Any electricians? Need some advice
 

Ok, last December I bought a new house(new to me). Well, so far it has been great except one thing. It was built around 1900 so it has some serious insulation issues! I have put $2k in propane into the house since Early Jan. Well, when I get home I was planning to insulate the exterior walls using the blow in type and also add a bunch to the attic.

Ok, now my question. When we had our home inspection, the inspector said it looked like the whole house had been rewired with updated wiring except one room on the second floor which still had knob and tube present. My understanding is that knob and tube gets really hot and could cause a fire if it were to have insulation put on it. Is there a way to determine if knob and tube is present and in use without ripping all the walls out of the house?

Get a viewer. The little electronic eyepiece that has a camera or lense attached to the end of a 18 or 36" flexible shaft. They cost about $250 or you can rent one from tool places (at least here). I rented one to find a leak in some hidden plumbing and it worked like a charm, so I bought one from
www.thetoolwarehouse.net
Now I can check inside motors for leaks, soot, whatever as well. A great toy with a lot of uses.

A direct link:

http://www.thetoolwarehouse.net/shop/SLI-PV300.html

Josh,
If you take off one of the electrical plates the old wiring will be in separate strands as opposed to being romex. Romex is the wire that would have all the wires inside an insulator wire. For example, a white one a black one and a bare copper one. (for 115)

The old wire will have two probably not three wires. The third wire would be the ground. In the old homes the ground wire was not always run to each opening as it is today.

You can also look in the attic if you can get to it for the same thing. You can also remove the ceiling fixture and look there as well. I would know for sure before you put the insulation on top of it as I have seen this cause fires just as you have been warned, it does happen! Yes it would depend on the condition of the wire but are you willing to take that chance. Me neither.

If the home was built back then there are many ways you can help with the energy loss you are experiencing. The first is insulate where you can, the second is the windows. If you can upgrade the windows do so. If you can't make sure they are sealed all the way around them inside and outside. I have had people tell me they have caulked the windows and when I went out to look I could almost put my hand from the outside to the inside of the house. Look under the window seals for openings, look on top of the windows. Basically if it is hard to get to, that is exactly where it will need the most caulking.

If you can't insulate the house or that room, go to the hardware store and by wall plate insulation pieces. They are usually grey in color and are easy to install. Just take off the switch or plug plate put these insulation pieces on and then put the covers back on. You will be surprised how much that helps. THis will stop the drafing in the rooms.

Also cover the windows. If you do not have curtains or drapes get them. They block the sun out in the summer and keep the heat from coming in as well as contain the energy loos to the area between the drapes and the windows in the winter. This will slow down the draft loss considerably.

If it is a pier and beam house be sure to cover the vent openings on the perimeter of the house during the winter and open them in the summer.

Also if it is a pier and beam house you can insulate the floor. Have the insulator go under the house and hang the installation on the bottom side of the floor. This will do wonders for the inside temperature of the home.

If the AC units are not new I would look at how old they are and how efficient they are. Get the highest SEER rated units you can afford. You will not regret it.

I have been in the construction business for 23 years and have remodeled many old homes like yours. It is not hard to control the weather inside the house if you put your mind to it.

Thanks Steve! The house has all new windows, but that's not saying that they were all sealed up properly. Since I haven't been there all winter, I don't know, but my wife said the kitchen floor is always freezing cold so that would tell me it has no insulation under it. The kitchen and the living room are additions to the original house so they don't have a full basement like the rest of the house althought they do have very small crawl spaces under them that I'm sure I could do the insulation.

Does the old knob and tube and the new romex work together? I quess what I mean is, the breaker panel is on the 1st floor in the mud room. The 1 room which I know has not been rewired is on the 2nd floor on the opposite end of the house. The inspector said he could only find signs of working knob and tube in that room which is why we assume that when the ceiling fan is on and the light is on, the light flickers a little. But if you use one or the other, it's fine. But is it possible that the new wireing was run to the upstairs and for whatever reason they didn't wire that room with new wiring and just spliced the new and old or somehting? I am starting to see that this wiring crap could be a real headache. I know just enough to be dangerous! haha The inspector also said that some of the polarities in the outlets were reversed and some had no ground. He said likely the wiring was redone in 2000 when all the remodeling was done and there weren't inspections and stuff for the area then so whoever wired it probably didn't really know what he was doing. I know how to fix the polarity issue, I have wired some outlets and fixtures and stuff, I am by no means an electrician! But I'm just a young guy and I have never seen knob and tube before buying this house.

I'm hands on and I'd like to do as much of this myself as possible. But I also don't want to burn the house to the ground! Also, is htere any reason not to insulate the ceiling in your attic? The way they have it insulated now is just some of the pink panther stuff under the floor. It doesn't even cover the entire floor of the attic because in some spots you can shine light through te floor and see there is no insulation, but in other spots there is.

Thanks for the help guys. I'm trying to get my plan in order before I get back so i know what I need to get. I'm also going to put a corn/pellet stove in, insulate the hot water heater and the piping, and hopefully remove the old oil furnace which for whatever reason, the new gas furnace was installed in conjuction with a nonfunctional oil furnace. i can't imagine that is very efficient!

BTW, I live in NW PA just off Lake Erie so in the winter it does get real cold and breezy.

Well anything is possible I suppose. I would not recommend mixing the two types of wiring. Yes it was probably done by someone who did not or could not get to the room in question.

If you can get to it to pull all the wires new in Romex I would recommend mounting a sub panel somewhere upstairs and run one large wire from the main panel to the sub panel and then wire the room from the sub panel.

You need insulation in the Attic. What I see and hear in this business never seems to amaze me. You need insulation under the floor that is why the kitchen floor is cold. That will fix that problem. Yes you can do it yourself. Get a damn good respiratior, a good pair of gloves and some enclosed goggles first. Remember you will be looking up at it while trying to staple it in place.

Sounds like you could do most or even all of this. It does not surprise me that there is no ground. The old homes are famous for that. The polarity is an easy fix. I would fix the ground problems FIRST!

If you run a new sub panel you can update to newer more readily available panels and breakers. I would recommend you do not throw away the old breakers. You could need them in the future for replacements.

Ya, see.. that's what I din't understand really. i don't know why they did not wire that one room. Makes no sense. It would have been the easiest of the 4 rooms upstairs to wire I would think because there is easy access. You can see the operational knob and tub under the stairs to the attic! The fuse panel in the 1st floor is brand new.

I'm gonna show you some pics if I can find them. I THINK.. or assume, and that could be a bad idea when it comes to shoddy work... but I think a larger wire was run to the 2nd floor where they have kind of a junction box. It then splits like 5 ways which I would assume is hallway, 3 bedrooms, and attic. It would be easy to do a fuse panel on the 2nd floor because there is an attic on the 2nd floor above the family room which was added on in 2000. I planned to finish it and use it as a game room this summer.

These pics are from when we viewed the house before we bought it. Since I'm over here, It's tough to get too deep into it.

First pic is of the 2nd floor attic junction box
http://www.clubcobra.com/photopost/d...m/DSC00686.JPG

This is the attic (3rd floor) No insulation. Fireplace is no longer functional, it was bricked up.
http://www.clubcobra.com/photopost/d...m/DSC00704.JPG
http://www.clubcobra.com/photopost/d...m/DSC00703.JPG

The 2nd floor attic area has no insulation at all. None in the floor, walls, or ceiling.

Funny thing... last time my wife got propane, we actually know the driver. He said the house has never been very efficient. Can't imagine why not! lol

Given the size of this kitchen. i am certain it loses ALOT of heat having no floor insulation. It is 17'x27'
http://www.clubcobra.com/photopost/d...22_smaller.JPG
http://www.clubcobra.com/photopost/d...23_smaller.JPG

Fsstnotch,

Steve has been in the building business for many years and knows what he is talking about. One thing I would suggest, get a good volt/ohm meter and check the leads from your existing breaking panel. Turn one breaker off and then see which outlets and lights you lose. Make a drawing of this. Once you know which breaker feeds which rooms, outlets, & etc, then you can plan your rewiring easier. I have rewired a couple of these old Dam shacks out here and they were a combination of knob and tube and Rolex, usually in no logical order. I ripped out all of the old knob and tube and ran new Rolex. I also added a breaker box if there wasn't enough breakers in the old one and there never were as they didn't have codes in those days. Now here a rewire has to meed code and I think you are allowed 6 or 7 outlets per breaker and the lights are on separate breakers and only require #14 Rolex. The outlets require #12 and all boxes, lights, even a doorbell box must be grounded. I would check with you local code officer as I know the codes vary from state. It is illegal here to use both knob and tube so you have to rewire the old knob and tube with Rolex. Since they never insulated the walls back then and the wiring wasn't stapled, I would trace the old two wire to whichever room it went to and then cut it off at the breaker and tie the new Rolex to it and carefully pull it through the walls until it came out where the old wire did. The hardest thing about wiring a house is to have to go in after it has been finished and do a rewire. But you can do it. Just follow Steve's advice.

Ron :)

From your pictures, I think you might want to insulate the roofing ( not the attic floor, but the attic ceiling ) and then cover it over.

You put in insulation with the vapor barrier towards the living area and then pick a tongue & grove board to cover the ceiling ( I would use this because it will last and take a beating and is a LOT less messy to put up).

Those look to be 2 x 6 boards, but if the house is as old as it appears ( the porcelain insulators ) than they may be rough saw. Nothing wrong with that, but new materials may take some fitting.

BOROSCOPE, you can use one to look into the walls.

Hope this helps. Our first house was an 1840 'guest' house for the farm next door. Seen all of this.

BTW, Like your kitchen.

:D :D

Josh,
Yea certainly the way the j-box is done is not the correct way to do it.

If you are going to enclose the attic space then yes insulate the ceiling and not the floor. Depending on what is under the floor I still insulate the floor for sound deadening downstairs, and yes it does help the downstairs maintain temperature. I have done this in my own home and we hardly ever used the A/C or heat in the downstairs because it was insulated so well. Pay me now or pay me later so to speak.


Ron,
Romex..Not Rolex. :LOL: I wish I had a Rolex (watch)

Yea, the kitchen looks great!

Yea me too, I would love to have a few feet of Rolex in the garage instead of the Romex I have. :D Even though if the price of copper keeps going up, I may be glad I have a few feet of Romex. :JEKYLHYDE

Some great advice here!

My understanding is that the, "knob and tube gets really hot and could cause a fire if it were to have insulation put on it" is true. Loose insulation is prohibited by the National Electrical Code because of that. Sheet foam is allowed but requires an open wall for installation. Most communities at least follow the NEC or are even more stringent.

My suggested, more drastic, solution for older homes, is to remove the old plaster, redo mechanicals and replace with new drywall. But then drywall-plaster is what I used to do for a living.

This "new wall" can sometimes be 95% done allowing borders of stable plaster to remain under good woodwork and in corners by only adding new drywall to within a few inches of corners and woodwork. Continue by reinforcing the nice flat drywall/plaster seam with common drywall tape and a little compound. It can be done by yourself, sometimes easier one or a few rooms at a time. It's not hard to do; messy maybe. Alternatively, it is also easier to find a reasonably priced contractor when local building is in a depressed economy, perhaps now or soon anyway.

Since you are looking to increase heating efficiency, there is one other thing I should mention. An important principle, brought up by trularin, is the vapor barrier. What tends to happen in modern well sealed homes is that vapor given off by cooking, showers, mopping and even respiration has no where to escape. I read once that it is about 4 gallons a day for a family of four, some info put out by a window company that was starting to get window damage claims regarding condensation.

As a contractor, during repairs caused by excessive condensation, I also ran into extreme situations where the homeowner purposely set an automatic furnace humidifier too high or vented a clothes dryer inside the house. Older homes often leak so much dry, cold air from outside that they self-vent ...but new-found efficiency may have this too much humidity caveat. A well sealed modern home will often humidify itself and sometimes even require and air-to-air exchanger to limit the effect.

By placing a vapor barrier on the inside of a wall or ceiling (right under the wallboard), as tru says, it will prevent rotting moisture accumulation in the cavity. Although the cavity moisture can't always be seen, it is accumulated there just like on the window glass (especially single pane) where it is stopped from soaking through and can easily be seen. I've noticed that the vapor barrier is sometimes forgotten, especially when people do their own remodelling.

I recommend 6 mil polyethylene or a vapor barrier paint if the wall is not opened. Some surfaces in older homes have several coats of oil base paint which is actually a pretty good natural vapor barrier as opposed to most newer latex paints.

Some extremely warm humid areas of the country need the vapor barrier on the exterior, right under the siding. Humidity always travels towards the coolness and an air conditioned house in Florida has the opposite problem than a house in Pennsylvania, Michigan or North Dakota.

( http://www.doityourself.com/stry/vaporbarriers )


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:o

Geez, guys, even if I could afford a Rolex I wouldn't use it for wiring. See Steve, I told you the spelling checker isn't fool proof if the word is spelled correctly. And I just got through buying 50' of Romex for some lights in the garage. That is so embarrassing that I am not even going to go back and correct it.

Edit: By the way, I am not to blame for the spelling. It was my keyboard. I learned that from another of our friends who posts here.

Ron :o

How old are those ceramic insulators, could be worth something as antiques mabey?.

I do not think you will have to worry about and air to air exchanger. I have found that it is harder to completely seal a pier and beam home up than a traditional slab foundation. Yes it can be done but it is very difficult to do. The older pier and beam homes can be sealed and made to become efficient easily enough. You do not want to completely seal the homes so there is no air movement. This is not healthy for your family or the home. Remember wood needs to be allowed to contract and expand naturally. Most people tend to forget about that when remodeling the home.

Condensation on the windows is a big problem when homes are too tight. If you find you have condensation on the windows you should open the window a bit and let the draft circulate the air, at least for a short time. I too have seem people vent the dryers into the living areas for what they thought would be added heat. I do not recommend this.

I think your biggest problem right now is to correct the electrical issues and then you can fix the insulation during the summer. Besides it will help you on your cooling bill as well.

Haha, you guys are hilarious! Ron, it's ok. the L and the M are pretty close together. it is possible to fat finger it! haha

It's crazy. Like I said. This house was totally remodelled back in 2000. The 1 room that you can still see the knob and tube visibly present and in use was also totally remodelled! It makes no sense to me why ANYONE would cut corners and rewire the entire house and then stop at that room. It makes no sense!!!! It has new drywall and a nice raw pine look to it. Who in their right mind wouldn't replace that wiring when the walls were torn apart!?! haha This whole house is build with rough wood. It was build by the Amish. Even the addition of the kitchen which was in 2000 was done by the Amish. You can see a small triangle, in the upper left of the pic with the junction box, that shows just how this hte wood it. That piece of wood is like 4x18! lol The inspector also noted that it was the heaviest looking wood he has ever seen! I am pretty confident that the house will be standing for many years to come!!! haha

Vapor barrier is a must! It will also go under the insulation under the kitchen and living room since the ground under there is just dirt.

Steve, I was looking at some of the pics I took of the exterior. It definately looks like the undersides of the windows will need some attention also. It's going to be a long summer!!!! And I may have to cut it short to go to the police academy!

Well you do have some work to do but take your time and get it right. Wish I was close enough to help as that is one thing that I can do. I have wired several houses around here and some of those old ones were really hard. One when I got into the attic had one long two wire from the breaker box the length of the attic and they had just stripped places in it and wound other old two wire around them to feed off to the various rooms. That was the worst I ever saw and how that old house never caught on fire is beyond me. And the old breaker box had one fuse that fed that main wire. I always went over and talked to our code officer as it is to much work to have to do over if you put to many outlets or lights on one breaker.
Steve has good ideas. My house is a pier and beam as I wanted some space under it and the one really cold Winter we had here since I built it, I was the only one around here that had water. Then when the piper that had frozen and burst started thawing, many of the houses had them ran through the attic and of course the ceilings fell in. The dead air space under the house where mine are kept them from freezing and the one 4' length that I have which is exposed to outside air I had wrapped with insulation. Mine could stand some new insulation in a few spots, but I have twice the required insulation in and it is relatively efficient but nothing compared to the new houses.
Now where did I put that Rolex I bought to do the garage???? :LOL:

Ron :confused:

...

I agree with Steve in that it is unlikely you could seal so tightly as to require an air-to-air exchanger with heat recovery. I have only seen a couple of these in some super insulated homes that could fully heat in below zero with about 20k btu. Any cold air leakage in such a home is critical.

Good point about the floors over dirt crawl space. I forgot to mention them. These are really some of the worst offenders for humidity and mildew even over "dry" soil.

I know you aren't so likely to use the info I added, but someone else reading this might find something useful if you will pardon the distraction.

One other related procedure was an easy false ceiling that I sometimes used that might make wiring easier.

During insurance cases where the ceiling fell partially down or sagged from springtime thawed moisture, I normally would entirely remove the damaged ceiling and replace it with new insulation and drywall. It was more expensive than an economy fix but it was then like-new and proper. Insurance paid the bill, what the hey.

In some cases, especially where the homeowner was paying out-of-pocket for a badly damaged ceiling, I found that I could simply screw some 2"x2" furring strips crossways across the ceiling joists and add a new drywall ceiling slightly lower than the original. The furring strips don't even have to touch end-to-end. With gaps, there is now room to run new wiring in any direction in between them which allows one to relocate any light, fan fixture or speaker wire also. Did more than one just to move lights or cover ugly texture.

Should the new surface become redamaged, it is an easy fix to replace that since the insulation stays. The same furring principle works really great in basements by allowing cross clearance for already-present small plumbing supply lines and wiring without drilling joists.

To simplify not disturbing the original wall finish, I found that it was not necessary to even tape the edges where the new ceiling butted to to the wall. The ceiling board can be easily snugged up to the wall where no crack is visable after merely paint. Any slight fitment gap can be left under the middle which will be covered with drywall tape. Apparently it doesn't move around and there still remains a fire-seal above anyway.

I could do a ceiling like this, including paint, working by myself in less than an 8 hour day. Very economical, great for a semi-temporary fix. Most people don't even notice the slightly lowered ceiling unless it is pointed out to them and I guess it's no worse than being asked to add 2" of plaster to straighten some really crooked framing. But, like I said, the best fix is to start over.


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Very important roof item
 

When you putt batt insulation under your roof it it extremely important to have an air space between the roof and the insulation. If the thickness of the insulation is such that it will be within an inch of the roof boards you should fir out the joists/studs to give it space.

If you don't the shingles on the roof will deteriorate in a hurry due to heat buildup from the sun.

Good point 727pilot, there are those cardboard spacers that make a 1 or 2 inch space. I am not sure they would come in 'odd' widths, but it would be worth the try. They are so the roof sheathing is allowed to breath.

Steve, I see nothing wrong with that Electrical box, it would pass here in Michigan, although all of the wires must be tied within 6 inches of the box. Those standoffs above that box wouldn't, but the steel box fit the NEC.

If there are rolexs for romex ( a brand name of wire ) let me know, I have romex, but no rolexs. :LOL:

Just my $0.02 worth.

:D :D

It is not the box that concrens me, it is the number of wires tied together inside of it. Those must be some huge wirenuts.

The main wire does not look large enough in the picture to carry the load of the combined "others" coming out of it.