Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Electricity in the attic

Over the weekend I ventured up into our attic to take a few measurements. We intend to install the folding attic staircase which is currently sitting in our living room in a cardboard box. While rooting around in the shredded newspaper insulation I uncovered two buried electrical junction boxes. The first box was fine after cleaning it out and adding a lid. Although, the second was far from adequate.

The old lighting fixture box was uncovered and contained four lines of different vintage, only two of which were secured with strain reliefs, and upwards of seven wire nuts. After some experimentation there were still too many unknowns, and I decided to replace the junction box entirely. I am pleased with the outcome, and I won't mind removing it when rewiring the second floor. At least now I know it won't start a fire.

2 comments:

  1. Yikes!! Well it is a good thing that it won't start a fire. I uncovered some wiring in my bathroom and kitchen that was electrical taped together behind the walls. It was if they cut the wire too short and just added to it. Of course, I fixed all of that. Do you still have the knob and tube wiring? Or is it the newer wire with an extra added ground?

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  2. Actually, I haven't seen any knobs or tubes yet, but I wouldn't be surprised to come across some. There are several vintages of wires in our walls, some in flexible conduit, others with cloth insulation. Eventually, we will get our home up to code.

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