Tying onto old brittle cloth circuits

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alfiesauce

Senior Member
electricalperson said:
if the wire was so fragile that a wire nut could break it apart wouldnt the wire be past its life expectancy and should be replaced anyway? would that wire be able to hold 15 or 20 amps?
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I'm going to get hung on a tree for this on this forum but whatever...

If you were to go to a house to replace a switch that is no longer working because it's been there for 60 years you are saying you would actually make them rewire their whole house to change that switch?
 
electricalperson

electricalperson

Senior Member
Location
massachusetts
alfiesauce said:
I'm going to get hung on a tree for this on this forum but whatever...

If you were to go to a house to replace a switch that is no longer working because it's been there for 60 years you are saying you would actually make them rewire their whole house to change that switch?
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well whenever you open up a box to do something like that, it could open up a can of worms. what if all the insulation was falling off all the way back to the connector? how long could it take to fish a new wire into the light? or how long to fish a new piece of romex in and connect it? couple hours maybe. i know if insulation was falling off like that i would replace the wire. what if something burns? i dont want my name on that
 
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bclumen

Member
Location
Elkridge, MD
That right there is why jobs cannot be done flat rate. T&M is the way to go since you can never really know what your getting into. I am very cautious in old DC and Baltimore homes to explain these things to the HO's.
 
Pierre C Belarge

Pierre C Belarge

Senior Member
Location
Westchester County, New York
petersonra said:
Just out of curiosity, what criteria are you using for pass/fail?

Is there any published data on it?
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When meggering conductors, it is not always a science. Since meggering conductors is usually a one shot process, without any past history to help base a result against, we try to use some tried and true data.

There is a ton of published data available. Just google meggering conductors and you will find pages of information...some of the best that is available.

The poster who mentioned his result was 2 megs and he replaced the cable, has what I believe to be the correct idea.

You will read in some of the material you find that 1 meg is a minimum guideline for pass/fail.
I personally believe that threshold is too low, especially for cloth braid conductors.



Also some have mentioned the procedure of using a sleeve over the cloth braid conductor. I do not see this as a satisfactory resolve. It is near impossible to push the sleeve up against the conductor where it enters the enclosure via the fitting. That is one of the most vulnerable locations of the conductor where damage is most likely to cause issues, maybe severe enough to cause a shock or fire.
 
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