Introducing "Pumpkin's Castle"

[Texas_Ranger]

I'd think restoring the existing fixtures should be a lot cheaper than buying restored ones - unless you hate the old ones and want to replace them anyway.

[phil]

my suggestion for the fixtures and switches is replace with new , standard fixtures that meet code and have a sticker. Later you can always swap out fixtures but what you want to avoid is an inspector making a big deal about an antique fixture. After inspection maybe you want that old lamp but you can make sure that's done right. usually they are easy to swap once the wiring is done right, unless it's in a real high place.

try not to neglect the runs to outdoor lights. I found some pretty bad wiring on those runs and contributed it to the wires running where there was no heat or insulation maybe rodents. porch light, and back outdoor light. most of my K and T was ok, safe enough if undisturbed but some had connections twisted and wrapped in that old black cloth tape,not soldered, no box. they were ready to be a fire. some were inside walls and inaccessible places. It looked to me like it was all done right originally, until contractors got involved. one place tenants get involved is when you have the meter in the basement and the power coming into the attic , then they want to hook into that run between to get free power and foolish things are often found there from that "process" you are pulling new wire so that shouldn't be a concern. 400 amp will need big wires up to where it is connected and that can be expensive stuff and the range cable, dryer and stove cable. - the copper price.

check with the electrician but one thing I wasn't aware of is that Here anyway... we have a rule that the bedroom plugs ( not lights) have to be on spark fault breakers. That cost me because I had run them each on a separate circuit before I was aware of that rule, so I needed 3 of the 100 dollar- or- so breakers. 1 was enough.
razor outlet and outdoor plugs should probably be spark fault. the rule here was spark fault if within 10 feet of the ground so my porch plug didn't need to be ground fault. I put it on a switch for xmas lights. razor has it's own spark fault outlet so it can be run with the rest, I think.

one other weird rule was that the bathroom fan needs a timer and that timer had to allow to be set for, I think it was four- two hour time intervals or something like that.- it was very specific. my neighbor had purchased a new programmable timer but it didn't meet the intervals. what a silly thing to stick her on I thought. I didn't have a fan in the bath to worry about.

[Lily left the valley]

Lovely castle Pumpkin has there. Good thing Pumpkin let you come along?

Very much looking forward to updates.

[1918ColonialRevival]

I'd think restoring the existing fixtures should be a lot cheaper than buying restored ones - unless you hate the old ones and want to replace them anyway.

This times a thousand.

Antique fixtures can be restored for only a few dollars in materials each. All you really need is some wire, wire nuts, and new paper insulators for the sockets. I don't recommend replacing the sockets themselves unless they are damaged or broken, as the ceramic sockets found in most old fixtures are a hundred times better than the plastic ones made today. Most inspectors, at least here in this area, wouldn't know an antique fixture from a newer one, plus there's nothing special built into newer fixtures that make them any safer than those of a century before. Unless we're talking something special like fluorescent fixtures, the overall design of basic lighting fixtures has been unchanged since the 1890s.

Also, unless you have a large budget, I wouldn't recommend re-wiring a house that size all at once, as that will get expensive fast. I would start with the 200A service upgrade and whatever high demand circuits there are, such as those that run appliances that draw a lot of current (refrigerators, washers/dryers, air conditioning, etc.). Low demand circuits such as overhead lighting are less critical.

As for the crown molding, I suspect it was always painted and it may have been added later if the rest of the woodwork was/is finished. If it's newer, it may be easier to replace it and finish it when you install.

[phil]

some depends upon the inspector and whether he is a stickler.
I rewired my house with weekly inspections by my brother who is an electrician. one thing he encouraged was not to use old wires or old parts because they become part of the inspection and then it can fail even for a missing UL sticker. There was one preliminary inspection where he found a few small infractions. On the second one I passed, and then the meter could be connected into the new panel. I was allowed to use the old wiring for the interim which was nice , when the meter was moved than it was all switched over at once. I had to have it completed all wires covered, all boxes covered before they would move the meter and the service wires to energize the new system.

since I had completed all the wiring including installing all cover plates light fixtures etc he didn't care that I still had old knob and tube wiring sticking out of the walls and I did not have to open walls to remove it , just cut it off short so that a different owner doesn't get the idea of powering it up again. the inspector could see I had lots of wire runs and that it had been done safely, some are real sticklers some are lenient.

One old trick is to leave a couple of obvious things like cover plates off so he has something to complain about and make you fix, its psychological he wants to earn his money so set him up with a thing or two to fill in his report an that helps him not look for things that might be harder to fix

if you use all new parts then they don't look twice but if you install old parts it may be up to the inspector as to how fussy he wants to be . switches and simple plastic light bulb fixtures are dirt cheap ust stick with whats most common, outlets and plastic bulb holders will only run about 2 bucks apiece. its mostly labor you are paying for.

Yes definitely your mileage may vary with the inspectors, and you may have need to break down the installation into smaller parts, that might be due to the labor cost of fishing in new wire.

I'd complete the job and get the inspector signed off and out of my house myself but you might consider stages. He might make you put any old K and T runs on arc fault breakers. The K and T might pass code. he might also get really fussy because he knows if your house has an electrical fire after you installed a new panel he's going to be situated across a desk getting drilled with questions.

my house was wired very properly from the start, in 1924 but I did find a few spots in the walls where wires were damaged or just twisted together and they were most definitely serious fire hazards. they could not be seen or easily detected. It may have been contractors years back doing shoddy work, probably not electricians but there may have been a time where it was permitted to make connections outside of boxes. Today the code requires any connection to be in a grounded electrical box for good reason.

the light to the porch light was bad and that was a hazard too. just 100 year old wiring that had seen it's day. I'd go for it and do the works but if you want to leave some of it and ADD a few circuits later that should be ok. I would at minimum pull several runs into he kitchen because you cant' share breakers so if a box has two outlets it needs 2 breakers. You can check your local code to see if that's any different. old codes were a lot more lenient but who wants to be blowing kitchen breakers or worrying about running multiple things at once.
and non grounded outlets that are 100 years old are worn out anyway. kitchens have a lot of rules like the number of feet of counter per outlet, basically you can't have too many and any old house has not enough.

So many things have a grounded cord , they are an inconvenience. I dont see benefit in bothering with them myself. the spring loaded parts that contact the cord ends wear they blacken then get warm and loose their temper then aren't springy and make poor connections. slippery slope.. the cords start falling out too easily. a new outlet is only a couple of bucks.

I had one instance where I was just measuring a wall so I took my measurement and dropped the tape which is pretty normal, as it fell it got in behind an outlet and shorted the two prongs together. I didn't get a shock it just blew the breaker and smoked up the receptacle. I'd rather they fit tight and I dont want my plugs hanging half way out after seeing that happen.
I believe It does meet code to flip them and put the ground up, and industrial wiring they often do that I guess that's why. To me they look upside down like that , in a house. one ting I found was it was actually a bit of an art to get all the outlets flush and straight and the same height and one thing I would do is set a standard height to stick to for uniformity.


there is a type of bulb holder that just requires two wires and hangs , they are rubber and designed so of you bump them the bulb moves. I'd just put those on for the inspection or those plastic bulb sockets, just the minimum to meet code. let any painting and drywall get finished and then install the lights you like. I used a couple in my cellar because the low height makes it so you could hit your head on the bulb and that is certain to fail if it's a rigid socket.

when you go to buy fire insurance and they ask does it have any knob and tube wiring? you can just say "no it's all new" there is some merit in that and some insurers may give you a higher rate or refuse insurance and if you sell the place or want to rent, K and T isn't exactly in your favor.

It's kind of neat to see the old system and how it was done back in the day but I don't look upon it as being something I'd want to restore for the purpose of originality. I like antique lamps but I'd just add them later because if you try to save two bucks and the inspector and electrician have to make that one more visit , your expense is labor cost, Common plastic plugs and switches are dirt cheap. I dont think there is any code about shading light bulbs so I wouldnt even install shades.

Texas ranger knows his way around old electrical systems better than anyone else here and I'm not arguing the fact that it is simple and cheap to rewire an old lamp. You can also fail inspection just because you ran a wire through a hole where it needs a grommet or some silly thing. that's just a labor cost to correct. if you are left with some differences of opinion it's OK. maybe we just covered some different angles and thought patterns, no harm in that.
my neighbor got called on the fact they had used some sort of sealant where the wire runs downstairs, and since the type of sealant couldn't be identified and it presumably "could" cause the plastic casing to degrade, that whole wire back to the panel had to be changed, That's how fussy they can be. There is a special Plasticine for that. new houses even need the silly plastic boot over the back of the boxes. I dont think its possible to fish those in without opening the wall and they may not be required. I used some that were Plasticine for sound insulation. you can get Plasticine around a wire since it can knit togemy next door neighbor had a brand new programmable bathroom fan switch and it failed because this switch was unable to program TWO or was it FOUR time intervals so she had to have a return visit to show we had swapped the stupid already new and CSA approved switch for another brand new programmable switch with TWO time periods just to satisfy the inspector , that was obviously not even an electrical danger in any way shape or form, its just code for ventilation requirements but he still focused on it. keep it simple that's my advice.

I added a ton of "smart" wiring , coax cat 5 and phone lines. I use some but I added way too much and that did add some cost. i wanted to be able to run antenna signals to all my rooms and figured cat5 was better than relying on wireless , but wireless improved. I dont even have a land line for my phone and my ambitions for running antenna signals were a bit too ambitious. what I did with all that is made a separate "smart panel" and all the cabling terminates in that box so I can run it to any room and easily configure. i use some of it but it was probably one thing I'd do less of now. burgalar switch cables to each window and door is another thing you can run if you want o go to the extent, then you can have an alarm system with lots of perimeter sensors. now you can have cell phone access to check the system and make sure no one got in or to spy through your cameras. . that might be ok if it's a cabin where you leave it. in some cases it costs a lot for insurance but if you have a monitoring system it might save cost on the long run , maybe a lot of that is wireless now. some have forgotten to set their security passcodes and "hackers" -ones who aren't even that savvy are looking into their houses , opening doors, changing the temperature and other things , looking through their own cameras.. the problems arise because they failed to change the factory access or security codes.

I do agree that especially with lamps , the new stuff is so cheaply made and some of the old ones with good quality porcelain sockets were much higher quality. swapping the new approved but low quality Chinese crap out for the old antiques AFTER inspection would be my trade off there. the common plugs and switches you find in the box store are cheap and reliable but a bit boring. It's not hard after the fact to swap out for push button switches and other fancy bits and part of the "plan" might be to bare plastic bulb holders and put your antiques up later.

i own tons of old radios and things that plug in and they are all so old that even though many have CSA stickers they are not safe to use with out inspection. he never blinked at any of that so I'd say that if it plugs in and it's old just put it in a box and take it out of the inspector's mind until you pass.

[1918ColonialRevival]

Wow, Phil. Your inspector must have been worse than Deputy Barney Fife. I've had an inspector here twice - once after I upgraded my service to 200A. He was in and out in 5 minutes. Didn't even look to hard, just asked what was done and did I run a ground to the cold water pipe, plus to a plate in the ground outside. The second time was when I had the water service replaced. That inspector was a bit worse; he started pointing out things on my water heater. I promptly threw him out, as he was there to inspect the service line. The water heater that was there at the time had been installed by the gas and electric company in the early '90s and was installed to code at the time, so it was grandfathered. I got his supervisor's name and threatened to call him. He left without incident and gave me a passing report.

Bottom line - be nice to the inspectors, but don't let them push you around.

[phil]

The reference to Barney made me laugh because I've been watching a lot of those old reruns

my inspector pulled open an outlet I had wired and it had too many wires entering for the size of the box. he noted that all was done neatly and correctly, he complimented me that I had wrapped black tape around the wire nuts. he even took the time to check which direction I ran the tape aroud the wire nuts.. now that's fussy.. It is supposed to go the way you turn the nut to tighten it and yes it was correct
There is a calculation where you add up the number of wires and the number of wire nuts and then the box has to be a certain number of square inches for the total... My brother and I had been talking about it and so I said well if I replace all the wire nuts and put on crimps instead then will it pass?
He scratched his head and got his big huge book out and came back and said yes it will because a crimp is not counted. So I said ok and replaced all those small boxes anyway so he'd be satisfied.
the next round the guy came and basically said the other guy told him to come pass me , and he hardly cared. since my brother had shown me how to use the pigtails and how to route and tuck the wires just right then it showed and he could tell it wasn't done in a spotty way.
they did check the bonding to piping and the furnace and i had put a switch on the wall by the back door to kill power to the furnace. buried my ground plate.
he even grabbed hold of the panel and lifted himself off the ground to be sure it was mounted solid, it was. we put a mast beside the house and up through the roof and my brother welded an offset into the conduit to make that right. it used to enter near the attic window and you could touch the cable so they were happy to see that moved and done the way they like, so no one interferes with those incoming wires or steals power.

I think we are all on the same page with advice though , keep it simple add more stuff later, get the panel in and dont complicate things too much because you can add more after the fact. I did put lots of outlets and I was never sorry for doing that. 200 amps is enough I can heat with it now if I like.

in Vancouver they are eliminating gas for hot water heating so I'm wondering if I should replace my tank with gas soon because if I don't do that soon, the new one will perhaps have to be electric. i dont know what happens when the panel wont support this conversion, It could send people from oh god my tank leaked and its a thousand bucks to oh I also need to upgrade my panel to get my water back on as well ? that seems a little too much.. might send some over the economic edge.. wasn't natural gas supposed to be "clean burning " ?

Like with cops maybe they can create waves if they see something in your house that isn't right even when its completely unrelated. Some are reasonable people, some are on a high horse, some are like Barney People vary.

[Gothichome]

Yes, gas is very clean burning, furnaces running in the 97 to 98 percent range, modern gas stoves coming close to the same numbers now. BC has plenty of electricity supply or at the least the potential for hydro sufficiency. Maybe they want you to switch to provincial owned hydro rather than corporate owned gas. Orrrrrrrr, another attempt to stick it to Alberta.
But i digress from Techy’s topic.

[phil]

yes we could start a new thread about power types, energy conservation , Its a big topic. we buy and sell electricity across borders to meet demands and it's not easy to store so I think we sell it here and buy it in other provinces. It changes as needs change so it might be different at night as compared to daytime.

Piping The dilbit and gas here to send away to be burned somewhere else and how carbon tax is applied is another topic and It's an interesting conversation. A bit political. It would be interesting to hear the varied opinions here in the forum, but I dont want to create tension.

[1918ColonialRevival]

Interesting that Vancouver is forcing people to go all electric with water heaters. It's been my experience that gas water heaters normally last twice as long as electric ones, though I did once see an electric water heater from the late '50s still in service around 2005, so there are exceptions. When an electric water heater goes out, it's usually due to failure of one or both of the heating elements. Replacing the elements can be cost prohibitive, especially if it uses one that's either hard to find or is expensive for whatever reason. If the element is expensive or there will be a delay in getting it, people usually just replace the whole unit. That adds up to a lot of scrapped water heaters. And with the price of scrap iron and steel at about two or three cents a pound, the incentive to recycle them isn't there and a lot of them end up in the dump or worse - pitched over ravine or abandoned in an alleyway or vacant lot.