Hankey is a frequent contributor to Inspect A Pedia. Watch Out Do not attempt to work on your electrical wiring, switches, or outlets unless you are properly trained and equipped to do so. Electrical components in a building can easily cause an electrical shock, burn, or even death.
Even when a hot line switch is off, one terminal on the switch is still connected to the power source. Anonymous, I am guessing you're asking the age of the wiring in your photo showing surface mount metal conduit and a single surface mount receptacle in a metal box. It would be a kindness when you post such a question to give us some electrical wiring age guessing Contextual Information such as The location of the building: country and city The age of the building Any notes on history of electrical renovations That said, if your building is in the U.
Steven, OK so that's a high-amp circuit, probably originally cloth covered, badly frayed, and perhaps stuffing that area of the panel with electro-kindling. I suspect mice. Steven A, I see plastic insulated or "NMC" wire and some thick light brown material beneath and to the eight of your spider - but I'm not sure just what material you mean.
Looks like an over-crowded electrical panel too. I also see what looks like a fabric "wire loom" type insulation in your photos - that's quite frayed. Saul, Your gut is on the right digestive tract on this one in that modern practice more-recent than for electrical wiring will put ceiling lighting or wall lights on a different circuit than the wall receptacles "outlets". That's for two reasons: 1. When you're improving the wiring it's good to separate those and add circuits.
Older early s house On by inspectapedia. Michael Martin, While no one is installing solid conductor Branch wire circuits using aluminum it is still permitted and it is common practice to use multi strand aluminum wire for higher amp circuits and for the service entry cable. I agree with you that it's not what we would prefer. It's also the case that many electricians install that wire without using the antioxidant paste that they should be using and they certainly don't know about the best practices this method of abrading the wire through the antioxidant as well, as described by Aronstein at this website.
Can you reply us more about your dad who was on the committee to outlaw aluminum wiring. What committee, where and when and if you have any details or documentation that would be very useful. My dad was on the committee to outlaw aluminum wiring. I had a trailer home that had it and you could see outlets glowing at night. We had to pigtail copper with a liquid conductor to correct otherwise no matter how tight or good you made the connection it would not conduct!
Anonymous, Thank you for a helpful question. To have space for a detailed reply I repeat your question and answer it at. I found an old amp gauge on a ford tractor i am restoring, the gauge has no wires attached it just has a loop on the back that the charging wire passes thru, i would like to know more about this design if possible, it works fine and i took it off and put it on another vehicle and it worked fine there too.
I'm adding lights to a garage ceiling in a built house. The overhead switched light is fed power by metal conduit with a blue wire and two white wires light receptacle had blue wire to brass connection, one white wire to silver connection, no ground. I initially though the blue wire would be hot, but perhaps the white wire connected to the Romex black wire is hot, which means the blue wire is neutral.
Given this set-up, can you confirm the hot, neutral and ground of the metal conduit power source? Not sure if this was put in when house was built or later in the 's.
Many thanks. I just replaced outlets and switches in a house built in The copper wire was so much stiffer than what we use today. Why is that?
Both are size 12, copper. On by mod - tie together ends of abandoned outdoor electrical circuit ca ? Tom D, That could be an old, abandoned electrical service entry, though at 10 that's pretty small 30A. Yes it's entirely possible that someone would have buried fabric- and rubber- insulated electrical wire; When I find abandoned wires like that, even after testing to confirm that they are not carrying current, I tie the two ends together with a connector so that should somebody somehow connect the other end to a power source the safety hazard will be immediately apparent as a fuse will blow.
Had some lawn work done and when I was walking the area, I found this sticking up from the ground. This is about 1 foot from the street and on furthest corner of the property not near entryway or drive way , so I doubt it was for a resident installed light post or similar. The wires are solid copper, 2 conductors, very rigid, I measured a piece and it's 10 gauge solid.
The house and area was built around Could this have been old electrical for streetlights based upon proximity to street and the age? Would they have used fabric wrapped wires underground and such a heavy gauge back in the day? It was clearly disconnected at this end, haven't dug it up to find other end. Have call into town to ask them to come check too.
Tom D. On by mod - can I be sure my doublewide will have copper wiring? Judy, it's possible but I certainly wouldn't assume that. Instead I would have the home inspected. Eric Lewis, Thank you very much for that helpful observation. I didn't, from the photograph alone, recognize that we were seeing copper conductors protected by a flexible aluminum sheath or "tubing".
For other readers, this is a very different product from steel metal-conduit used to pull electrical wires. On by Eric Lewis. In Sean's photo below there is a 2-wire copper with a smooth aluminum sheath.
I installed this in some residences in Wisconsin in the late 's. It must have fit the definition of an AC cable as the sheath was the equipment grounding conductor. It seems we used it where exposed to physical damage. Looks like a power distribution cable, though if found alone where usually you'd find two hot and one neutral cables it may not be from an electrical service entry.
Is that white covering really concrete? Any idea what this cable is? It was buried in a public road encased in concrete. Zack It is never safe to have an open electrical supplies. All electrical splices need to be enclosed in junction boxes.
So you'll want to have your electrician survey the home to find out how much of this improper wiring has been done and to correct it. House is pretty old and I feel unsafe having this dangling what kind of box do I need to mount it. However it's possible that your outdoor light circuit does not include a grounding conductor and if so, in my OPINION is unsafe and should be re-wired or at the very least, protected by a GFCI breaker in the electrical panel.
You'd use a VOM or DMM to confirm the actual wiring of each of the wires you find including that both black and red are "hot"; You'd cap off the un-used hot wire using a twist-on connector. Watch out: if you are not familiar with safe and code compliant electrical wiring you could be shocked or killed. I am replacing a security light on my built home. Dave, Having had extensive experience with Auction House experts I can tell you that sadly too often they're not expert.
In this case the auction house expert is completely mistaken. Plastic insulated electrical wire has been in use in the United States since That plastic cancellation may of course be any of several colors including white black green or red. It will be harder than and have a different consistency then rubber insulation. Rubber wire insulation is usually black or may be black with a white stripe. The main feature is that it's considerably softer on its surface as well as throughout its cross-section then would be plastic.
Old rubber insulation will often be crumbly where plastic, if it has not been overheated, will not. Your friend is welcome to contact us or send photos and we can further discuss the matter if that would be helpful. I have a friend who is 92 years old, who purchased a guitar from Leo Fender back in It was Leo's 6th guitar that he made himself in his garage.
He is now selling it. A auction house expert. Was plastic conduit available in ? How can a person know if its plastic or perhaps rubber? Rick That's a common, modern multi-strand copper wire under a 50A breaker; at 50A it's probably a 8 or 6 multi-stranded copper wire. Use of such wire is perfectly correct and legal provided it's the right size for the amperage it carries. When this occurred with currents of large amperage, the gases which were developed by the heat produced by the short circuits would expand until the conduit would burst.
This rupture usually occurred at the heated spot, and the hot metal and burning particles of insulating material were scattered through the surrounding space or apartment and were liable to produce a destructive fire.
This danger is insidious, since the short circuit is liable to take place in the walls of unoccupied rooms or when concealed in remote places, so that the resulting fire has an opportunity to gather headway before it is detected. The Form 35 is used for malleable iron unilets as they have high tensile strength and ductility along with high corrosion and shock resistance. They are lightweight and high corrosion resistant and have self-oxidizing and self-renewing capabilities.
Form 7 ex. Crouse hind LB37 The Form 7 ex. Crouse hind LB37 is compatible with rigid and intermediate conduits for indoor as well as outdoor installation. It is made of cast iron or cast aluminium for a long life. It is extremely suitable for compact installations with rigidly threaded conduits of various shapes and sizes.
The Form 7 has an exclusive snap tight and wedgenut cover attachment to provide clear, unhindered cover opening.
Mogul ex. In the s to s, electrical installations took a turn to a more protective wiring scheme—flexible armored cable. Flex, also known as Greenfield, was a welcomed addition to home wiring because the flexible metal walls helped to protect the wires from damage, and also offered a metal pathway that could ground the system when properly installed. Although it was an improvement, this wiring method had its troubles. Although the individual wire conductors are protected, the flexible outer metal jacket serves as a proper ground only when the metal pathway is complete all the way to the service entrance and grounding rod.
There is still no separate ground wire in these installations. In the s, a quicker installation method was developed. Nonmetallic-sheathed cable was born, which incorporated a rubberized fabric coating sheath, much like knob and tube wiring, but here the hot and neutral wire were run together in this one sheathing.
It also had its drawbacks due to the lack of a ground wire, but its development would eventually lead to major innovation. Early sheathed cable, however, also has an expected lifespan of about 25 years, and where it is still in use, such installations need to be upgraded. The s brought the age of metal conduit. This invention allowed users to pull many individual conducting wires in the same rigid metal tube enclosure. The conduit itself is considered a viable grounding method, and the system can also allow another separate grounding wire usually an insulated green wire to be pulled through the conduit.
Conduit has been in use ever since those days and is still the recommended method for wiring in certain applications, such as when wiring needs to be run along the face of basement masonry walls or in exposed locations. Most homes have some areas where conduit is used, though it is now sometimes made with rigid plastic PVC conduit rather than metal. The newest addition to wiring was introduced in around The form of NM cable was an update to older NM cable, incorporating the use of a bare copper grounding wire that joined the insulated hot and neutral wires contained within the sheathing.
Instead of rubberized sheathing, modern NM cable uses a very tough and durable vinyl sheathing.
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