Wiring Help

[davey7]

I'm wondering if anybody has any wiring suggestions or does their own? I am going to have to do some rewiring since part of my living room seems to have gone on the fritz yesterday. I've got the circuit shut off at the moment, its primarily lighting and lighting receptacles. My living room ceiling lights and two receptacles failed yesterday while hoovering after a window project. I wonder if using a drill for 15 minutes at most would have fried the circuit - it's the original wiring from 1927ish so it might be time to rewire.

Any suggestions for links for tips or troubleshooting advice appreciated.

 

[turquoisedude]

It's possible that a splice or connection somewhere along the line has failed; vibration from hammering, etc. while replacing the window may have done it.   If you know power is getting to a certain point and not beyond, start there by inspecting the last outlet or fixture known to be working.    Wiring in older homes may have several spliced connections inside outlet or fixture boxes so inspect them carefully before pulling them out of the box.  Needless to say, be sure your circuit is off before doing any inspection work. 

 

Is is possible that your home might still have some 'knob and tube' wiring still in service?  The exposed wires in that kind of system can cause all kinds of grief - a wire could have broken at a fixture or other junction box. 

 

It may be more prudent to get an electrician in to inspect the wiring; your insurance company may not like the fact that you've done some of your own wiring!   I did a great deal of the work in our updated kitchen and new garage but I did have a licensed electrician give it a once-over... 

 

[davey7]

Thanks. We don't have knob and tube in Chicago (at least I've never heard of it, I grew up in a building built in 1906 and it was all in conduit) typically. Certainly not any in my building - it's all in conduit so I'm just planning on pulling new wire "like for like". It sounds like my neighbors have had an issue with the exact thing happening.

One reason I want to pull new wire is the splices are likely brittle beyond belief.

 

[turquoisedude]

Yes, the splices are very likely brittle. The house were I lived from 1970 until 1985 was built in the mid-50s but there were a surprising number of taped (yes, just taped!) wire splices in junction boxes;  I remember we mysteriously lost power to two rooms after a heavy vintage Venetian blind (all metal, natch) fell.  The impact caused a splice to break in a junction box on the basement ceiling just below the living room where the blind fell!

 

[davey7]

Yeah, there is a taped splice in the living room ceiling fixture switch box - probably from the 20's. It connects what I think so far is the ceiling lights, the traveler wire for the switch and one each for two receptacles (they split off to their various places from this box.

 

[hydralique]

First thing I would do is check all the accessible connections in j-boxes. Most likely there is a loose or oxidized connection somewhere. Pay attention if anyone has used a receptacle as a junction, i.e. using one set of screws to connect to the source of power and another for a feed to the rest of the circuit. This is easy to do and reduces j-box clutter but any electrician will warn against it as the screws can eventually loosen or corrode. Better to make the connections with proper wire lugs and use  pigtails to connect the receptacle. Also check the circuit breaker, these can fail after many years.

 

[davey7]

Thanks - I'm going to pull down the fixtures and open the all the boxes this weekend to check all the connections. I don't have breakers (except on the AC and Dishwasher circuits which were added later) but proper old fashioned fuses.

At some point I am going to have somebody come in and connect the range receptacle to the switch it's nearly back to back with and eliminate the crazy ungrounded wiring there. Why you would do that in a kitchen, even in the 60's, is beyond me (says the guy who grew up with a fridge which worked trouble free for 50 years [the outlet, not the fridge] with two wires, no ground, no bx or conduit, lurking behind a baseboard - we always thought the outlet that fed it was fed by the fridge outlet, not vice versa as it was).

 

[davey7]

Forgot to mention that, indeed, some of the switch and receptacle connection area wires are very brittle, to say the least, so that's where I'm starting.

 

[gusherb]

As everyones said, start with all the connections. Maybe even replacing all the receptacles as they're probably very old and worn out (commercial or spec grade is best for high amp draw things like vacuums etc)

I'd approach this with extreme caution and expect anything and everything to go wrong, old wiring is almost certain to have been messed with, butchered and added onto over the years and once you start tearing into it you may be in for quite a few surprises.
I have done my share of rewiring many things, including doing my grandmothers house (from 1950) after the floods of 2008, her wiring appeared in great condition but once I tore into it I found MANY scary things that had been done over the years... and her home was lovingly cared for over it's life!

And yeah we don't have anything but conduit here! Older homes in the suburbs had knob and tube but never in the city of Chicago. My dad owns a commercial/residential building built in 1915 and it had gas AND electric lighting installed when it was built, they had combo fixtures all over the place that had both gas & electric lamps. (the light switches were the old round knobs that you twisted) The third floor is the only floor that still has it's original wiring and it originally had just two circuits serving a 1,300 sqft apartment and the circuits were set up in a staggered configuration so the very back room and very front room are on the same circuit and vice versa with other rooms on the second circuit.
Over the years an A/C circuit was added, as well as one for the kitchen outlets and one for the washer and dryer. We did go through and replace ALL of the wall outlets and switches as I tend to be VERY careful when dealing with old electric and do know that electrical fires often start with poor/failed connections.

 

[davey7]

So true, we are an all conduit city (usually). I replaced all the receptacles when I painted after I moved in. They were caked in paint, but the cover plates hadn't been plastered over like in my neighbors unit (who would do that?). The section I'm working on is pretty much all original but other parts have been modified.

The building I grew up in (1906) had gas and electric from day one. The gas was laid out with the main down the center of the apartment with nice branches like a tree to the boxes while the electric went haphazardly from box to box. We had two circuits in around 1800 sf when I was a kid. Even with a washer and dryer we rarely had problems (ac and vacuum, though, forget about it). Then my parents redid the kitchen and fully rewired with a new panel in the unit.

Across the street from us was a church with dual conduit - round, split in half with gas in half, electric in the other half. Scary. I have a piece of it somewhere, must dig it up and photograph it.

Anyways, going with 12 guage wire where needed and hopefully all will be well by Monday.

 

[gusherb]

That is kinda scary with the dual conduit! One leak and a frayed wire shorting and that would easily ignite! and I thought having gas and electric meeting up in the same box was a little iffy.
I'm not clear how our building was laid out except that there was originally a central location where all the electrical conduit met up going into presumably a single fuse box (probably before they metered electricity), and in the back of the boiler room was a gas manifold with a branch going to each floor/unit.

The old conduit appears to be the same or similar to black iron gas piping, except they bent it around corners and such! Very thick stuff. All of the original gas light piping was also still live until recently, right after my dad bought the building we discovered a leak in the service feeding the second floor so we just ran new gas piping to the stove and dryer in that unit instead of ripping into the walls to chase down a leak. IDK if the third floor is still using original gas piping or not but it may be.

That also reminds me all of the plumbing is original too and that is way past being able to handle a building full of tenants without horrible pressure problems and drains clogging constantly.

 

[davey7]

It's a good thing I did the work I did. It was a good thing because I found some frayed insulation and the ceiling fixtures will have to be rewired (easy enough now that they are down) since the wiring on them is pretty much shot too (I don't use them much anyways.

The hardest part was figuring out which way to pull the wire and seeing the weird box installations. But all good and I have light again.