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barry martin
 
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Default Cloth covered wiring

Greg:

GG My 1950's vintage rambler has some newer wiring, but also some older
GG (probably original) cloth covered wiring, which I discovered on changing o
t
GG some sockets. What is the story on this type of wiring? Is it ok to leave
GG it? I imagine replacing it would be enormously expensive.
GG I don't know if this applies to you, but I have a bunch of BX with
GG cloth insulated conductors in my (1949-built) house. The parts of it I
GG get to see, (the last couple of inches in each box) seems brittle and
GG easily damaged. I also had only 4 circuits for the whole house.
GG
GG My plan has been to put in new circuits for anything that uses real
GG current, leaving just lights, TVs, etc. on the original wiring. So now
GG I have circuits for each window AC, the refrigerator, microwave,
GG workshop, washer, dryer and even the computer I'm typing this on.
GG (that one was mosly for convenience).
GG
GG I figure I'm lowering my chances of a problem a little bit at a time.
GG A circuit that used to have two window ACs, plus a refrigerator
GG (electricity must have been a minor consideration when this house was
GG built) and a smattering of other stuff now handles just a TV, a clock
GG radio and two ceiling fixtures. Less current, less heat, fewer
GG problems, I hope.

I'm thinking you are correct. (We'll see what other information and
suggestion we get!) The original house was built in the mid-50's with
four fuses (eek!); wiring is plastic-insulated. Previous owners added
a dining room plus two circuit breakers in the sub-panel adjacent to
the original. I found one of the circuit breakers only had a single
outlet on it; shortly after moving in and several blown 20A fuses
moved the washer and (gas) dryer to this essentially unused circuit
breaker. Now only had to replace fuses every few months -- seems
like the fusible link heats up, sags, and eventually breaks.

We added a master bedroom over the dining room; that required an
upgrade to the service panel -- something that definately needed to be
done for a long time.

As far as your situation is concerned, overloading a circuit is not a
good thing. Moving heavy-draw appliances off the old wiring is
probably not necessary as the wire doesn't care what is attached. Ten
100W light bulbs is still 10A. (Rounding - just in case someone wants
to be a stickler! g) Moving connections to alleviate a circuit
running at near capacity is a good and safe thing to do.

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