Reusing existing wire

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Pierre C Belarge said:
By visually looking at any conductor, but mostly older conductors, how do you verify that the conductor insulation is suitable and free from treeing and other issues that affect the integrity of the insulation.

Sometimes Knob & Tube may look just fine, but is most likely past it's useful life expectancy. The same could be said for other conductor types as well. Maybe during the time-line before you came on the job there may have been a fault in the circuit, maybe a person trying to reset the breaker after the fault...Hmmm I wonder what that does to the insulation of conductors???
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Anything with a braided jacket I replace (where feasible), since one can fairly readily surmise that it is 30+ years old (40+?). Not sure how I'd make such judgments 20 years from now though. When did date of manufacture become a required item on the jacket?
 
BigSal57 said:
I would check to make sure the insulation is rated for 90 degrees such as NMB
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Holy smokes. You'd be condemning an aweful lot of cable. Ninety degree NM cable hasn't been on the scene but for maybe 20 years.
 
How do you even know on a new installation that someone didn't shear the insulation off a wire and leave exposed conductors? You don't. There really isn't any way to know for sure that old wiring is good. But the fact that there are thousands of houses with old wiring that haven't burned down is a good indicator. Where I live there are a lot of older homes. I can't recall one incident in the last 5 years of a house burning down because of faulty wiring. Doesn't mean one or two didn't slide by me on the news but it's not a prevalent problem. On the other hand there are literally 1000's of houses where I live that still have knob and tube in use in one capacity or another and haven't burned up.
 
wireman71 said:
But the fact that there are thousands of houses with old wiring that haven't burned down is a good indicator. Where I live there are a lot of older homes. I can't recall one incident in the last 5 years of a house burning down because of faulty wiring. Doesn't mean one or two didn't slide by me on the news but it's not a prevalent problem. On the other hand there are literally 1000's of houses where I live that still have knob and tube in use in one capacity or another and haven't burned up.
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Funny thing...in MA it seems that most all house fires are electrical and the news people can tell while it is still burning. :roll:
 
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