New York Renovator

It actually wasn’t so horrible this time. Some folks must be praying for me!

The weather was nice– a bit cool, breezy, and overcast– perfect weather for a latte at the cafe… or a pedicure… or detoxufree 72…. orrrr….. WORKING IN THE MOLDY, DUSTY, DARK ATTIC. This is what greets me when I pop my head into the small 3-foot wide attic hatch:

It is for this reason that I will NEVER NEVER NEVER use blown-in insulation. This house is SOOOOO dusty. Who is the knucklehead who came up with the idea of filling a home’s cavities with DUST for insulation?! Egads.

That is the original knob and tube wiring resting in peace there. The wiring must have been installed sometime in the 1920s or 1930s… and the insulation (I assume) went in sometime in the 1970s or 1990s. It is against codes to insulate around the old knob and tube wiring. There is the danger of wires overheating, and thus a fire hazard. Plus, the old wires are not grounded at all. I am glad to be rid of them.

You can see the handiwork of an 1855 attic, eh? I took lots of photos, because if I ever get curious about what the attic looks like, and I get it in my stupid head to go up and see, all I have to do is look at these photos to remind myself.

Today, I ran some wiring for my son’s bedroom ceiling light, the hallway ceiling light (unfortunately, I won’t be able to wire a light until next year when we gut the upstairs. But I thought I’d throw in some wiring while I’m up here), and the feed line coming from the service panel, two floors down. A junction box handily holds all the wires for me.

I was exhausted after the job. Tomorrow, I wire the light and the two outlets for my son’s room, and feed it to a junction box in the basement, which will be connected to the service panel. Then, this room will finally have electricity for the first time in three years. AND he’ll have a ceiling light that WORKS, something he has never had since we moved here.

The attic work is not yet finished, though. Besides the hallway light situation reserved for next year, The Hubs has to go up here this week– we need to electrify the bathroom ventilation fan again (I couldn’t get to it when I was up there). It hasn’t worked for three years, and mold grows on the bathroom walls because of the intense moisture. I haven’t broken the news to him, yet…

One of my favorite blogs is Electrician’s Notes, and blogger Sparky has had some really good posts lately. He’s been showcasing some of the nightmares discovered in homes concerning their electrical wiring. I am closely associating with the posts (and photos), because my home is a nightmare, too!

My house was built in 1855, and has remained largely unrenovated since then. But there have been a few additions throughout the decades, one being electrical wiring installed in the 1930s. Believe it or not, until two years ago, 98% of my electrical system was running through those 80-year old, knob-and-tube wires. I had no idea how horrible the system was until 2006, when I completely gutted the living room. This is an example of one of the ugly blackheads I discovered when I pulled down the ceiling.

Apparently, the previous owners had ripped up the floorboards on the second floor above, installed the wiring for most of the house in between those floor joists, and closed up the floor again with the old floor boards. (See how close some of the nails are to the wiring between the joists). The owners in the 1960s slathered the second floor flooring with glue and installed this disgusting-looking yellow lineoleum in the bedrooms, making it impossible to see the damage done.

So last year, when I pulled down the ceiling in the living room below, I found this massive wiring disaster: open wires, spliced wires connected ONLY with black electrical tape. A disaster. A lot of the “improvements” are disasters. The previous owners had insulated the attic floor in the 1980s, where more of this black-cloth knob-and-tube wiring was located (it’s against codes to insulate on top of this kind of wiring).

Actually, most of this house is completely against codes– not just the electric. The plumbing had no vent system, no u-traps or vent for the washing machine… no cold air return vents for the furnace…. fiberglass batting is stuffed in the kitchen cabinets to plug the gaping holes in the walls…. a true DISASTER. You can read some of my past posts about my venture into DIY electrical– what a harrowing ordeal! I have details here and here and here and here is my successful Inspection Day! I passed!

What blows my mind is that all this work was done without any inspection at all, obviously. I know the house is old, but… I’m stunned that all of this stuff was done without the homeowners consulting the codes and building inspectors.

I have had to disconnect a good deal of my electrical system– half the house– because after I saw the condition of the wiring and the way it was installed, I was absolutely terrified. So we are without electricity until I can gut the remainder of the rooms to wire them.

My plea to you homeowners is this: PLEASE get your work inspected. PLEASE resist the urge to slop something together just to “get it done,” and then seal up the walls. Do it the CORRECT way and the SAFE way– for your own sake, but also for the lives of the people who will live in the house after you.