K&T sign off??

[jjhoward]

A customer's home owners insurance co (State Farm)asks for an electrician to "sign off" on the K&T wiring in this house they are about to buy. No sign off, no policy. (Anybody here want me to send you the paper to sign? :D ) Obviously, load testing, visual examination of SOME of the K&T can be done. Is there anything else that can be done to assess the health of K&T wiring. Or do you just run, or only endorse house rewiring??

[hurk27]

I would load each circuit an each branch of that circuit to 80% and view it with a inferred camera to see if there are any hot spots. Turn the thermostat way down before doing it or run a AC to cool down the place. This will allow a more clearer picture. And some paths of the current can be followed. ;)

[jjhoward]

Ok, are there dial-a-loads? I have seen some handheld gear that will present a 15amp load and extrapolate for what a 20amp load will do. What type of accuracy will an IR camera provide? Even if I had the proper gear to simulate a load and sensors (IR camera) to indicate temp, what is pass/fail criteria. The temp rating of the wire? Old wire...60C or less?

[jeff43222]

You might want to suggest that they switch to Allstate. I have Allstate for my own home, and about half of my wiring is K&T, 1922 edition. When I get some free time, I'm going to replace it, but lately I've been too busy re-wiring other people's houses.

What's on this form (could you post it)? Are they asking you to guarantee that the K&T is in good shape? Or can you inspect it as you see fit and report the results? You might want to run the form past your lawyer and see if it exposes you to liability if you sign off on the wiring but there was a hidden problem that you didn't find.

[ March 25, 2005, 06:44 PM: Message edited by: jeff43222 ]

[jimwalker]

All the forms we ever signed basically asked for opinion.The wording would be whats important here. Post letter if you can.Chances are low that any old house with K and T have no violations from years of add ons and whatever but i have passed a few with minor repairs

[ March 25, 2005, 10:46 PM: Message edited by: jimwalker ]

[jjhoward]

I don't have the form from the h/o insurance co yet. I will suggest to them Allstate. If/when I get that form I will certainly post it. The biggest challenge I see with K&T wiring is to accurately determine what circuits in the house are using the K&T. Every house I have ever seen with K&T has had some upgrades so there is a mix of new and old buried in walls/attics/floors. It is possible but mucho work. Any thougths on loading gear?

[pierre]

You should have your attorney look at the form before you sign it.

[jimwalker]

pierre
Member
Member # 2889

posted March 26, 2005 09:14 AM
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You should have your attorney look at the form before you sign it.

Good idea but the cost of attorney and my time going that route would be to high.

I have not seen any that tried to hold you responsable for anything.They ask things like size of service,is there gfci protection in bath room and kitchens,is there any exsposed wiring,is system grounded,do 3 prong outlets have a grounding conductor.The biggest violation i see is the mis use of 3 prong outlets.Customers often think they upgraded by replacing them non grounded ones.
Did a friend a favor by having him meet be at the property.I then pointed out what i should not be seeing.Then when he corrected it we have the real inspection :) He passed.

[willyj]

Originally posted by jimwalker:
[QB] [quote] pierre
Member
Member # 2889

posted March 26, 2005 09:14 AM
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You should have your attorney look at the form before you sign it.

Good idea but the cost of attorney and my time going that route would be to high.


The cost of an attorney and time can never be high in protecting YOU and that customer.

Bill

[jjhoward]

I will probably have an attorney friend review the form. He does attorney stuff for me and I do electrician stuff for him. :D Barter: sometimes even better than cash.

[jimwalker]

If it asks for more than my opinion i would just say no thanks to the job.To say that any system you did not install is to code and safe is foolish.Have seen this form writen differantly by company to company so getting ruling on one will not help on the next.

[charlie]

With all the jokes about attorneys and the high charges for their work, they really are worth the price, especially if it saves your company, your house, your kids, and your dog. :D

[macmikeman]

I have rewired out k+t houses dozens of times. In each case I found at least one spot in the house where the insulation was gone , leaving bare wire. Most times it is where the wires are close together as in the outlets. I would not sign off a k+t job ever.

[jimwalker]

I would not care to insure any K&T house.It is like insuring 16 year old boy that just got a license.While it was a great system for its time ,it's life span is over.80 year old wiring needs to be replaced.I passed a job that i rewired a couple years ago.Now that it is rewired maybe it will make it another 80 years.It still looks ugly but is safe.He was forced to rewire to keep his insurance.

[jjhoward]

I am not seeing any logic in me sticking my neck out. I am not in the insurance biz. I will gladly rewire the place and then sign off else they should find another electrician/insurance guy.

[jimwalker]

Why don't they just request an inspection from the county ? At a cost sure but we are electricians not inspectors.Willing to bet the county refuses.

[jjhoward]

Thank you all for your input. It is very appreciated.

[jjhoward]

I am still wondering about equipment to load a circuit. What is there other than this hand held unit that does 15 amp load + 20 amp extrapolation?

[jimwalker]

I am not about to go putting a full load on anyones circuit unless i need to.Think where you stand if something opens up under this load.It worked before you messed with it ,so now fix it free :mad:

[jjhoward]

Good point Jim. That would really ruin my day :eek: Could a load tester do that? Sounds like the wiring would be acting like a fusable link. Maybe another clause is needed in the contract if I am applying loads to assess house wiring.

[tx2step]

For a test load, how about building your own "Load Bank" using 150 watt lamps?

At 120V, each lamp will pull 1.25A. You could fine tune the load for voltage variances by using an ampmeter and a few smaller wattage lamps.

It might not be pretty, but it would be cheap and effective, and you could easily vary the load to whatever you want it to be.

Or you could start with a 1500W fixture (12.5A at 120V) and add a few more 150W lamps for additional loading up to 15A or 20A as desired.

Incan. lamps are just resistive loads - the same type of load that is used for generator load bank testing, just on a much smaller scale in this case.

[jjhoward]

Sounds like a bright idea :D

[tx2step]

JJ - You sound like a guy I once worked for! ;)

I haven't done residential in a very long time, but I don't remember any of the K&T wire being 12 Ga. I remember it as being more like 14 Ga. or maybe even 16 Ga. solid, and medium drawn -- it was pretty stiff stuff. What size wire are you guys dealing with?

I wonder what its amp rating was when it was installed? I doubt that it had a temp. rating.

I also remember it being fairly common to switch the neutral instead of the hot for lights, and that the neutral might run from one direction and the hot come from some other direction. They weren't always run together. I wonder how often a neutral was overloaded?

In fact, I remember an old K&T knife blade type fused panel where all of the branch neutrals were also fused. Each branch was a "double" (hot and neutral) knife with a wood handle across them and both the hot and neutral were fused. This was like a 10 circuit panel, so there were 10 double knife switches and a total of 20 fuses, plus the mains were a 3-blade knife and also fused, including the neutral. All of the bussing was exposed polished brass -- it was beautiful.

I'd be afraid to go above 15A protection on any of it.

[ March 28, 2005, 07:59 PM: Message edited by: tx2step ]

[jimwalker]

Dont try that in florida in the summer.I get hot enough working next to a 60 watt bulb

[hurk27]

I made mine out of an old battery charger housing one that you would find in a auto garage. It had a nice fan and already had a couple ceramic spools in it, and I added several more to adjust from 5 amps to 150 amps in steps that was changed by adding jumpers to welding jacks I installed in the top of the cabinet. I use nichrome wire that was left over from my radio days and the welding jacks were left over from a job at a steel fab shop I wired. I even used the amp meter in it as it did read up to 400 amps, I just removed the shunt and built a circuit to drive it off a current coil and calibrated it off my amp probe. Accuracy wasn't a problem as the loading coils were pre figured. But when it was hooked to a 100 amp service it put out the heat. It was great for finding bad neutrals and other things. Until I left it behind the van and backed over it. :o
And No it wasn't UL listed. :roll:

[bigjohn67]

Anyone know what the rating (amps) of a soildered Western Union splice is?

These types of taps were not made to withstand todays modern appliances: Refrig. Microwave, window AC.

[iwire]

Originally posted by bigjohn67:
Anyone know what the rating (amps) of a soildered Western Union splice is?

These types of taps were not made to withstand todays modern appliances: Refrig. Microwave, window AC. I would say that it is able to handle as much as the conductors it is connecting.

[pierre]

In the area I work in, there are still many homes with K&T. The splices have held up to the modern appliances quite well.

[jjhoward]

Yes tx, those fuse panels are a work of art. All the K&T that I have touched here in NJ has been 12 awg. I agree, I would never go over 15 amps on that stuff. The problem with this stuff is being able to see it all. I have crawled through many attics to check out the insulation and the splices. Usually what I can see is OK. The insulation is still intack and the splices (if any) are mechanically sound and covered. Its the runs that I can't see that make assessing K&T tough. I have read that insurance stats don't show K&T wiring a serious fire starter. So, this hub-bub of insurance co's declining home owners becaus of K&T is dumb. When in doubt..re-wire those houses. Fishing wires through plaster/lath walls is such fun :p

[englishelec]

hi there my wife and i are moving to the US, springfield MO, next week, i have been reading some posts on this site for a few days and was wondering if you wanted to see an example form of what we have to do on a property inspection in the UK have fun http://www.niceic.org.uk/downloads/PIR%20greenspec.pdf

Mark

[englishelec]

just a quick one here is the web site for the national inspection council for electrical instalation contracting NICEIC here in the UK, http://www.niceic.org.uk/
are there any similar websites to look at for the United States any help would be appreciated. i will have to start off as an apprentice when i arrive so if anyone can help with any info as to how this process of attaining a journeymans card can be accelerated we would be very gratefull. ps been an electrician in the UK for 19 years. i have done the online tests on the NEC on this site and after i picked up the difference in terminology ie US hot UK live and went over them a couple of times i eventually got 100%

[roger]

You can go to this Non-US Electrical Systems & Trades (http://electrical-contractor.net/cgi-bin/forumdisplay.cgi?action=topics&forum=Non-US+Electrical+Systems+|AMP|+Trades&number=9&DaysPrune=1000&LastLogin=) forum and maybe get some insite from Pauluk who has worked in the States.

Roger