

nate

--
replace "roosters" with "cox" to reply.
http://members.cox.net/njnagel

On 3/26/2012 9:11 PM, RBM wrote:
On 3/26/2012 7:51 PM, The Daring Dufas wrote:
On 3/26/2012 3:51 PM, RBM wrote:
On 3/26/2012 2:56 PM, The Daring Dufas wrote:
On 3/26/2012 1:01 PM, RBM wrote:
On 3/26/2012 12:41 PM, bud-- wrote:
On 3/25/2012 8:13 AM, The Daring Dufas wrote:
On 3/24/2012 6:14 PM, RBM wrote:
On 3/24/2012 6:54 PM, dpb wrote:
On 3/24/2012 4:26 PM, Doug wrote:
I thought about buying an older home built in the 50's in around
Houston, Texas but I was wondering about the electrical wiring.

a) does anyone know if aluminum wiring was used, when this area
switched over to copper wiring?

b) briefly what advantages does copper have over aluminum?

c) without pulling off outlet/switch plates, is there an easy
way to
tell if the house has aluminum or copper wiring? Can aluminum
wiring
use a breaker box or only fuses?

d) for a 1 story 1500 sq foot home circa 50's, what an
electrician
might charge to switch wiring?

e) advice buying an older home with respect to electrical wiring?

The Al branch circuit wiring craze was generally in the mid-60s;
the
chances of it in a 50s house are nil.

Not exactly nil, but pretty close. As with a number of electrical
materials, some things were available long before anyone cared to
use
them. Small gauge aluminum building conductors were around since
the
40's, possibly because of the war, but the era of aluminum wiring
that
strikes fear in homeowners, is primarily from 65' to 73'. Sometimes
earlier conductors with tinned copper is mistaken for aluminum.


Al tends to oxidize and has higher thermal coeff of expansion so
tends
to loosen connections w/ time more than Cu. The biggest issue is
the
oxidation layer and contact resistance at connections that acts
as a
miniature heater and eventually can reach combustion
temperatures if
gets bad enough.

You'll have a home inspection done, anyway, wiring is just one of
the
many issues to have verified and discover if there needs to be
either
work done prior to the sale or discount the offer to cover the
cost to
yourself after the sale.

--


A lot of early copper house wiring was tinned because connections
were
soldered then wrapped with friction tape.

I read tinning was to protect the copper from the rubber insulation
(sulfur?). (I don't know.)


As usual, the Budman is correct. According to the electrical wiring
historian, David E. Shapiro, without the tinning, the rubber coating
would have to be scraped off of the copper because of "gluing
caused by
catalytic action. It certainly didn't hurt in the process of soldering
the conductors either.


That's what I get for listening to Old Sparky and not researching it
for
myself. He told me that his tools included an old fashioned blow
torch and a big honking soldering iron. The first wire nuts he ever
saw were ceramic or porcelain. I understand the sulfur because that
was the magic ingredient Charles Goodyear discovered was the missing
element needed to cause latex to vulcanize into something useful. ^_^

TDD


My dad did electrical work as a kid, then when he got home after ww2, he
started his own electrical contracting business. I started working with
him in the early 70's. I remember a drawer in the shop's workbench that
had a couple of those big honkin soldering irons. I'm sure they got
kicked around for years and finally got tossed. I don't remember seeing
any kind of lead melting pot, just those massive irons. I never did ask
him if or when he used them, but I'll be sure to do so next time I see
him.

I did a bit of searching and found this:

Electricians used blow torches in their work as well. You may have
noticed the hook on top of the burner head and the vee groove at the
mouth of the burner head. These were used to hold a soldering iron in
the flame of the torch whereby the electrician would use the soldering
iron to solder wires together. The soldering iron was used by radiomen
as well as electricians. The other interesting technique used by
electricians is that they would twist the wires together in a junction
box, then take a ladle that had a swivel mechanism. The ladle was at the
end of a steel handle about 18 inches long. The object of the swivel was
so no matter what angle the handle was in, the ladle, which held molten
lead, would always be vertical. The electrician would walk through his
new construction project, hold this ladle up to his freshly twisted
wires, and dip the wires into the lead. This was done so the electrical
connections would not work loose.

Zangobob's Blow Torch Heaven

http://www.blotorches.com/

TDD

My understanding is that they use the pot or ladle when they were doing
new construction or rural electrification upgrades, and used the irons
for "non production" splices. What a PIA. Every day I thank my lucky
stars for never having to use a blow torch, massive soldering iron,
brace & bit, or knobs & tubes, hell I hated having to use a 3/16" star
drill to hand drive rawl plugs. I'm just spoiled

Here are a few examples of the old way, one image has the solder pot on
the swivel handle and another image shows the iron on the blow torch
itself. ^_^

http://preview.tinyurl.com/c7cghph

http://preview.tinyurl.com/cfkbu6c

TDD

{angel}
"Nate Nagel" wrote in message
...
On 03/26/2012 10:11 PM, RBM wrote:
On 3/26/2012 7:51 PM, The Daring Dufas wrote:
On 3/26/2012 3:51 PM, RBM wrote:
On 3/26/2012 2:56 PM, The Daring Dufas wrote:
On 3/26/2012 1:01 PM, RBM wrote:
On 3/26/2012 12:41 PM, bud-- wrote:
On 3/25/2012 8:13 AM, The Daring Dufas wrote:
On 3/24/2012 6:14 PM, RBM wrote:
On 3/24/2012 6:54 PM, dpb wrote:
On 3/24/2012 4:26 PM, Doug wrote:

[christmas presents]

On Sun, 25 Mar 2012 14:12:42 -0500, "Doug"
wrote:

trust it to be so unless I can verify it. He did say that in the
early 90's it has a small fire on the roof at the garage end of house
due to a lightening strike. I don't know if that has any connection
to the wiring and since I don't know this owner, I'm suspicious to say
the least.

I was reading this thread till I got to this reply from you.
First off, lightning is NOT caused by the wiring, nor is the wiring very
likely to attract lightning. Lightning mostly hits where ever it is,
but tall metal structures can attract it, such as antenna towers and
even tall trees. Whatever gave you the idea that the fire which they
said was caused by lightning has anything to do with the wiring is just
plain stupid.

I think you're being much too suspicious...... I understand you
checking out all the parts of the house for problems, but how many more
people on here will it take to tell you that aluminum wiring was not
used in the 50's. I'd be more concerned about the wiring on the end of
the house struck by lightning having a few charred connections from the
strike. I'd also want to see the attic on that end of the house for
charred wood and structural damage.

If you are that worried, hire a contractor/inspector to check the house.
In most or all places you have that right, as long as YOU pay them. And
why are you asking for prices on the internet? No one knows what prices
are like in your part of the world. That's about as stupid as calling
your doctor and asking him to disgnose your kidney stones over the
phone.

On 3/26/2012 10:26 PM, Nate Nagel wrote:
On 03/26/2012 10:11 PM, RBM wrote:
On 3/26/2012 7:51 PM, The Daring Dufas wrote:
On 3/26/2012 3:51 PM, RBM wrote:
On 3/26/2012 2:56 PM, The Daring Dufas wrote:
On 3/26/2012 1:01 PM, RBM wrote:
On 3/26/2012 12:41 PM, bud-- wrote:
On 3/25/2012 8:13 AM, The Daring Dufas wrote:
On 3/24/2012 6:14 PM, RBM wrote:
On 3/24/2012 6:54 PM, dpb wrote:
On 3/24/2012 4:26 PM, Doug wrote:
I thought about buying an older home built in the 50's in around
Houston, Texas but I was wondering about the electrical wiring.

a) does anyone know if aluminum wiring was used, when this area
switched over to copper wiring?

b) briefly what advantages does copper have over aluminum?

c) without pulling off outlet/switch plates, is there an easy
way to
tell if the house has aluminum or copper wiring? Can aluminum
wiring
use a breaker box or only fuses?

d) for a 1 story 1500 sq foot home circa 50's, what an
electrician
might charge to switch wiring?

e) advice buying an older home with respect to electrical
wiring?

The Al branch circuit wiring craze was generally in the mid-60s;
the
chances of it in a 50s house are nil.

Not exactly nil, but pretty close. As with a number of electrical
materials, some things were available long before anyone cared to
use
them. Small gauge aluminum building conductors were around since
the
40's, possibly because of the war, but the era of aluminum wiring
that
strikes fear in homeowners, is primarily from 65' to 73'.
Sometimes
earlier conductors with tinned copper is mistaken for aluminum.


Al tends to oxidize and has higher thermal coeff of expansion so
tends
to loosen connections w/ time more than Cu. The biggest issue is
the
oxidation layer and contact resistance at connections that acts
as a
miniature heater and eventually can reach combustion
temperatures if
gets bad enough.

You'll have a home inspection done, anyway, wiring is just one of
the
many issues to have verified and discover if there needs to be
either
work done prior to the sale or discount the offer to cover the
cost to
yourself after the sale.

--


A lot of early copper house wiring was tinned because connections
were
soldered then wrapped with friction tape.

I read tinning was to protect the copper from the rubber insulation
(sulfur?). (I don't know.)


As usual, the Budman is correct. According to the electrical wiring
historian, David E. Shapiro, without the tinning, the rubber coating
would have to be scraped off of the copper because of "gluing
caused by
catalytic action. It certainly didn't hurt in the process of
soldering
the conductors either.


That's what I get for listening to Old Sparky and not researching it
for
myself. He told me that his tools included an old fashioned blow
torch and a big honking soldering iron. The first wire nuts he ever
saw were ceramic or porcelain. I understand the sulfur because that
was the magic ingredient Charles Goodyear discovered was the missing
element needed to cause latex to vulcanize into something useful. ^_^

TDD


My dad did electrical work as a kid, then when he got home after
ww2, he
started his own electrical contracting business. I started working with
him in the early 70's. I remember a drawer in the shop's workbench that
had a couple of those big honkin soldering irons. I'm sure they got
kicked around for years and finally got tossed. I don't remember seeing
any kind of lead melting pot, just those massive irons. I never did ask
him if or when he used them, but I'll be sure to do so next time I see
him.

I did a bit of searching and found this:

Electricians used blow torches in their work as well. You may have
noticed the hook on top of the burner head and the vee groove at the
mouth of the burner head. These were used to hold a soldering iron in
the flame of the torch whereby the electrician would use the soldering
iron to solder wires together. The soldering iron was used by radiomen
as well as electricians. The other interesting technique used by
electricians is that they would twist the wires together in a junction
box, then take a ladle that had a swivel mechanism. The ladle was at the
end of a steel handle about 18 inches long. The object of the swivel was
so no matter what angle the handle was in, the ladle, which held molten
lead, would always be vertical. The electrician would walk through his
new construction project, hold this ladle up to his freshly twisted
wires, and dip the wires into the lead. This was done so the electrical
connections would not work loose.

Zangobob's Blow Torch Heaven

http://www.blotorches.com/

TDD

My understanding is that they use the pot or ladle when they were doing
new construction or rural electrification upgrades, and used the irons
for "non production" splices. What a PIA. Every day I thank my lucky
stars for never having to use a blow torch, massive soldering iron,
brace & bit, or knobs & tubes, hell I hated having to use a 3/16" star
drill to hand drive rawl plugs. I'm just spoiled

Brace and bit is still handy when you have just a couple holes to drill
and it's quicker than running an extension cord ('cause you're running
wire, and the power in the area is cut off.) Yeah, I have one and it has
a place in my tool stash.

nate

Are you kidding. You can't even use one of those contraptions in a tight
area. Makita man, 18 volt lithium ion with a flat bore bit and a 12"
extension if necessary

On 3/27/2012 12:23 AM, The Daring Dufas wrote:
On 3/26/2012 9:11 PM, RBM wrote:
On 3/26/2012 7:51 PM, The Daring Dufas wrote:
On 3/26/2012 3:51 PM, RBM wrote:
On 3/26/2012 2:56 PM, The Daring Dufas wrote:
On 3/26/2012 1:01 PM, RBM wrote:
On 3/26/2012 12:41 PM, bud-- wrote:
On 3/25/2012 8:13 AM, The Daring Dufas wrote:
On 3/24/2012 6:14 PM, RBM wrote:
On 3/24/2012 6:54 PM, dpb wrote:
On 3/24/2012 4:26 PM, Doug wrote:
I thought about buying an older home built in the 50's in around
Houston, Texas but I was wondering about the electrical wiring.

a) does anyone know if aluminum wiring was used, when this area
switched over to copper wiring?

b) briefly what advantages does copper have over aluminum?

c) without pulling off outlet/switch plates, is there an easy
way to
tell if the house has aluminum or copper wiring? Can aluminum
wiring
use a breaker box or only fuses?

d) for a 1 story 1500 sq foot home circa 50's, what an
electrician
might charge to switch wiring?

e) advice buying an older home with respect to electrical
wiring?

The Al branch circuit wiring craze was generally in the mid-60s;
the
chances of it in a 50s house are nil.

Not exactly nil, but pretty close. As with a number of electrical
materials, some things were available long before anyone cared to
use
them. Small gauge aluminum building conductors were around since
the
40's, possibly because of the war, but the era of aluminum wiring
that
strikes fear in homeowners, is primarily from 65' to 73'.
Sometimes
earlier conductors with tinned copper is mistaken for aluminum.


Al tends to oxidize and has higher thermal coeff of expansion so
tends
to loosen connections w/ time more than Cu. The biggest issue is
the
oxidation layer and contact resistance at connections that acts
as a
miniature heater and eventually can reach combustion
temperatures if
gets bad enough.

You'll have a home inspection done, anyway, wiring is just one of
the
many issues to have verified and discover if there needs to be
either
work done prior to the sale or discount the offer to cover the
cost to
yourself after the sale.

--


A lot of early copper house wiring was tinned because connections
were
soldered then wrapped with friction tape.

I read tinning was to protect the copper from the rubber insulation
(sulfur?). (I don't know.)


As usual, the Budman is correct. According to the electrical wiring
historian, David E. Shapiro, without the tinning, the rubber coating
would have to be scraped off of the copper because of "gluing
caused by
catalytic action. It certainly didn't hurt in the process of
soldering
the conductors either.


That's what I get for listening to Old Sparky and not researching it
for
myself. He told me that his tools included an old fashioned blow
torch and a big honking soldering iron. The first wire nuts he ever
saw were ceramic or porcelain. I understand the sulfur because that
was the magic ingredient Charles Goodyear discovered was the missing
element needed to cause latex to vulcanize into something useful. ^_^

TDD


My dad did electrical work as a kid, then when he got home after
ww2, he
started his own electrical contracting business. I started working with
him in the early 70's. I remember a drawer in the shop's workbench that
had a couple of those big honkin soldering irons. I'm sure they got
kicked around for years and finally got tossed. I don't remember seeing
any kind of lead melting pot, just those massive irons. I never did ask
him if or when he used them, but I'll be sure to do so next time I see
him.

I did a bit of searching and found this:

Electricians used blow torches in their work as well. You may have
noticed the hook on top of the burner head and the vee groove at the
mouth of the burner head. These were used to hold a soldering iron in
the flame of the torch whereby the electrician would use the soldering
iron to solder wires together. The soldering iron was used by radiomen
as well as electricians. The other interesting technique used by
electricians is that they would twist the wires together in a junction
box, then take a ladle that had a swivel mechanism. The ladle was at the
end of a steel handle about 18 inches long. The object of the swivel was
so no matter what angle the handle was in, the ladle, which held molten
lead, would always be vertical. The electrician would walk through his
new construction project, hold this ladle up to his freshly twisted
wires, and dip the wires into the lead. This was done so the electrical
connections would not work loose.

Zangobob's Blow Torch Heaven

http://www.blotorches.com/

TDD

My understanding is that they use the pot or ladle when they were doing
new construction or rural electrification upgrades, and used the irons
for "non production" splices. What a PIA. Every day I thank my lucky
stars for never having to use a blow torch, massive soldering iron,
brace & bit, or knobs & tubes, hell I hated having to use a 3/16" star
drill to hand drive rawl plugs. I'm just spoiled

Here are a few examples of the old way, one image has the solder pot on
the swivel handle and another image shows the iron on the blow torch
itself. ^_^

http://preview.tinyurl.com/c7cghph

http://preview.tinyurl.com/cfkbu6c

TDD

Cool stuff. Somehow I'm thinking the irons we had were electric, so
presumably newer than the torch fired ones, although identical otherwise.
I'm laughing at the lead pot. I'd never seen one, so I pictured this
monster that held a quart or so of melted metal. Even that thing must
have been a bitch to get close enough to a splice to dip it. I have
uncovered hundreds of old lead splices, and have never seen one with
more than maybe 2" that I could pull out of the box.

On 3/27/2012 6:08 AM, RBM wrote:
On 3/27/2012 12:23 AM, The Daring Dufas wrote:
On 3/26/2012 9:11 PM, RBM wrote:
On 3/26/2012 7:51 PM, The Daring Dufas wrote:
On 3/26/2012 3:51 PM, RBM wrote:
On 3/26/2012 2:56 PM, The Daring Dufas wrote:
On 3/26/2012 1:01 PM, RBM wrote:
On 3/26/2012 12:41 PM, bud-- wrote:
On 3/25/2012 8:13 AM, The Daring Dufas wrote:
On 3/24/2012 6:14 PM, RBM wrote:
On 3/24/2012 6:54 PM, dpb wrote:
On 3/24/2012 4:26 PM, Doug wrote:
I thought about buying an older home built in the 50's in
around
Houston, Texas but I was wondering about the electrical wiring.

a) does anyone know if aluminum wiring was used, when this area
switched over to copper wiring?

b) briefly what advantages does copper have over aluminum?

c) without pulling off outlet/switch plates, is there an easy
way to
tell if the house has aluminum or copper wiring? Can aluminum
wiring
use a breaker box or only fuses?

d) for a 1 story 1500 sq foot home circa 50's, what an
electrician
might charge to switch wiring?

e) advice buying an older home with respect to electrical
wiring?

The Al branch circuit wiring craze was generally in the mid-60s;
the
chances of it in a 50s house are nil.

Not exactly nil, but pretty close. As with a number of electrical
materials, some things were available long before anyone cared to
use
them. Small gauge aluminum building conductors were around since
the
40's, possibly because of the war, but the era of aluminum wiring
that
strikes fear in homeowners, is primarily from 65' to 73'.
Sometimes
earlier conductors with tinned copper is mistaken for aluminum.


Al tends to oxidize and has higher thermal coeff of expansion so
tends
to loosen connections w/ time more than Cu. The biggest issue is
the
oxidation layer and contact resistance at connections that acts
as a
miniature heater and eventually can reach combustion
temperatures if
gets bad enough.

You'll have a home inspection done, anyway, wiring is just
one of
the
many issues to have verified and discover if there needs to be
either
work done prior to the sale or discount the offer to cover the
cost to
yourself after the sale.

--


A lot of early copper house wiring was tinned because connections
were
soldered then wrapped with friction tape.

I read tinning was to protect the copper from the rubber insulation
(sulfur?). (I don't know.)


As usual, the Budman is correct. According to the electrical wiring
historian, David E. Shapiro, without the tinning, the rubber coating
would have to be scraped off of the copper because of "gluing
caused by
catalytic action. It certainly didn't hurt in the process of
soldering
the conductors either.


That's what I get for listening to Old Sparky and not researching it
for
myself. He told me that his tools included an old fashioned blow
torch and a big honking soldering iron. The first wire nuts he ever
saw were ceramic or porcelain. I understand the sulfur because that
was the magic ingredient Charles Goodyear discovered was the missing
element needed to cause latex to vulcanize into something useful. ^_^

TDD


My dad did electrical work as a kid, then when he got home after
ww2, he
started his own electrical contracting business. I started working
with
him in the early 70's. I remember a drawer in the shop's workbench
that
had a couple of those big honkin soldering irons. I'm sure they got
kicked around for years and finally got tossed. I don't remember
seeing
any kind of lead melting pot, just those massive irons. I never did
ask
him if or when he used them, but I'll be sure to do so next time I see
him.

I did a bit of searching and found this:

Electricians used blow torches in their work as well. You may have
noticed the hook on top of the burner head and the vee groove at the
mouth of the burner head. These were used to hold a soldering iron in
the flame of the torch whereby the electrician would use the soldering
iron to solder wires together. The soldering iron was used by radiomen
as well as electricians. The other interesting technique used by
electricians is that they would twist the wires together in a junction
box, then take a ladle that had a swivel mechanism. The ladle was at
the
end of a steel handle about 18 inches long. The object of the swivel
was
so no matter what angle the handle was in, the ladle, which held molten
lead, would always be vertical. The electrician would walk through his
new construction project, hold this ladle up to his freshly twisted
wires, and dip the wires into the lead. This was done so the electrical
connections would not work loose.

Zangobob's Blow Torch Heaven

http://www.blotorches.com/

TDD

My understanding is that they use the pot or ladle when they were doing
new construction or rural electrification upgrades, and used the irons
for "non production" splices. What a PIA. Every day I thank my lucky
stars for never having to use a blow torch, massive soldering iron,
brace & bit, or knobs & tubes, hell I hated having to use a 3/16" star
drill to hand drive rawl plugs. I'm just spoiled

Here are a few examples of the old way, one image has the solder pot on
the swivel handle and another image shows the iron on the blow torch
itself. ^_^

http://preview.tinyurl.com/c7cghph

http://preview.tinyurl.com/cfkbu6c

TDD

Cool stuff. Somehow I'm thinking the irons we had were electric, so
presumably newer than the torch fired ones, although identical otherwise.
I'm laughing at the lead pot. I'd never seen one, so I pictured this
monster that held a quart or so of melted metal. Even that thing must
have been a bitch to get close enough to a splice to dip it. I have
uncovered hundreds of old lead splices, and have never seen one with
more than maybe 2" that I could pull out of the box.

My dad was an engineer but built the house on the farm with me and my
brothers as we grew up. I helped with the cast iron plumbing and the
lead joints where we packed the joints with "jute" and oiled fiber and
then poured them with molten lead which was tamped down with a special
offset blunt chisel like tool after it cooled. We also wired the house
with the silver cloth/paper covered Romex which had copper with vinyl
insulated conductors like you see in any modern Romex. The NM cover
looked sort of like silver fish scales and it was a fibrous stuff over
paper wrapper plastic insulated solid copper conductors. This was late
1950's early 1960's and by the time I was out of college working at an
electrical supplier in the early 1970's I never saw any of the silver
fiber covered Romex in the supply channel. It had all gone to plastic
outer jacket over paper wrapped black/white plastic insulated conductors
with a bare ground in the paper like you see today. Then the
copper and oil shortage hit and aluminum Romex started flowing out of
the warehouse along with copper clad aluminum Romex and because of the
oil shortage a lot of manufacturers started adding all sorts of fillers
to the plastic insulation on all kinds of equipment and wire. o_O

TDD

"RBM" wrote in message
...

stuff snipped

Brace and bit is still handy when you have just a couple holes to drill
and it's quicker than running an extension cord ('cause you're running
wire, and the power in the area is cut off.) Yeah, I have one and it has
a place in my tool stash.

nate

Are you kidding. You can't even use one of those contraptions in a tight
area. Makita man, 18 volt lithium ion with a flat bore bit and a 12"
extension if necessary

Actually, the brace and bit I have is ratcheted, so you can use it in a
pretty tight area. One thing I like about it that my electric drills don't
offer is the feel of the resistance of the screw. With a good, sharp auger
bit it can bang through some wood in short order. The other thing I like
about it is that it reminds me of my dad and watching him use it to bore
holes for BX cable.

Now that I've been reminded of it, I'll bet it's just the thing for boring
holes in the dirt with the auger bit that comes with the termite stake kits.
I drag around an old B&D drill hooked up to a 12VDC 20AH alarm panel gel
battery just to not need to deploy an extension cord and jackass it all
around the house. But even on the lowest settings, the electric drill's
just too fast for boring dirt.

I just got my first case of poison ivy from winding up an outdoor extension
cord without gloves on. I think I am going to attach some nitrile gloves to
the damn cord with velcro. This happens every year. The poison ivy is
everywhere this year. Same with the bugs. Warm winter dividends. )-:

--
Bobby G.

On Mar 27, 6:56*am, RBM wrote:
On 3/26/2012 10:26 PM, Nate Nagel wrote:



On 03/26/2012 10:11 PM, RBM wrote:
On 3/26/2012 7:51 PM, The Daring Dufas wrote:
On 3/26/2012 3:51 PM, RBM wrote:
On 3/26/2012 2:56 PM, The Daring Dufas wrote:
On 3/26/2012 1:01 PM, RBM wrote:
On 3/26/2012 12:41 PM, bud-- wrote:
On 3/25/2012 8:13 AM, The Daring Dufas wrote:
On 3/24/2012 6:14 PM, RBM wrote:
On 3/24/2012 6:54 PM, dpb wrote:
On 3/24/2012 4:26 PM, Doug wrote:
I thought about buying an older home built in the 50's in around
Houston, Texas but I was wondering about the electrical wiring.

a) does anyone know if aluminum wiring was used, when this area
switched over to copper wiring?

b) briefly what advantages does copper have over aluminum?

c) without pulling off outlet/switch plates, is there an easy
way to
tell if the house has aluminum or copper wiring? Can aluminum
wiring
use a breaker box or only fuses?

d) for a 1 story 1500 sq foot home circa 50's, what an
electrician
might charge to switch wiring?

e) advice buying an older home with respect to electrical
wiring?

The Al branch circuit wiring craze was generally in the mid-60s;
the
chances of it in a 50s house are nil.

Not exactly nil, but pretty close. As with a number of electrical
materials, some things were available long before anyone cared to
use
them. Small gauge aluminum building conductors were around since
the
40's, possibly because of the war, but the era of aluminum wiring
that
strikes fear in homeowners, is primarily from 65' to 73'.
Sometimes
earlier conductors with tinned copper is mistaken for aluminum.

Al tends to oxidize and has higher thermal coeff of expansion so
tends
to loosen connections w/ time more than Cu. The biggest issue is
the
oxidation layer and contact resistance at connections that acts
as a
miniature heater and eventually can reach combustion
temperatures if
gets bad enough.

You'll have a home inspection done, anyway, wiring is just one of
the
many issues to have verified and discover if there needs to be
either
work done prior to the sale or discount the offer to cover the
cost to
yourself after the sale.

--

A lot of early copper house wiring was tinned because connections
were
soldered then wrapped with friction tape.

I read tinning was to protect the copper from the rubber insulation
(sulfur?). (I don't know.)

As usual, the Budman is correct. According to the electrical wiring
historian, David E. Shapiro, without the tinning, the rubber coating
would have to be scraped off of the copper because of "gluing
caused by
catalytic action. It certainly didn't hurt in the process of
soldering
the conductors either.

That's what I get for listening to Old Sparky and not researching it
for
myself. He told me that his tools included an old fashioned blow
torch and a big honking soldering iron. The first wire nuts he ever
saw were ceramic or porcelain. I understand the sulfur because that
was the magic ingredient Charles Goodyear discovered was the missing
element needed to cause latex to vulcanize into something useful. ^_^

TDD

My dad did electrical work as a kid, then when he got home after
ww2, he
started his own electrical contracting business. I started working with
him in the early 70's. I remember a drawer in the shop's workbench that
had a couple of those big honkin soldering irons. I'm sure they got
kicked around for years and finally got tossed. I don't remember seeing
any kind of lead melting pot, just those massive irons. I never did ask
him if or when he used them, but I'll be sure to do so next time I see
him.

I did a bit of searching and found this:

Electricians used blow torches in their work as well. You may have
noticed the hook on top of the burner head and the vee groove at the
mouth of the burner head. These were used to hold a soldering iron in
the flame of the torch whereby the electrician would use the soldering
iron to solder wires together. The soldering iron was used by radiomen
as well as electricians. The other interesting technique used by
electricians is that they would twist the wires together in a junction
box, then take a ladle that had a swivel mechanism. The ladle was at the
end of a steel handle about 18 inches long. The object of the swivel was
so no matter what angle the handle was in, the ladle, which held molten
lead, would always be vertical. The electrician would walk through his
new construction project, hold this ladle up to his freshly twisted
wires, and dip the wires into the lead. This was done so the electrical
connections would not work loose.

Zangobob's Blow Torch Heaven

http://www.blotorches.com/

TDD

My understanding is that they use the pot or ladle when they were doing
new construction or rural electrification upgrades, and used the irons
for "non production" splices. What a PIA. Every day I thank my lucky
stars for never having to use a blow torch, massive soldering iron,
brace & bit, or knobs & tubes, hell I hated having to use a 3/16" star
drill to hand drive rawl plugs. I'm just spoiled

Brace and bit is still handy when you have just a couple holes to drill
and it's quicker than running an extension cord ('cause you're running
wire, and the power in the area is cut off.) Yeah, I have one and it has
a place in my tool stash.

nate

Are you kidding. You can't even use one of those contraptions in a tight
area. Makita man, 18 volt lithium ion with a flat bore bit and a 12"
extension if necessary

For tight spaces I actually prefer my little right angle drill (forget
brand; salvaged it from a friend's junk pile and had to clean it up
and put a new chuck on it) with a spade bit - will bore nice straight
holes in wall studs for an easier pull.

nate

On Mar 25, 11:16*pm, "Robert Green"
wrote:
"hr(bob) " wrote in message

...
On Mar 24, 8:19 pm, "Robert Green" wrote:





"Nate Nagel" wrote in message

...

stuff snipped

Both the inspector that did the inspection before I bought my house and
the one that did it for the eventual buyers said that they weren't
*allowed* to do so. State law, or just some kind of organization thing?
I don't know.

I really wish the first guy would have done so however, I would have
negotiated down when I saw that the "updated wiring" was an illegal hack
job.

I'm just glad the kid that installed all the grounded outlets with no
ground
in the house I bought wasn't smart enough to figure out that he could fool
the tester by tying the ground socket to the neutral. It would be really
nice if someone developed a plug-in tester that could catch that. There
has
to be a measurable difference between a real ground going to the socket
and
a pigtailed neutral that's detectable at the outlet.

I doubt your seller was the first SOB to pull that trick and he won't be
the
last. There are millions of houses that still have ungrounded wiring. I
have a new tester with a GFCI function. If I get a minute, I might wire up
an outlet to see what the tester reveals and what I can determine with my
digital meter. A real ground connection should have a lot more capacitance
that a pigtailed neutral.

I've asked to pull switch covers (three wallswitch boxes with blank covers
was too much mystery for me to stand) before and people really, really
balk.
I can see their point. You could damage something accidentally - and
perhaps in the mind of a paranoid seller purposely and use it to negotiate
a
lower price. The inspector we hired wouldn't remove the cover of the
circuit panel either but pointed out that some serious hack work was
visible
entering the box from the side. The ungrounded grounded outlets were
enough
to knock a few thousand off the purchase price.

--
Bobby G.

There should be some measureable finite resistance between the neutral
and ground terminals of a correctly wired outlet, and virtually no
resistance between the neutral and ground if they are tied together at
the outlet itself. *I don't know what those numbers are as I have
never had to actually measure this.

Thanks for your input. *I hooked up a three wire line cord to an outlet to
see if there was any detectable brightness difference in the LED indicators
due to that resistance.

Boy, you really are dumb. Thinking that the small possible
resistance difference between a neutral and ground connected
at the outlet versus at the panel is going to make a difference
in the brightness of LEDs?



I was hoping the tester might have some way of
detecting the "false ground" and could tell if is was hooked up correctly v.
someone pigtailing the neutral wire to the ground terminal.

If that was possible using your method, folks a lot smarter
than you would have figured it out a long time ago.


*There wasn't
any detectable change in brightness and the tester reported the jury-rigged
neutral pigtail to ground as OK. *)-: *This was on one of the longest wire
runs in the house, too.


Oh no! I[m totally shocked! About as shocked as if
you reported that you stuck your wiener in the outlet
and got shocked. Disclaimer: I'm not suggesting
you do that, but would be quite happy if you did.




I'll do a little more research to try to see if there's a way to use a
multi-meter attached to a line cord to detect the "forged" connection.

You should do that before making an ass of yourself.



*I'd
like to be able to detect the condition Nate's described with a plug-in test
device that doesn't require shutting down the appropriate breaker at the
panel. *People get hinky about buyers or inspectors opening circuit panels
or even turning valves on the plumbing.

I can think of ways of how to do it that would work.




A few weeks ago on the People's Court there was a case of a guy buying a
boat who wouldn't consummate the contract unless the boat owner allowed him
to pull the head on the engine to investigate a bad compression reading he
got. *The boatowner balked (I would have, too - not even sure I would have
let him pull the spark plugs to test compression in the first place!). *He
then sold the boat to someone who did not care about the engine (it was
priced to sell, as they say). *The first purchaser sued, trying to force the
boatowner to cancel the second sale and honor the first agreement. *The
judge laughed him out of court.

Which of course, as usual, has nothing to do with the discussion.

On 3/27/2012 11:23 AM, bud-- wrote:
On 3/26/2012 1:27 PM, The Daring Dufas wrote:
On 3/26/2012 11:53 AM, bud-- wrote:
On 3/25/2012 8:23 AM, Peter wrote:
On 3/24/2012 5:26 PM, Doug wrote:
I thought about buying an older home built in the 50's in around
Houston, Texas but I was wondering about the electrical wiring.

a) does anyone know if aluminum wiring was used, when this area
switched over to copper wiring?

b) briefly what advantages does copper have over aluminum?

c) without pulling off outlet/switch plates, is there an easy way to
tell if the house has aluminum or copper wiring? Can aluminum wiring
use a breaker box or only fuses?

d) for a 1 story 1500 sq foot home circa 50's, what an electrician
might charge to switch wiring?

e) advice buying an older home with respect to electrical wiring?

I bought the house I'm currently living in in 1987. It was built in
1970
and has aluminum wiring. At the time of sale I required the seller to
swap out every wall receptacle and switch with COALAR units and the
work
to be done by a licensed electrician.

A minor problem is that electricians do not necessarily know what the
actual problems and fixes are.

If you are interested you can read:
http://www.kinginnovation.com/pdfs/R...Fire070706.pdf
(also posted elsewhere). You will probably know more than electricians.
The advice is based on extensive research on aluminum connections.

Trivia note, the "R" in CO/ALR is "revised".


Every house in my subdivision was built at the same time with the same
wiring. Neither me nor any of my neighbors (to my knowledge) has had
any
problems related to the aluminum wiring. We all have circuit breaker
panels.

I used to take off the face plates every year and check to see if the
wire loops were loosening under the screw heads but gave up that
exercise after about 3 years when none were noted to have become loose.

I'm well aware of the supposed risks associated with aluminum wiring
and
I would have preferred to have copper. However, my experience has not
been bad. I suspect that if the homeowner respects the amperage ratings
of each breaker circuit and avoids overloads, they will not have
problems. Copper is more forgiving of overloads due to lower resistance
and therefore less heating and attendant expansion/contraction at
connections.

Resistance is not a factor. Aluminum wires have a similar resistance to
copper since they are larger - #12 aluminum on a 15A circuit, #10 on a
20A.


Bud, are you familiar with copper clad aluminum? I first saw it when I
worked for an electrical supplier in the early 1970's during a copper
shortage. The company was selling a lot of aluminum Romex and then we
started getting in copper clad aluminum Romex. One day the darnedest
thing showed up from another supplier, copper clad thermostat wire in
18 AWG. I discovered it when I picked up the reel and it darn near flew
out of my hands because it was so light. If you've ever picked up a
hollow display auto battery, you know what I mean. I hadn't seen copper
clad aluminum for years until recently when I got an Email from a
network component supplier for 24 AWG copper clad Cat5 network cable.
I just called my buddy at Inline Electric and he's never heard of copper
clad aluminum Romex so I assume it hasn't made a comeback in the
local electrical supply chain. But dang, copper is getting expensive! o_O

TDD

I have never seen copper clad. I haven't seen much aluminum 15/20A
branch circuit wire either. My understanding was that copper clad was
late in the period when aluminum was used for branch circuits to
eliminate the surface oxide problem, which would match with what you
wrote. Given the problems around 1970 I would think copper would have to
get pretty expensive to see aluminum used for branch circuits again.
Would be interesting how trouble free "new technology" copper clad
aluminum wire is, used with CO/ALR devices. Might be as good as copper.

I wouldn't want to use aluminum or copper clad for thermostat or signal
wires either. Opinions of punch down block and RJ jack manufacturers
would be interesting.


Copper clad showed up in the electrical supply chain around 1974-5 as a
solution to the problems of aluminum wire making bad connections. I
wouldn't be surprised to see it make a comeback in Romex.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper...aluminium_wire

TDD

On 3/26/2012 1:27 PM, The Daring Dufas wrote:
On 3/26/2012 11:53 AM, bud-- wrote:
On 3/25/2012 8:23 AM, Peter wrote:
On 3/24/2012 5:26 PM, Doug wrote:
I thought about buying an older home built in the 50's in around
Houston, Texas but I was wondering about the electrical wiring.

a) does anyone know if aluminum wiring was used, when this area
switched over to copper wiring?

b) briefly what advantages does copper have over aluminum?

c) without pulling off outlet/switch plates, is there an easy way to
tell if the house has aluminum or copper wiring? Can aluminum wiring
use a breaker box or only fuses?

d) for a 1 story 1500 sq foot home circa 50's, what an electrician
might charge to switch wiring?

e) advice buying an older home with respect to electrical wiring?

I bought the house I'm currently living in in 1987. It was built in 1970
and has aluminum wiring. At the time of sale I required the seller to
swap out every wall receptacle and switch with COALAR units and the work
to be done by a licensed electrician.

A minor problem is that electricians do not necessarily know what the
actual problems and fixes are.

If you are interested you can read:
http://www.kinginnovation.com/pdfs/R...Fire070706.pdf
(also posted elsewhere). You will probably know more than electricians.
The advice is based on extensive research on aluminum connections.

Trivia note, the "R" in CO/ALR is "revised".


Every house in my subdivision was built at the same time with the same
wiring. Neither me nor any of my neighbors (to my knowledge) has had any
problems related to the aluminum wiring. We all have circuit breaker
panels.

I used to take off the face plates every year and check to see if the
wire loops were loosening under the screw heads but gave up that
exercise after about 3 years when none were noted to have become loose.

I'm well aware of the supposed risks associated with aluminum wiring and
I would have preferred to have copper. However, my experience has not
been bad. I suspect that if the homeowner respects the amperage ratings
of each breaker circuit and avoids overloads, they will not have
problems. Copper is more forgiving of overloads due to lower resistance
and therefore less heating and attendant expansion/contraction at
connections.

Resistance is not a factor. Aluminum wires have a similar resistance to
copper since they are larger - #12 aluminum on a 15A circuit, #10 on a
20A.


Bud, are you familiar with copper clad aluminum? I first saw it when I
worked for an electrical supplier in the early 1970's during a copper
shortage. The company was selling a lot of aluminum Romex and then we
started getting in copper clad aluminum Romex. One day the darnedest
thing showed up from another supplier, copper clad thermostat wire in
18 AWG. I discovered it when I picked up the reel and it darn near flew
out of my hands because it was so light. If you've ever picked up a
hollow display auto battery, you know what I mean. I hadn't seen copper
clad aluminum for years until recently when I got an Email from a
network component supplier for 24 AWG copper clad Cat5 network cable.
I just called my buddy at Inline Electric and he's never heard of copper
clad aluminum Romex so I assume it hasn't made a comeback in the
local electrical supply chain. But dang, copper is getting expensive! o_O

TDD

I have never seen copper clad. I haven't seen much aluminum 15/20A
branch circuit wire either. My understanding was that copper clad was
late in the period when aluminum was used for branch circuits to
eliminate the surface oxide problem, which would match with what you
wrote. Given the problems around 1970 I would think copper would have to
get pretty expensive to see aluminum used for branch circuits again.
Would be interesting how trouble free "new technology" copper clad
aluminum wire is, used with CO/ALR devices. Might be as good as copper.

I wouldn't want to use aluminum or copper clad for thermostat or signal
wires either. Opinions of punch down block and RJ jack manufacturers
would be interesting.

--
bud--

On Tue, 27 Mar 2012 08:16:41 -0700 (PDT), "
wrote:

On Mar 25, 11:16*pm, "Robert Green"
wrote:
"hr(bob) " wrote in message

...
On Mar 24, 8:19 pm, "Robert Green" wrote:





"Nate Nagel" wrote in message

...

stuff snipped

Both the inspector that did the inspection before I bought my house and
the one that did it for the eventual buyers said that they weren't
*allowed* to do so. State law, or just some kind of organization thing?
I don't know.

I really wish the first guy would have done so however, I would have
negotiated down when I saw that the "updated wiring" was an illegal hack
job.

I'm just glad the kid that installed all the grounded outlets with no
ground
in the house I bought wasn't smart enough to figure out that he could fool
the tester by tying the ground socket to the neutral. It would be really
nice if someone developed a plug-in tester that could catch that. There
has
to be a measurable difference between a real ground going to the socket
and
a pigtailed neutral that's detectable at the outlet.

I doubt your seller was the first SOB to pull that trick and he won't be
the
last. There are millions of houses that still have ungrounded wiring. I
have a new tester with a GFCI function. If I get a minute, I might wire up
an outlet to see what the tester reveals and what I can determine with my
digital meter. A real ground connection should have a lot more capacitance
that a pigtailed neutral.

I've asked to pull switch covers (three wallswitch boxes with blank covers
was too much mystery for me to stand) before and people really, really
balk.
I can see their point. You could damage something accidentally - and
perhaps in the mind of a paranoid seller purposely and use it to negotiate
a
lower price. The inspector we hired wouldn't remove the cover of the
circuit panel either but pointed out that some serious hack work was
visible
entering the box from the side. The ungrounded grounded outlets were
enough
to knock a few thousand off the purchase price.

--
Bobby G.

There should be some measureable finite resistance between the neutral
and ground terminals of a correctly wired outlet, and virtually no
resistance between the neutral and ground if they are tied together at
the outlet itself. *I don't know what those numbers are as I have
never had to actually measure this.

Thanks for your input. *I hooked up a three wire line cord to an outlet to
see if there was any detectable brightness difference in the LED indicators
due to that resistance.

Boy, you really are dumb. Thinking that the small possible
resistance difference between a neutral and ground connected
at the outlet versus at the panel is going to make a difference
in the brightness of LEDs?

It's possible but I'd think the false-positives (and negatives) would make the
tool useless. One could measure the inductance of the N-G path. I don't
think the tool would sell anyway. The number of "tricked" N-G connections in
the country has to be exceedingly small.

I was hoping the tester might have some way of
detecting the "false ground" and could tell if is was hooked up correctly v.
someone pigtailing the neutral wire to the ground terminal.

If that was possible using your method, folks a lot smarter
than you would have figured it out a long time ago.

It's possible but I don't see a market for it and there would, necessarily be
false indications, further driving down the market (and liability up).

On 3/27/2012 12:23 PM, bud-- wrote:
On 3/26/2012 1:27 PM, The Daring Dufas wrote:
On 3/26/2012 11:53 AM, bud-- wrote:
On 3/25/2012 8:23 AM, Peter wrote:
On 3/24/2012 5:26 PM, Doug wrote:
I thought about buying an older home built in the 50's in around
Houston, Texas but I was wondering about the electrical wiring.

a) does anyone know if aluminum wiring was used, when this area
switched over to copper wiring?

b) briefly what advantages does copper have over aluminum?

c) without pulling off outlet/switch plates, is there an easy way to
tell if the house has aluminum or copper wiring? Can aluminum wiring
use a breaker box or only fuses?

d) for a 1 story 1500 sq foot home circa 50's, what an electrician
might charge to switch wiring?

e) advice buying an older home with respect to electrical wiring?

I bought the house I'm currently living in in 1987. It was built in
1970
and has aluminum wiring. At the time of sale I required the seller to
swap out every wall receptacle and switch with COALAR units and the
work
to be done by a licensed electrician.

A minor problem is that electricians do not necessarily know what the
actual problems and fixes are.

If you are interested you can read:
http://www.kinginnovation.com/pdfs/R...Fire070706.pdf
(also posted elsewhere). You will probably know more than electricians.
The advice is based on extensive research on aluminum connections.

Trivia note, the "R" in CO/ALR is "revised".


Every house in my subdivision was built at the same time with the same
wiring. Neither me nor any of my neighbors (to my knowledge) has had
any
problems related to the aluminum wiring. We all have circuit breaker
panels.

I used to take off the face plates every year and check to see if the
wire loops were loosening under the screw heads but gave up that
exercise after about 3 years when none were noted to have become loose.

I'm well aware of the supposed risks associated with aluminum wiring
and
I would have preferred to have copper. However, my experience has not
been bad. I suspect that if the homeowner respects the amperage ratings
of each breaker circuit and avoids overloads, they will not have
problems. Copper is more forgiving of overloads due to lower resistance
and therefore less heating and attendant expansion/contraction at
connections.

Resistance is not a factor. Aluminum wires have a similar resistance to
copper since they are larger - #12 aluminum on a 15A circuit, #10 on a
20A.


Bud, are you familiar with copper clad aluminum? I first saw it when I
worked for an electrical supplier in the early 1970's during a copper
shortage. The company was selling a lot of aluminum Romex and then we
started getting in copper clad aluminum Romex. One day the darnedest
thing showed up from another supplier, copper clad thermostat wire in
18 AWG. I discovered it when I picked up the reel and it darn near flew
out of my hands because it was so light. If you've ever picked up a
hollow display auto battery, you know what I mean. I hadn't seen copper
clad aluminum for years until recently when I got an Email from a
network component supplier for 24 AWG copper clad Cat5 network cable.
I just called my buddy at Inline Electric and he's never heard of copper
clad aluminum Romex so I assume it hasn't made a comeback in the
local electrical supply chain. But dang, copper is getting expensive! o_O

TDD

I have never seen copper clad. I haven't seen much aluminum 15/20A
branch circuit wire either. My understanding was that copper clad was
late in the period when aluminum was used for branch circuits to
eliminate the surface oxide problem, which would match with what you
wrote. Given the problems around 1970 I would think copper would have to
get pretty expensive to see aluminum used for branch circuits again.
Would be interesting how trouble free "new technology" copper clad
aluminum wire is, used with CO/ALR devices. Might be as good as copper.

I wouldn't want to use aluminum or copper clad for thermostat or signal
wires either. Opinions of punch down block and RJ jack manufacturers
would be interesting.


I don't believe I've ever seen copper clad either. From the description
I read, it's supposed to be soft and pliable, and when you cut it, you
should see the aluminum center. On rare occasions, I've run into very
soft copper conductors, which I just assumed was a manufacturing issue.
I've also run into very hard, almost brittle copper conductors. Maybe
the soft ones were clad, and my dull pliers just wiped the copper over
the aluminum.

wrote:


I was hoping the tester might have some way of
detecting the "false ground" and could tell if is was hooked up
correctly v. someone pigtailing the neutral wire to the ground
terminal.

If that was possible using your method, folks a lot smarter
than you would have figured it out a long time ago.



Remove the connection to the ground rod? (Temporarily.)

On Mar 27, 3:22*pm, "HeyBub" wrote:
wrote:

I was hoping the tester might have some way of
detecting the "false ground" and could tell if is was hooked up
correctly v. someone pigtailing the neutral wire to the ground
terminal.

If that was possible using your method, folks a lot smarter
than you would have figured it out a long time ago.

Remove the connection to the ground rod? (Temporarily.)

same bus in the panel, so there'd still be continuity even if there
were no improper wiring.

nate

On Mar 27, 2:34*pm, RBM wrote:
On 3/27/2012 12:23 PM, bud-- wrote:





On 3/26/2012 1:27 PM, The Daring Dufas wrote:
On 3/26/2012 11:53 AM, bud-- wrote:
On 3/25/2012 8:23 AM, Peter wrote:
On 3/24/2012 5:26 PM, Doug wrote:
I thought about buying an older home built in the 50's in around
Houston, Texas but I was wondering about the electrical wiring.

a) does anyone know if aluminum wiring was used, when this area
switched over to copper wiring?

b) briefly what advantages does copper have over aluminum?

c) without pulling off outlet/switch plates, is there an easy way to
tell if the house has aluminum or copper wiring? Can aluminum wiring
use a breaker box or only fuses?

d) for a 1 story 1500 sq foot home circa 50's, what an electrician
might charge to switch wiring?

e) advice buying an older home with respect to electrical wiring?

I bought the house I'm currently living in in 1987. It was built in
1970
and has aluminum wiring. At the time of sale I required the seller to
swap out every wall receptacle and switch with COALAR units and the
work
to be done by a licensed electrician.

A minor problem is that electricians do not necessarily know what the
actual problems and fixes are.

If you are interested you can read:
http://www.kinginnovation.com/pdfs/R...Fire070706.pdf
(also posted elsewhere). You will probably know more than electricians.
The advice is based on extensive research on aluminum connections.

Trivia note, the "R" in CO/ALR is "revised".

Every house in my subdivision was built at the same time with the same
wiring. Neither me nor any of my neighbors (to my knowledge) has had
any
problems related to the aluminum wiring. We all have circuit breaker
panels.

I used to take off the face plates every year and check to see if the
wire loops were loosening under the screw heads but gave up that
exercise after about 3 years when none were noted to have become loose.

I'm well aware of the supposed risks associated with aluminum wiring
and
I would have preferred to have copper. However, my experience has not
been bad. I suspect that if the homeowner respects the amperage ratings
of each breaker circuit and avoids overloads, they will not have
problems. Copper is more forgiving of overloads due to lower resistance
and therefore less heating and attendant expansion/contraction at
connections.

Resistance is not a factor. Aluminum wires have a similar resistance to
copper since they are larger - #12 aluminum on a 15A circuit, #10 on a
20A.

Bud, are you familiar with copper clad aluminum? I first saw it when I
worked for an electrical supplier in the early 1970's during a copper
shortage. The company was selling a lot of aluminum Romex and then we
started getting in copper clad aluminum Romex. One day the darnedest
thing showed up from another supplier, copper clad thermostat wire in
18 AWG. I discovered it when I picked up the reel and it darn near flew
out of my hands because it was so light. If you've ever picked up a
hollow display auto battery, you know what I mean. I hadn't seen copper
clad aluminum for years until recently when I got an Email from a
network component supplier for 24 AWG copper clad Cat5 network cable.
I just called my buddy at Inline Electric and he's never heard of copper
clad aluminum Romex so I assume it hasn't made a comeback in the
local electrical supply chain. But dang, copper is getting expensive! o_O

TDD

I have never seen copper clad. I haven't seen much aluminum 15/20A
branch circuit wire either. My understanding was that copper clad was
late in the period when aluminum was used for branch circuits to
eliminate the surface oxide problem, which would match with what you
wrote. Given the problems around 1970 I would think copper would have to
get pretty expensive to see aluminum used for branch circuits again.
Would be interesting how trouble free "new technology" copper clad
aluminum wire is, used with CO/ALR devices. Might be as good as copper.

I wouldn't want to use aluminum or copper clad for thermostat or signal
wires either. Opinions of punch down block and RJ jack manufacturers
would be interesting.

I don't believe I've ever seen copper clad either. From the description
I read, it's supposed to be soft and pliable, and when you cut it, you
should see the aluminum center. On rare occasions, I've run into very
soft copper conductors, which I just assumed was a manufacturing issue.
I've also run into very hard, almost brittle copper conductors. Maybe
the soft ones were clad, and my dull pliers just wiped the copper over
the aluminum.

Annealed copper *is* very soft, I would assume that the difference in
hardness that you experience is due to the differences in how the wire
was drawn. The more you work copper, the harder it gets.

nate

On Mar 27, 12:23*pm, bud-- wrote:
On 3/26/2012 1:27 PM, The Daring Dufas wrote:





On 3/26/2012 11:53 AM, bud-- wrote:
On 3/25/2012 8:23 AM, Peter wrote:
On 3/24/2012 5:26 PM, Doug wrote:
I thought about buying an older home built in the 50's in around
Houston, Texas but I was wondering about the electrical wiring.

a) does anyone know if aluminum wiring was used, when this area
switched over to copper wiring?

b) briefly what advantages does copper have over aluminum?

c) without pulling off outlet/switch plates, is there an easy way to
tell if the house has aluminum or copper wiring? Can aluminum wiring
use a breaker box or only fuses?

d) for a 1 story 1500 sq foot home circa 50's, what an electrician
might charge to switch wiring?

e) advice buying an older home with respect to electrical wiring?

I bought the house I'm currently living in in 1987. It was built in 1970
and has aluminum wiring. At the time of sale I required the seller to
swap out every wall receptacle and switch with COALAR units and the work
to be done by a licensed electrician.

A minor problem is that electricians do not necessarily know what the
actual problems and fixes are.

If you are interested you can read:
http://www.kinginnovation.com/pdfs/R...Fire070706.pdf
(also posted elsewhere). You will probably know more than electricians..
The advice is based on extensive research on aluminum connections.

Trivia note, the "R" in CO/ALR is "revised".

Every house in my subdivision was built at the same time with the same
wiring. Neither me nor any of my neighbors (to my knowledge) has had any
problems related to the aluminum wiring. We all have circuit breaker
panels.

I used to take off the face plates every year and check to see if the
wire loops were loosening under the screw heads but gave up that
exercise after about 3 years when none were noted to have become loose.

I'm well aware of the supposed risks associated with aluminum wiring and
I would have preferred to have copper. However, my experience has not
been bad. I suspect that if the homeowner respects the amperage ratings
of each breaker circuit and avoids overloads, they will not have
problems. Copper is more forgiving of overloads due to lower resistance
and therefore less heating and attendant expansion/contraction at
connections.

Resistance is not a factor. Aluminum wires have a similar resistance to
copper since they are larger - #12 aluminum on a 15A circuit, #10 on a
20A.

Bud, are you familiar with copper clad aluminum? I first saw it when I
worked for an electrical supplier in the early 1970's during a copper
shortage. The company was selling a lot of aluminum Romex and then we
started getting in copper clad aluminum Romex. One day the darnedest
thing showed up from another supplier, copper clad thermostat wire in
18 AWG. I discovered it when I picked up the reel and it darn near flew
out of my hands because it was so light. If you've ever picked up a
hollow display auto battery, you know what I mean. I hadn't seen copper
clad aluminum for years until recently when I got an Email from a
network component supplier for 24 AWG copper clad Cat5 network cable.
I just called my buddy at Inline Electric and he's never heard of copper
clad aluminum Romex so I assume it hasn't made a comeback in the
local electrical supply chain. But dang, copper is getting expensive! o_O

TDD

I have never seen copper clad. I haven't seen much aluminum 15/20A
branch circuit wire either. My understanding was that copper clad was
late in the period when aluminum was used for branch circuits to
eliminate the surface oxide problem, which would match with what you
wrote. Given the problems around 1970 I would think copper would have to
get pretty expensive to see aluminum used for branch circuits again.
Would be interesting how trouble free "new technology" copper clad
aluminum wire is, used with CO/ALR devices. Might be as good as copper.

I wouldn't want to use aluminum or copper clad for thermostat or signal
wires either. Opinions of punch down block and RJ jack manufacturers
would be interesting.

--
bud--- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Was the cost of copper so much more than aluminum that it made copper
clading cost effective?

When one considers the costs of the R&D to get the ratios right, the
retooling of the factory to manufacture the clad wire (including the
additional spare parts, training of workers and repair technicians,
documentation, etc.) the approval process to get it NEC approved, etc.
etc. it seems that the cost of copper would have to exceed the cost of
aluminum by a substantial amount for a long, long time in order to
make up the cost to switch over to clad.

On 3/27/2012 3:45 PM, DerbyDad03 wrote:
On Mar 27, 12:23 pm, wrote:
On 3/26/2012 1:27 PM, The Daring Dufas wrote:





On 3/26/2012 11:53 AM, bud-- wrote:
On 3/25/2012 8:23 AM, Peter wrote:
On 3/24/2012 5:26 PM, Doug wrote:
I thought about buying an older home built in the 50's in around
Houston, Texas but I was wondering about the electrical wiring.

a) does anyone know if aluminum wiring was used, when this area
switched over to copper wiring?

b) briefly what advantages does copper have over aluminum?

c) without pulling off outlet/switch plates, is there an easy way to
tell if the house has aluminum or copper wiring? Can aluminum wiring
use a breaker box or only fuses?

d) for a 1 story 1500 sq foot home circa 50's, what an electrician
might charge to switch wiring?

e) advice buying an older home with respect to electrical wiring?

I bought the house I'm currently living in in 1987. It was built in 1970
and has aluminum wiring. At the time of sale I required the seller to
swap out every wall receptacle and switch with COALAR units and the work
to be done by a licensed electrician.

A minor problem is that electricians do not necessarily know what the
actual problems and fixes are.

If you are interested you can read:
http://www.kinginnovation.com/pdfs/R...Fire070706.pdf
(also posted elsewhere). You will probably know more than electricians.
The advice is based on extensive research on aluminum connections.

Trivia note, the "R" in CO/ALR is "revised".

Every house in my subdivision was built at the same time with the same
wiring. Neither me nor any of my neighbors (to my knowledge) has had any
problems related to the aluminum wiring. We all have circuit breaker
panels.

I used to take off the face plates every year and check to see if the
wire loops were loosening under the screw heads but gave up that
exercise after about 3 years when none were noted to have become loose.

I'm well aware of the supposed risks associated with aluminum wiring and
I would have preferred to have copper. However, my experience has not
been bad. I suspect that if the homeowner respects the amperage ratings
of each breaker circuit and avoids overloads, they will not have
problems. Copper is more forgiving of overloads due to lower resistance
and therefore less heating and attendant expansion/contraction at
connections.

Resistance is not a factor. Aluminum wires have a similar resistance to
copper since they are larger - #12 aluminum on a 15A circuit, #10 on a
20A.

Bud, are you familiar with copper clad aluminum? I first saw it when I
worked for an electrical supplier in the early 1970's during a copper
shortage. The company was selling a lot of aluminum Romex and then we
started getting in copper clad aluminum Romex. One day the darnedest
thing showed up from another supplier, copper clad thermostat wire in
18 AWG. I discovered it when I picked up the reel and it darn near flew
out of my hands because it was so light. If you've ever picked up a
hollow display auto battery, you know what I mean. I hadn't seen copper
clad aluminum for years until recently when I got an Email from a
network component supplier for 24 AWG copper clad Cat5 network cable.
I just called my buddy at Inline Electric and he's never heard of copper
clad aluminum Romex so I assume it hasn't made a comeback in the
local electrical supply chain. But dang, copper is getting expensive! o_O

TDD

I have never seen copper clad. I haven't seen much aluminum 15/20A
branch circuit wire either. My understanding was that copper clad was
late in the period when aluminum was used for branch circuits to
eliminate the surface oxide problem, which would match with what you
wrote. Given the problems around 1970 I would think copper would have to
get pretty expensive to see aluminum used for branch circuits again.
Would be interesting how trouble free "new technology" copper clad
aluminum wire is, used with CO/ALR devices. Might be as good as copper.

I wouldn't want to use aluminum or copper clad for thermostat or signal
wires either. Opinions of punch down block and RJ jack manufacturers
would be interesting.

--
bud--- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Was the cost of copper so much more than aluminum that it made copper
clading cost effective?

When one considers the costs of the R&D to get the ratios right, the
retooling of the factory to manufacture the clad wire (including the
additional spare parts, training of workers and repair technicians,
documentation, etc.) the approval process to get it NEC approved, etc.
etc. it seems that the cost of copper would have to exceed the cost of
aluminum by a substantial amount for a long, long time in order to
make up the cost to switch over to clad.

Here's a link to a supplier I use for video surveillance systems that is
now selling copper clad CAT5 cable. ^_^

http://www.supercircuits.com/Video-C...CAB-CAT5-1000E

TDD

On Tue, 27 Mar 2012 13:22:46 -0700 (PDT), N8N wrote:

On Mar 27, 3:22*pm, "HeyBub" wrote:
wrote:

I was hoping the tester might have some way of
detecting the "false ground" and could tell if is was hooked up
correctly v. someone pigtailing the neutral wire to the ground
terminal.

If that was possible using your method, folks a lot smarter
than you would have figured it out a long time ago.

Remove the connection to the ground rod? (Temporarily.)

same bus in the panel, so there'd still be continuity even if there
were no improper wiring.

I think HB was suggesting that the ground-neutral link be removed. Of course,
that only works if the grounds and neutrals are separated on their respective
bars.

On Mon, 26 Mar 2012 11:00:15 -0400, "Tomsic" wrote:


"Doug" wrote in message
.. .
On Sun, 25 Mar 2012 10:23:46 -0400, Peter wrote:

On 3/24/2012 5:26 PM, Doug wrote:
I thought about buying an older home built in the 50's in around
Houston, Texas but I was wondering about the electrical wiring.

a) does anyone know if aluminum wiring was used, when this area
switched over to copper wiring?

b) briefly what advantages does copper have over aluminum?

c) without pulling off outlet/switch plates, is there an easy way to
tell if the house has aluminum or copper wiring? Can aluminum wiring
use a breaker box or only fuses?

d) for a 1 story 1500 sq foot home circa 50's, what an electrician
might charge to switch wiring?

e) advice buying an older home with respect to electrical wiring?
I bought the house I'm currently living in in 1987. It was built in
1970 and has aluminum wiring. At the time of sale I required the seller
to swap out every wall receptacle and switch with COALAR units and the
work to be done by a licensed electrician.

Every house in my subdivision was built at the same time with the same
wiring. Neither me nor any of my neighbors (to my knowledge) has had
any problems related to the aluminum wiring. We all have circuit
breaker panels.

I used to take off the face plates every year and check to see if the
wire loops were loosening under the screw heads but gave up that
exercise after about 3 years when none were noted to have become loose.

I'm well aware of the supposed risks associated with aluminum wiring and
I would have preferred to have copper. However, my experience has not
been bad. I suspect that if the homeowner respects the amperage ratings
of each breaker circuit and avoids overloads, they will not have
problems. Copper is more forgiving of overloads due to lower resistance
and therefore less heating and attendant expansion/contraction at
connections.

Doug, there was a report published in 2008 by Underwriters Laboratories and
the National Fire Protection Association titled, "Residential Electrical
System Aging Reserch Project". The researchers tore apart 30 homes aged
30-110 years and evaluated the wiring as they found it It's the best
information available on what to look for with respect to wiring in older
homes including some great pictures showing what you might find. The report
is free to download. Just Google the title.

Tomsic



Tomsic, thank you for this information.

On Tue, 27 Mar 2012 04:45:23 -0600, wrote:

On Sun, 25 Mar 2012 14:12:42 -0500, "Doug"
wrote:

trust it to be so unless I can verify it. He did say that in the
early 90's it has a small fire on the roof at the garage end of house
due to a lightening strike. I don't know if that has any connection
to the wiring and since I don't know this owner, I'm suspicious to say
the least.

I was reading this thread till I got to this reply from you.
First off, lightning is NOT caused by the wiring, nor is the wiring very
likely to attract lightning. Lightning mostly hits where ever it is,
but tall metal structures can attract it, such as antenna towers and
even tall trees. Whatever gave you the idea that the fire which they
said was caused by lightning has anything to do with the wiring is just
plain stupid.

I think you're being much too suspicious...... I understand you
checking out all the parts of the house for problems, but how many more
people on here will it take to tell you that aluminum wiring was not
used in the 50's. I'd be more concerned about the wiring on the end of
the house struck by lightning having a few charred connections from the
strike. I'd also want to see the attic on that end of the house for
charred wood and structural damage.

If you are that worried, hire a contractor/inspector to check the house.
In most or all places you have that right, as long as YOU pay them. And
why are you asking for prices on the internet? No one knows what prices
are like in your part of the world. That's about as stupid as calling
your doctor and asking him to disgnose your kidney stones over the
phone.



Ok, I got your point. Thanks.

"Nate Nagel" wrote in message
...
On 03/26/2012 10:11 PM, RBM wrote:
On 3/26/2012 7:51 PM, The Daring Dufas wrote:
On 3/26/2012 3:51 PM, RBM wrote:
On 3/26/2012 2:56 PM, The Daring Dufas wrote:
On 3/26/2012 1:01 PM, RBM wrote:
On 3/26/2012 12:41 PM, bud-- wrote:
On 3/25/2012 8:13 AM, The Daring Dufas wrote:
On 3/24/2012 6:14 PM, RBM wrote:
On 3/24/2012 6:54 PM, dpb wrote:
On 3/24/2012 4:26 PM, Doug wrote:
I thought about buying an older home built in the 50's in around
Houston, Texas but I was wondering about the electrical wiring.

a) does anyone know if aluminum wiring was used, when this area
switched over to copper wiring?

b) briefly what advantages does copper have over aluminum?

c) without pulling off outlet/switch plates, is there an easy
way to
tell if the house has aluminum or copper wiring? Can aluminum
wiring
use a breaker box or only fuses?

d) for a 1 story 1500 sq foot home circa 50's, what an
electrician
might charge to switch wiring?

e) advice buying an older home with respect to electrical
wiring?

The Al branch circuit wiring craze was generally in the mid-60s;
the
chances of it in a 50s house are nil.

Not exactly nil, but pretty close. As with a number of electrical
materials, some things were available long before anyone cared to
use
them. Small gauge aluminum building conductors were around since
the
40's, possibly because of the war, but the era of aluminum wiring
that
strikes fear in homeowners, is primarily from 65' to 73'.
Sometimes
earlier conductors with tinned copper is mistaken for aluminum.


Al tends to oxidize and has higher thermal coeff of expansion so
tends
to loosen connections w/ time more than Cu. The biggest issue is
the
oxidation layer and contact resistance at connections that acts
as a
miniature heater and eventually can reach combustion
temperatures if
gets bad enough.

You'll have a home inspection done, anyway, wiring is just one of
the
many issues to have verified and discover if there needs to be
either
work done prior to the sale or discount the offer to cover the
cost to
yourself after the sale.

--


A lot of early copper house wiring was tinned because connections
were
soldered then wrapped with friction tape.

I read tinning was to protect the copper from the rubber insulation
(sulfur?). (I don't know.)


As usual, the Budman is correct. According to the electrical wiring
historian, David E. Shapiro, without the tinning, the rubber coating
would have to be scraped off of the copper because of "gluing
caused by
catalytic action. It certainly didn't hurt in the process of
soldering
the conductors either.


That's what I get for listening to Old Sparky and not researching it
for
myself. He told me that his tools included an old fashioned blow
torch and a big honking soldering iron. The first wire nuts he ever
saw were ceramic or porcelain. I understand the sulfur because that
was the magic ingredient Charles Goodyear discovered was the missing
element needed to cause latex to vulcanize into something useful. ^_^

TDD


My dad did electrical work as a kid, then when he got home after ww2,
he
started his own electrical contracting business. I started working with
him in the early 70's. I remember a drawer in the shop's workbench that
had a couple of those big honkin soldering irons. I'm sure they got
kicked around for years and finally got tossed. I don't remember seeing
any kind of lead melting pot, just those massive irons. I never did ask
him if or when he used them, but I'll be sure to do so next time I see
him.

I did a bit of searching and found this:

Electricians used blow torches in their work as well. You may have
noticed the hook on top of the burner head and the vee groove at the
mouth of the burner head. These were used to hold a soldering iron in
the flame of the torch whereby the electrician would use the soldering
iron to solder wires together. The soldering iron was used by radiomen
as well as electricians. The other interesting technique used by
electricians is that they would twist the wires together in a junction
box, then take a ladle that had a swivel mechanism. The ladle was at the
end of a steel handle about 18 inches long. The object of the swivel was
so no matter what angle the handle was in, the ladle, which held molten
lead, would always be vertical. The electrician would walk through his
new construction project, hold this ladle up to his freshly twisted
wires, and dip the wires into the lead. This was done so the electrical
connections would not work loose.

Zangobob's Blow Torch Heaven

http://www.blotorches.com/

TDD

My understanding is that they use the pot or ladle when they were doing
new construction or rural electrification upgrades, and used the irons
for "non production" splices. What a PIA. Every day I thank my lucky
stars for never having to use a blow torch, massive soldering iron,
brace & bit, or knobs & tubes, hell I hated having to use a 3/16" star
drill to hand drive rawl plugs. I'm just spoiled

Brace and bit is still handy when you have just a couple holes to drill
and it's quicker than running an extension cord ('cause you're running
wire, and the power in the area is cut off.) Yeah, I have one and it has
a place in my tool stash.

nate

--
replace "roosters" with "cox" to reply.
http://members.cox.net/njnagel

I still love the look of a well-soldered connection. That baby will outlast
the building with no chance of working loose. But, I'll gladly use a
soldering gun or electric iron instead of a blowtorch.

Tomsic

wrote in message news:27eb1d41-cca1-4f7e-aa23-
stuff snipped

Boy, you really are dumb.

Not as dumb as your mother when your Dad told her she couldn't get pregnant
through anal intercourse. And then 9 months later, YOU were born! (-:
See, *anyone* can be insulting. It's much harder to be right. You've been
riding my butt for a long time, Trader (family tradition of yours?). But not
forever. You want to throw down, then OK, we'll throw down.

I was hoping the tester might have some way of
detecting the "false ground" and could tell if is was hooked up correctly
v.
someone pigtailing the neutral wire to the ground terminal.

If that was possible using your method, folks a lot smarter
than you would have figured it out a long time ago.

Bzzt. Wrong answer, once again! Mr. Know It All, I regret to inform you
that someone did build that tester and you just didn't know about it.
You've once again proved why you're our resident "stupidist." You're so
eager to insult, you didn't even see Bud's post about the Ideal plug-in
tester series. Insulting people AND getting it wrong? Priceless. You make
this so easy. Now people will read your cartoon theories on economics and
politics, Chetnik, and wonder "is that all bluster and bullshi+, too?"
Doncha just hate yourself right about now?

Obviously there's some measurable/detectable difference between a real
ground and a "bootleg" ground and this unit detects it by just plugging into
a wall outlet. Educate yourself Trader:

http://www.idealindustries.com/prodD...?prodId=61-164

It's apparently the number once choice of home inspectors specializing in
electrical inspections, at least based upon the numerous posted reviews.
That's because it detects so many faults that are very difficult to detect
without removing the circuit panel cover or disconnecting wires.

Here's what Amazon says about it.

Identifies proper wiring in 3-wire receptacles --- Identifies false
(bootleg) grounds --- Tests GFCIs and EPDs for proper operation --- Conducts
testing without disturbing sensitive loads --- Verified isolated grounds
(with 61-176 adapter) --- Utilizing patented technology, the SureTest
circuit analyzers "look behind walls" to identify wiring problems that can
lead to personal shock hazards, electrical fires, or equipment performance
issues. Personal shock hazards stem from poor grounding, false grounds,
and/or no ground fault protection. . . The SureTest Circuit Analyzer takes
only seconds to test each outlet and circuit under a full load. This test
tool checks for various wiring conditions including: correct wiring,
polarity reversal and no ground per UL-1436. A simple menu gives access to
measurements of line voltage, voltage drop under a full load condition,
ground-neutral voltage and line impedances. The ground fault circuit
interrupter (GFCI) test is performed separately in accordance with UL-1436
and disrupts the electrical supply if a functional GFCI is present. ---
INCLUDES: 1 - Carrying Case; 1 - 1 foot Extension Cord

Thanks for providing another item to add to my ever growing list of
"Trader/Chet tries to insult someone else but only foolishly insults
himself" folder. Chet, it doesn't take very many brains to be nasty and
insulting. Clearly, you've got that part down. But it does take brains to
get it right. For you, that will take some doing.

As has been suggested, by Mr. Hofmann and others, there's obviously a
measurable difference at the outlet between a bootlegged ground - an
outlet's ground connector pig-tailed to the neutral - and a proper ground.
The only question is how does the Ideal device make that determination and
will they tell me if I ask them? (-: I believe from reading about the
device's capabilities, Mr. Hofmann was correct - the ability of the Ideal
tester to detect a bootlegged ground is based on resistance readings.
There's less resistance between a 2 or 3 inch pigtail and perhaps a 25 foot
or longer wiring run. Or do things work differently on planet Trader?

Now, Chet, let's hear you stutter like Porky Pig as you try to explain you
didn't actually mean what you wrote. If I know you, that's going to be as
much fun as watching Larry Craig trying to explain his "wide stance." Again.
I know I shouldn't enjoy this so much, but when a guy who regularly and
thoughtlessly insults entire groups of people steps on his own joint, and
then grinds his shoe on it, you just gotta love it.

Oh no! I[m totally shocked! About as shocked as if
you reported that you stuck your wiener in the outlet
and got shocked. Disclaimer: I'm not suggesting
you do that, but would be quite happy if you did.

I knew you were a very hateful, unhappy person, Chet, but I didn't think
that you were this hateful. No wonder you support involving the US in
meaningless war after war. You're a typical warmonger. You rant on and on
about going to Syria while you're demanding huge spending cuts. That's
Trader's logic. Cut the deficit by getting into another costly war halfway
around the world. I was right. Your daddy *really* must have beat the crap
out of you to twist you up this badly. "Wibwoon, Wibwoon!" Got any cleated
golf shoes handy? Put them on the next time you step on your willie. Maybe
that way you'll learn not to.

I'll do a little more research to try to see if there's a way to use a
multi-meter attached to a line cord to detect the "forged" connection.

You should do that before making an ass of yourself.

Who has made an ass out of whom, Trader? You're as confused as ever. Next
time, try taking your own advice and you won't look so uninformed and
spiteful. You couldn't make me happier if you tried, Chet. You ought to
pull in your horns before you gore your credibility to death. (-:

I'd like to be able to detect the condition Nate's described with a
plug-in test
device that doesn't require shutting down the appropriate breaker at the
panel. People get hinky about buyers or inspectors opening circuit panels
or even turning valves on the plumbing.

I can think of ways of how to do it that would work.

But you didn't list any. Joe McCarthy, your soul brother, had a list, too.
He couldn't *show* it to anybody, either.

In case you missed it, DD_BobK posted a website a while back that talks
about some testers that displayed dimmed LEDs depending on unusual fault
conditions:

http://www.thecircuitdetective.com/test.htm

That's why I decided to rig up a test outlet to verify my unit's
capabilities. It's something I learned from Ronald Reagan: "trust but
verify." A bootlegged ground is not a "usual fault" condition. I'm sorry
if my testing doesn't meet with your approval. About as sorry as I am over
Sarah and John losing to Barack. (-: Wait, I forgot, you're "analogically
challenged." This should be easier for you to understand: "I don't give a
flying fu& about what you think, Chet, and never will."

A few weeks ago on the People's Court there was a case of a guy buying a
boat who wouldn't consummate the contract unless the boat owner allowed
him
to pull the head on the engine to investigate a bad compression reading
he
got. The boatowner balked (I would have, too - not even sure I would have
let him pull the spark plugs to test compression in the first place!). He
then sold the boat to someone who did not care about the engine (it was
priced to sell, as they say). The first purchaser sued, trying to force
the
boatowner to cancel the second sale and honor the first agreement. The
judge laughed him out of court.

Which of course, as usual, has nothing to do with the discussion.

Jeez, you got that wrong, too, Snarky. You're so easily blinded by rage. Do
you have to make this a turkey shoot? That's no fun. Still, if you want to
chip away at your own credibility, I'll give you all the help you need.

What you meant to say is that "As usual, my hate-filled brain is so anxious
and determined to insult Bobby that I missed the obvious connection." The
People's Court case has everything to do with the previous thread statements
concerning what a home seller will allow a home buyer to do, as in remove a
circuit panel door - like a boat buyer asking to remove a cylinder head. Do
you make the connection now?

Let me try it another way in case you're still blinded by rage: There
appears to be a limit to what you can ask of a seller. For at least one
boat owner, it seems pulling the cylinder head was his limit. Asking to
remove a circuit panel door or disconnect wires and run wiring tests might
not meet with approval from a lot of home sellers. Capiche?

Very simple analogy. But not, apparently, for you, the guy who previously
tried to insult me by saying mine was the "stupidist" analogy he had ever
seen. Only you could try to insult someone's intelligence and spell
"stupidest" incorrectly while attempting it. "BANG!" Chet shoots his foot
again. Now you've conclusively proved you're the one that's "analogically"
challenged. Probably something to do with your anal nativity. (-" Yet you
have the chutzpah to call other people dumb. A man will often accuse others
of what he is most guilty of himself. Why are you so determined to prove it
over and over and over again?

How do you feed yourself if you can't figure these simple things out, Chet?

--
Bobby G.

On Mar 30, 9:22*am, "Robert Green" wrote:
wrote in message news:27eb1d41-cca1-4f7e-aa23-

stuff snipped

Boy, you really are dumb.

Not as dumb as your mother when your Dad told her she couldn't get pregnant
through anal intercourse. *And then 9 months later, YOU were born! *(-:
See, *anyone* can be insulting. *It's much harder to be right. You've been
riding my butt for a long time, Trader (family tradition of yours?). But not
forever. *You want to throw down, then OK, we'll throw down.


For someone who takes great offense when I use the term
dumb, you sure have a real potty mouth.






I was hoping the tester might have some way of
detecting the "false ground" and could tell if is was hooked up correctly
v.
someone pigtailing the neutral wire to the ground terminal.
If that was possible using your method, folks a lot smarter
than you would have figured it out a long time ago.

Bzzt. *Wrong answer, once again! *Mr. Know It All, I regret to inform you
that someone did build that tester and you just didn't know about it.
You've once again proved why you're our resident "stupidist." *You're so
eager to insult, you didn't even see Bud's post about the Ideal plug-in
tester series. Insulting people AND getting it wrong? *Priceless. You make
this so easy. Now people will read your cartoon theories on economics and
politics, Chetnik, and wonder "is that all bluster and bullshi+, too?"
Doncha just hate yourself right about now?


When you stop spewing, go back to what you posted and my response:

You:

" I hooked up a three wire line cord to an outlet to
see if there was any detectable brightness difference in the LED
indicators
due to that resistance. I was hoping the tester might have some way
of
detecting the "false ground" and could tell if is was hooked up
correctly v.
someone pigtailing the neutral wire to the ground terminal. There
wasn't
any detectable change in brightness and the tester reported the jury-
rigged
neutral pigtail to ground as OK. )-:

Me:

"Boy, you really are dumb. Thinking that the small possible
resistance difference between a neutral and ground connected
at the outlet versus at the panel is going to make a difference
in the brightness of LEDs? If that was possible using your method,
folks a lot smarter than you would have figured it out a long time
ago. "





Obviously there's some measurable/detectable difference between a real
ground and a "bootleg" ground and this unit detects it by just plugging into
a wall outlet. *Educate yourself Trader:

http://www.idealindustries.com/prodD...?prodId=61-164


Yawn.... Go back and read what I posted. I never said that it
wasn't possible to build some kind of tester that could give you
some idea of whether a correct ground exists. I said YOUR
method of trying to use the brightness of simple LEDS on
one of the cheap plug-in testers would not work. That is
what you were trying to do, was it not? Capiche?

The Ideal tester you've found doens't do the test by the
brightness of LED's. Capiche?



It's apparently the number once choice of home inspectors specializing in
electrical inspections, at least based upon the numerous posted reviews.
That's because it detects so many faults that are very difficult to detect
without removing the circuit panel cover or disconnecting wires.

It's probably also because it actually does something, as opposed
to your look at the LED brightness of an ordinary tester method.



Here's what Amazon says about it.

Who the hell cares.


Thanks for providing another item to add to my ever growing list of
"Trader/Chet tries to insult someone else but only foolishly insults
himself" folder. *Chet, it doesn't take very many brains to be nasty and
insulting. *Clearly, you've got that part down. *But it does take brains to
get it right. *For you, that will take some doing.

I did get it right. You can't detect a false ground that is connected
to the neutral at the receptacle instead of at the panel using
the brightness of LEDs on your cheap go/nogo tester.
I believe you verifed that yourself. Actually what you attempted
to see is even more laughable. You thought you could see
a difference in the LED brightness caused by a short length
of line cord? That resistance difference is maybe .01 ohms.
Wow, LEDs dim much?






As has been suggested, by Mr. Hofmann and others, there's obviously a
measurable difference at the outlet between a bootlegged ground - an
outlet's ground connector pig-tailed to the neutral - and a proper ground..
The only question is how does the Ideal device make that determination and
will they tell me if I ask them? *(-: *I believe from reading about the
device's capabilities, Mr. Hofmann was correct - the ability of the Ideal
tester to detect a bootlegged ground is based on resistance readings.
There's less resistance between a 2 or 3 inch pigtail and perhaps a 25 foot
or longer wiring run. *Or do things work differently on planet Trader?

The points that the rest of us here realize is that for
the typical lengths of residential wiring, that resistance
difference is small, maybe .25 amp. Now tell us how
with your LEDs that draw a few milliamps, how you're
going to visually see that difference in brightness on
your tester?

And also, even the Ideal tester, has limitations. Wire
resistance isn't the only factor. I could come up with
all kinds of scenarios where a tester that uses resistance
isn't going to correctly identify situations where the
ground is not actually correct. But since you can't
understand even the basics, I won't bore you.




Now, Chet, let's hear you stutter like Porky Pig as you try to explain you
didn't actually mean what you wrote. *If I know you, that's going to be as
much fun as watching Larry Craig trying to explain his "wide stance." Again.
I know I shouldn't enjoy this so much, but when a guy who regularly and
thoughtlessly insults entire groups of people steps on his own joint, and
then grinds his shoe on it, you just gotta love it.

I just explained it and everyone can judge who's Porky.




Oh no! *I[m totally shocked! *About as shocked as if
you reported that you stuck your wiener in the outlet
and got shocked. * Disclaimer: *I'm not suggesting
you do that, but would be quite happy if you did.

I knew you were a very hateful, unhappy person, Chet, but I didn't think
that you were this hateful. *No wonder you support involving the US in
meaningless war after war. You're a typical warmonger. You rant on and on
about going to Syria while you're demanding huge spending cuts. *That's
Trader's logic. *Cut the deficit by getting into another costly war halfway
around the world. *I was right. *Your daddy *really* must have beat the crap
out of you to twist you up this badly. "Wibwoon, Wibwoon!" *Got any cleated
golf shoes handy? *Put them on the next time you step on your willie. *Maybe
that way you'll learn not to.

Geez, did you forget to take your medication this morning?




*I'll do a little more research to try to see if there's a way to use a
multi-meter attached to a line cord to detect the "forged" connection.
You should do that before making an ass of yourself.

Who has made an ass out of whom, Trader? *You're as confused as ever.


No confusion. You tried to measure a tiny difference in resistance
of maybe .01 ohms by looking at how bright LED indicators are
on the end of a cord. Pretty funny, I say.



Next
time, try taking your own advice and you won't look so uninformed and
spiteful. *You couldn't make me happier if you tried, Chet. *You ought to
pull in your horns before you gore your credibility to death. *(-:



*I'd like to be able to detect the condition Nate's described with a
plug-in test
device that doesn't require shutting down the appropriate breaker at the
panel. People get hinky about buyers or inspectors opening circuit panels
or even turning valves on the plumbing.
I can think of ways of how to do it that would work.

But you didn't list any. *Joe McCarthy, your soul brother, had a list, too.
He couldn't *show* it to anybody, either.

In case you missed it, *DD_BobK posted a website a while back that talks
about some testers that displayed dimmed LEDs depending on unusual fault
conditions:

http://www.thecircuitdetective.com/test.htm

Just show us where that website says that you can detect
a ground connected to the neutral at the receptable instead
of at the panel using the brightness of the LEDs on the
common testers. Then I'll add them to my list of loons
and you'll have company.




That's why I decided to rig up a test outlet to verify my unit's
capabilities. *It's something I learned from Ronald Reagan: *"trust but
verify." *A bootlegged ground is not a "usual fault" condition. *I'm sorry
if my testing doesn't meet with your approval. *About as sorry as I am over
Sarah and John losing to Barack. *(-: *Wait, I forgot, you're "analogically
challenged." *This should be easier for you to understand: "I don't give a
flying fu& about what you think, Chet, and never will."



Obviously you do care what I think, otherwise you wouldn't be here
preening for my attention.





A few weeks ago on the People's Court there was a case of a guy buying a
boat who wouldn't consummate the contract unless the boat owner allowed
him
to pull the head on the engine to investigate a bad compression reading
he
got. The boatowner balked (I would have, too - not even sure I would have
let him pull the spark plugs to test compression in the first place!). He
then sold the boat to someone who did not care about the engine (it was
priced to sell, as they say). The first purchaser sued, trying to force
the
boatowner to cancel the second sale and honor the first agreement. The
judge laughed him out of court.
Which of course, as usual, has nothing to do with the discussion.

Jeez, you got that wrong, too, Snarky. You're so easily blinded by rage. Do
you have to make this a turkey shoot? *That's no fun. Still, if you want to
chip away at your own credibility, I'll give you all the help you need.

My goodness, you've manage to somehow link my criticism of your
incompetent attempts at electrical measurement with Reagan, Palin,
Larry King, McCain, McCarthy.... Anyone else I miss? And I'm
the one blinded by rage?

On 3/30/2012 7:22 AM, Robert Green wrote:

Obviously there's some measurable/detectable difference between a real
ground and a "bootleg" ground and this unit detects it by just plugging into
a wall outlet. Educate yourself Trader:

http://www.idealindustries.com/prodD...?prodId=61-164

It's apparently the number once choice of home inspectors specializing in
electrical inspections, at least based upon the numerous posted reviews.
That's because it detects so many faults that are very difficult to detect
without removing the circuit panel cover or disconnecting wires.

As I think I wrote before, my Ecos tester puts a relatively high current
pulse from H-N and measures the N-G voltage. The voltage will be about
zero if the N and G are connected at the receptacle. If N and G are
connected at the N-G bond at the panel there will be a measurable
voltage - the voltage drop on the neutral to the panel. If the branch
circuit length to the panel is only about 20 feet there won't be enough
voltage to reliably measure and Ecos will indicate a bootleg ground.

Ideal has a similar short distance limitation and can also inject
current pulses into the branch circuit. It is likely Ideal uses the same
method.

I don't think it is likely you can use a voltmeter or LED tester to find
a bootleg ground. You could connnect a 15A load H-N and look at the N-G
voltage, but it is rather involved and wouldn't work so good for a home
inspector.

The Ideal tester can make many other measurements including some that a
home inspector wouldn't know what they mean.

--
bud--

"HeyBub" wrote in message news:-

I was hoping the tester might have some way of
detecting the "false ground" and could tell if it was hooked up
correctly v. someone pigtailing the neutral wire to the ground
terminal.

Remove the connection to the ground rod? (Temporarily.)

"Excuse me, mister Seller, mind if I disconnect the safety ground for the
whole house?" (-:

Detecting bootleg grounds "non-destructively" hyperbole alert is obviously
something a good home inspector or smart buyer wants to catch. Many home
sellers will barely put up with unplugging things from outlets and plugging
in a tester. I can't imagine that many would permit disconnection of the
whole house ground. BTDT. Most inspections I've seen were "visual" only -
no fiddling about allowed. Home sellers have a right to be queasy. What
happens if you injure yourself climbing a ladder or playing around with a
meter inside an open circuit panel inspecting their premises? They get
sued.

As Bud pointed out Ideal already makes such a tester that can detect
bootlegged grounds with no panel futzing or ground connection removal. It
simply plugs into the electrical outlet to be tested. The price is a little
steep, though if it finds a house full of bootleg grounds, it could be well
worth the expense. Obviously there's some measurable/detectable difference
between a real ground and a "bootleg" ground. Measuring the increased
resistance from the much longer circuit path of a legitimate ground seems a
likely methodology to detect bootlegs.

http://www.idealindustries.com/prodD...?prodId=61-164

Ideal claims: The SureTest Circuit Analyzer takes only seconds to test
each outlet and circuit under a full load. This test tool checks for various
wiring conditions including: correct wiring, polarity reversal and no ground
per UL-1436. A simple menu gives access to measurements of line voltage,
voltage drop under a full load condition, ground-neutral voltage and line
impedances.

Along with reveal bootleg grounds, it measures voltage drop under a full
load. That seems to be a pretty useful feature that can be used to find
undersized or overextended wiring runs. If I buy another house that I
suspect has been wired incorrectly, I'll definitely pick up the 61-164
tester and then sell it used on Ebay after I am finished.

--
Bobby G.

On Mar 30, 6:08*pm, "Robert Green" wrote:
"HeyBub" wrote in message news:-
I was hoping the tester might have some way of
detecting the "false ground" and could tell if it was hooked up
correctly v. someone pigtailing the neutral wire to the ground
terminal.
Remove the connection to the ground rod? (Temporarily.)

"Excuse me, mister Seller, mind if I disconnect the safety ground for the
whole house?" *(-:

Detecting bootleg grounds "non-destructively" hyperbole alert is obviously
something a good home inspector or smart buyer wants to catch. *Many home
sellers will barely put up with unplugging things from outlets and plugging
in a tester. *I can't imagine that many would permit disconnection of the
whole house ground. BTDT.


It's already been pointed out a few posts back that disconnecting
the ground rod isn't going to reveal anything with regard to whether
there is a correct ground connection or a bootleg one. The neutrals
and grounds from all the branch circuits are still tied together at
the panel.



*Most inspections I've seen were "visual" only -
no fiddling about allowed. *Home sellers have a right to be queasy. *What
happens if you injure yourself climbing a ladder or playing around with a
meter inside an open circuit panel inspecting their premises? *They get
sued.

I've hired home inspectors several times. All involved ladders
and taking the cover off the breaker panel. If a home seller doesn't
want my inspector to see the roof or the inside of the panel,
they can find another buyer.




As Bud pointed out Ideal already makes such a tester that can detect
bootlegged grounds with no panel futzing or ground connection removal.

It can apparently find SOME of them. But I can see cases
where it won't find them. Say a branch circuit makes it's
way from the panel to receptacle A that is nearby. That
run is older wiring with no ground. Someone tapped on
to the wiring at receptacle A and ran new cable with ground
to receptacle B that is located 25 ft away. They just
connected the new ground to the neutral at receptacle A.
You're not going to find that with the Ideal tester using
it a receptacle B. And if receptacle A is relatively close
to the panel, I doubt it will find it there either, because
the resistance difference between the improper
connection and a proper one at the panel is too small
to be accurately detectable.

It appears to be a useful tool though for finding at least
some of the improper ground/neutral connections.


It
simply plugs into the electrical outlet to be tested. The price is a little
steep, though if it finds a house full of bootleg grounds, it could be well
worth the expense. *Obviously there's some measurable/detectable difference
between a real ground and a "bootleg" ground. *Measuring the increased
resistance from the much longer circuit path of a legitimate ground seems a
likely methodology to detect bootlegs.

http://www.idealindustries.com/prodD...?prodId=61-164

Ideal claims: The SureTest Circuit Analyzer takes only seconds to test
each outlet and circuit under a full load. This test tool checks for various
wiring conditions including: correct wiring, polarity reversal and no ground
per UL-1436. A simple menu gives access to measurements of line voltage,
voltage drop under a full load condition, ground-neutral voltage and line
impedances.

Along with reveal bootleg grounds, it measures voltage drop under a full
load. That seems to be a pretty useful feature that can be used to find
undersized or overextended wiring runs. If I buy another house that I
suspect has been wired incorrectly, I'll definitely pick up the 61-164
tester and then sell it used on Ebay after I am finished.

--
Bobby G.

On 3/30/2012 4:08 PM, Robert Green wrote:
wrote in message news:-

I was hoping the tester might have some way of
detecting the "false ground" and could tell if it was hooked up
correctly v. someone pigtailing the neutral wire to the ground
terminal.

Remove the connection to the ground rod? (Temporarily.)

I agree with Nate that this won't work.


"Excuse me, mister Seller, mind if I disconnect the safety ground for the
whole house?" (-:

Detecting bootleg grounds "non-destructively"hyperbole alert is obviously
something a good home inspector or smart buyer wants to catch. Many home
sellers will barely put up with unplugging things from outlets and plugging
in a tester. I can't imagine that many would permit disconnection of the
whole house ground. BTDT. Most inspections I've seen were "visual" only -
no fiddling about allowed. Home sellers have a right to be queasy. What
happens if you injure yourself climbing a ladder or playing around with a
meter inside an open circuit panel inspecting their premises? They get
sued.

As Bud pointed out Ideal already makes such a tester that can detect
bootlegged grounds with no panel futzing or ground connection removal. It
simply plugs into the electrical outlet to be tested. The price is a little
steep, though if it finds a house full of bootleg grounds, it could be well
worth the expense.

More likely to be useful - it uses a high enough test current to find
bad grounds on a grounded receptacle. A 3-LED tester is not reliable for
this.

--
bud--

On Wed, 28 Mar 2012 06:33:22 -0700 (PDT), N8N wrote:

On Mar 27, 9:14*pm, "
wrote:
On Tue, 27 Mar 2012 13:22:46 -0700 (PDT), N8N wrote:
On Mar 27, 3:22*pm, "HeyBub" wrote:
wrote:

I was hoping the tester might have some way of
detecting the "false ground" and could tell if is was hooked up
correctly v. someone pigtailing the neutral wire to the ground
terminal.

If that was possible using your method, folks a lot smarter
than you would have figured it out a long time ago.

Remove the connection to the ground rod? (Temporarily.)

same bus in the panel, so there'd still be continuity even if there
were no improper wiring.

I think HB was suggesting that the ground-neutral link be removed. *Of course,
that only works if the grounds and neutrals are separated on their respective
bars.

Right, most of the panels I've seen though don't have separate ground
and neutral bars (unless they're sub-panels)

I always put them in. It makes the job neater.