[AT] One additional wiring note

[charlie hill]

The issue of loose wire connections is particularly important if you happen 
to have any aluminum wiring in your house or shop.  That stuff tends to 
loosen up over the years and can cause real problems...really hot problems!

Cecil, your experience with the nickle in the fuse box reminds me of a house 
I lived in many years ago.  It was an old house, over 100 years old.  One of 
those houses you see here in the south that is referred to as a shotgun 
house.  It had a large center hall that went from the front door to the back 
door, 2 rooms on each side of the hall (each with a fireplace) and a kitchen 
off the rear in an L configuration to the rest of the house.

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.

I didn't know what to do.  It was Sunday night!   Then I remembered that 
Montgomery Wards was about 5 miles away and was open until 10 every night. 
By this time it was after 9pm.   I jumped in my car and zoomed over to Wards 
where I bought a roll of  Romex and some other odds and ends.  I got back 
home about 10:15 and proceeded to re-wire a good bit of the house before I 
went to bed that night.  I made sure everything that was going to draw 
current during the night was safe before I went to sleep.

Charlie


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Cecil E Monson" <cmonson at hvc.rr.com>
To: "Antique tractor email discussion group" <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Sent: Thursday, December 09, 2004 6:59 AM
Subject: Re: [AT] One additional wiring note


> As Farmer said, checking for loose screws and connections it
> your main panel box is important. Overloading circuits will cause fires
> - if not right away, eventually.
>
> About 40 years ago, we had bought a two family house and had
> been in it for about a year. This house had the old knob and tube wiring
> and had 30 amp service that served both upstairs and downstairs apartments
> in the house. This setup gave me a quick lesson in electrical safety.
>
> Unbeknownst to me, the tenants upstairs had decided it was much
> better to use all electrical appliances in their kitchen instead of 
> cooking
> on the gas stove. They had everything up there under the sun that was
> electrical and when cooking apparently used most of these appliances at
> the same time.
>
> One evening just as it was getting dark, I happened to go down
> the cellar stairs. The light switch was halfway down the stairs and just
> as I was reaching for it, I saw a red glow ahead of me. When I turned the
> lights on, I saw it was coming from the panel box. Those old 30 amp boxes
> had cartridge fuses for the mains and if I remember correctly, 4 screw-in
> glass fuses for circuits in the house. As I opened the cover of the box,
> I saw that the entire rear of the box was red hot - a fire ready to start.
> I pulled handle and shut off power to the house and called a friend of
> mine who was a licensed electrician. He came right over and checked the
> fuses first thing. Wouldn't you know, the tenant had put a nickel coin in
> behind the glass fuse that served his kitchen because, as he said later,
> it kept blowing fuses.  Geez, that was scary.
>
> I don't remember what we did to be sure the electric service was
> safe to use that night but the next day we cut in a new electric panel
> and then over a period of time, rewired the entire house with new wiring
> wherever we could get to it. I was very lucky as these old houses with
> balloon framing were known to go up quickly in a fire and that panel box
> was under both the main entrance to the house but also under the stairs
> leading to the upstairs apartment.
>
> 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
>
> Free advice
>
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