Historical common practice

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JJWalecka

JJWalecka

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"Wiring methods have advanced tremendously through the years. It was not uncommon for electric power wires to be pulled through existing gas piping in the early 1900s." Quoted from article in Buildings.com

For those who have historical code books I wonder what else was common practice?

JJ
 
Many of the basic Codes today can be traced easily back to the Codes of the teens and 20s.

"Neat and workmanlike manner" in the 1897 Code was written as:

In all wiring special attention must be paid to the mechanical execution of the work. Careful and neat running, connecting, soldering, taping of conductors and securing and attaching to fittings, are specially conducive to security and efficeincy, and will be strongly insisted on.
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From the 1925 NEC:

805.d. No fuse or circuit breaker shall be placed in any permanently grounded wire, except a circuit breaker which simultaneously opens all conductors of the circuit......

503.f. A run of conduit, between outlet and outlet or between fitting and fitting, shall include not more than the equivalent of 4 quarter bends, the bends at the outlets of junction boxes not being counted.
 
JJWalecka said:
I wonder what else was common practice?
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Just wait until you find one of the old open knife swithes. If found one that was still hot in an attic a few years back. It was covered with insulation and I almost put my hand on it.

Pull chains for light fixtures were common enough. 30A 120V services. 1 or 2 receptacles for each room. No dedicated small appliance circuits and no receptacles at all for bathrooms.

You can find almost anything in old wiring methods. Sure there were electrical codes but not every area adoped the code and even where it was adopted there were not always inspections. So I guess the most common practice is that there were no real common practices. :D:D
 
I assume that the pulling of wire through gas pipes was when they had been using gas light fixtures and were converting them to electric?

I have an old book (1926) which says before wiring, to ask your electric company which type of electricity they provide - AC or DC!
 
480sparky said:
From the 1925 NEC:

805.d. No fuse or circuit breaker shall be placed in any permanently grounded wire, except a circuit breaker which simultaneously opens all conductors of the circuit......

503.f. A run of conduit, between outlet and outlet or between fitting and fitting, shall include not more than the equivalent of 4 quarter bends, the bends at the outlets of junction boxes not being counted.
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It looks like the box offset was a freebie.
Not the way it is worded now though.
 
tkb

"503.f. A run of conduit, between outlet and outlet or between fitting and fitting, shall include not more than the equivalent of 4 quarter bends, the bends at the outlets of junction boxes not being counted."

Cool and Interesting. Thanks

JJ
 
Billy_Bob said:
....I have an old book (1926) which says before wiring, to ask your electric company which type of electricity they provide - AC or DC!
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My 1911 has a section on how to wire a new building if you don't know the voltage you're going to be supplied with.
 
Some of the first wiring was installed on knobs, exposed, run along the top of the wall next to the ceiling. They cut a little square off the corner of the doors to get from room to room through the doorway.
 
JJWalecka said:
Wood moldings with grooves cut for wires. These were eventually prohibited in North American electrical codes by the 1930s.

JJ
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Uh-huh. The original "wiremold". I run in to it pretty regularly. At least weekly. Pretty popular way to get the wired up to the basement light switch in an older home.
 
JJWalecka said:
Wood moldings with grooves cut for wires. These were eventually prohibited in North American electrical codes by the 1930s.

JJ
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As recently as the 1980s I was still running into that wiring method in Boston apartment buildings.

This includes the risers. I wish I took pictures before we shredded it. It was in perfect condition.
 
In a 1902 article, ?Engineers Were Never Like This,? The National Electrical Contractor staff blames neither the manufacturer nor the contractor, but the electrical engineer or expert.

In fact, the editors say engineers ?lie awake nights trying to evolve some fancy or unheard of name for the simplest form of appliance.?
For example, a snap switch is called a ?rotating circuit breaker,? an outlet box is a ?fixture supporting orifice,? and a fuse is a ?circuit interrupting device.?

JJ
 
I found this website with interesting facts about the history of the NEC.

http://antiquesockets.com/nec.html

?Their fear was that the fire underwriters of the country would be more powerful then the municipal, state, or even the United States, governments; that any law, edict or rule issued by them, whether right or wrong, could be enforced and must be obeyed. Still others (in these early days) simply had a prejudice against electricity. (natural gas was still being used for most lighting - even into the early 1900's)?

?There was a first attempt to create a National Electrical Code that was released in 1892?

?If you were to search, you would find many different electrical codes prior to the National Electrical Code (NEC) which started being used as our standard in 1897.

Only some of the companies that published electrical codes are listed below to give you the basic idea:

The National Board of Fire Underwriters; American Institute of Mining Engineers; Underwriters? National Electric Association; American Institute of Architects; American Society of Mechanical Engineers; American Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers; Western Union Telegraph Company; American Bell Telephone Company; American Street Railway Association; American Institute of Electrical Engineers; Bureau of Electricity, Pittsburgh; Factory Mutual Fire Insurance Companies; American Society of Civil Engineers; National Master Builders Association; National Association Fire Engineers; Postal Telegraph Company; New England Insurance Exchange; National Electric Light Association; etc.?

JJ
 
FRANKENSTIEN.jpg
 
iwire said:
As recently as the 1980s I was still running into that wiring method in Boston apartment buildings.

This includes the risers. I wish I took pictures before we shredded it. It was in perfect condition.
Click to expand...

Someone posted a picture of that recently. 480 mabey.
 
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