[AT] One additional wiring note

[Cecil E Monson]

> I had just moved in a few days before.  It was winter time and about 8:30 pm 

on a Sunday night.  I turned something on and a fuse blew.  I found the fuse box

out on the front porch.  It was one of those old fuse  boxes with the disconnect

lever on the side.  I opened it up to find NO main fuses,  2 holes for glass

fuses and only one, now blown, 30 amp fuse.    That's right the whole house was

running on one 30 amp fuse.  Well except for the kitchen stove that was wired up

seperately some how. ( I don't remember now just how)
> 
> It gets worse!  I decided to search out the wiring circuits.  What I found was 

2 wires about size 12 maybe that ran in seperate strands on porcelin insulators.

This was run on top of the ceiling joists in the attic.  I crawled up in the attic

and found a horrible sight.  The wires had gotten so hot that they had burned the

cloth insulation off and had sagged down onto the ceiling joists, pine bead board

ceiling material and the little bit of insulation someone had put in years before.


	That is a good description of "knob and tube" wiring, Charlie, and it
was commonly used all over the country around the turn of the century. Yours was
wired in the open using "knobs", as they were called - porcelain insulators that
were supposed to hold them up off the joists. The wiring in my house in the
attic used more "tubes" in that the floor joists in the attic were drilled and
porcelain tubes inserted that the wires ran thru. It was common to find bare
wires everywhere, especially when mice had chewed the cloth cover or the rubber
insulation off. Sometimes I think the summer heat just disentegrated the rubber
and it fell off.

	The single 30 amp fuse was also common and it was OK back when all
people had were lights and maybe a fan or two but once they started using
electric appliances, the system was underpowered and dangerous. Mine was one
of the more elaborate installations with main fuses and 220 VAC in the house.

	I felt the same as you about the danger of it and was glad to get
it out of my house.

Cecil

-- 
The nicest thing about telling the truth is you never have to wonder
what you said.

Cecil E Monson
Lucille Hand-Monson
Mountainville, New York   Just a little east of the North Pole

Allis Chalmers tractors and equipment

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