Semi-OT: Rewiring Whole House

This will not save you any electricity unless the wires and walls are warm to the touch (danger!). Unless the house is wired two wire or aluminum wiring there is no real point to replacing the copper. If the plugs are loose in the sockets, then new sockets are a good idea. You won't save any money, but your lights, or whatever is plugged into that outlet will run a bit better as it has a lower voltage drop between the outlet and the plug.

But save on your electrical bill? Nope. Not going to happen. Updating the wiring won't improve the efficiency of your appliances. You would be better off replacing light bulbs with LEDs, and update your electric stove/water heater/dryer/dishwasher with more energy efficient models - then your electrical consumption can drop (if you use the equipment to the same extent) and you will save some $$ in the long run.

Maybe.

Of course replacing perfectly good electrical appliances to save electricity usually doesn't make economic sense as the cost of replacement is greater than the savings in electricity. You need to do the math. Also, newer appliances tend to be less reliable than older, so you may have to replace them yet again.

The best way to reduce power consumption is to wrap your water heater with an insulating blanket and insulate the hot water pipes. Other than replacing light bulbs with LED (whole other discussion) there isn't much you can do that is quick, easy, and relatively effective.

If you are still going to be rewiring your house yourself then either get an inspector in to make sure you did the job properly or run the risk of fire in outlets or electrical shock to your family, etc...

John :-#)#

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        "Old pinballers never die, they just flip out."

Assuming you're keeping the same lights and appliances, and using them in the same way... no, almost certainly not.

If it _did_ mean that, it'd mean that there were huge and horrible electrical losses in your existing wiring. Since such "lost" electricity would necessarily turn into heat, you'd probably have already lost your home to a fire of electrical origin, when some bad contact in outlet overheated and something burst into flame.

Dave, John,

Thanks for your replies.

I guess I just thought that swapping out old copper wire that had grown blacker than black with shiny new copper would somehow increase the efficiency of the electrical system.

alt.home.repair would seem to be the place.

There used to be a faq about electrical wiring and finding that might find the most proper newsgroup, though I suspect it was posted to alt.home.repair

Whatever you do, don't pull out the old wiring as a first step. Use it to pull the new wiring into place.

Michael

That oxide layer is actually protecting the copper from further corrosion. Much like silver tarnishes. It won't affect the conductivity of the wire unless it is aggressive (salt water can eat copper wires).

You might want to consider getting one of those wattmeter (Kill A Watt) devices that you can plug into outlets and see how much load your appliance is drawing and also if there is a voltage drop when it turns on. A slight drop would be normal (a volt or two) but five or ten would indicate problems with connections between the outlet and the breaker box (or a bad breaker).

John :-#)#

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                      www.flippers.com 
        "Old pinballers never die, they just flip out."

Probably not.

But why would you do all this and keep the old panel? There is so much good new stuff for modern panels, like breakers with builtin RCD cut-offs that can radically increase safety, as well as leave you with some lights on when a device starts to trip other circuits.

For those of us on the west side of the Pond (Atlantic Ocean), RCD (Residual Current Device) is the same GFI (Ground Fault Interrupter) as far as I can tell...

John :-#)#

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John's  Jukes Ltd. 2343 Main St., Vancouver, BC, Canada V5T 3C9 
(604)872-5757 or Fax 872-2010 (Pinballs, Jukes, Video Games) 
                      www.flippers.com 
        "Old pinballers never die, they just flip out."

Much further west... across a bigger pond, the Pacific :) There are multiple acronyms used here, as far as I can tell. RCD/GFI is also more important at 240V.

Clifford Heath.

I worked my way through school as an electrician. So, there is a short answ ers (no) and a much longer answer (it depends).

Back in the day, few houses had much more than a refrigerator, a few lights and perhaps a radio or two and a clothes iron. Maybe a 'rich' house had a curling iron. Those with electric stoves and/or water heaters wired those d evices specifically and specially. A 60A (2 x 60A @ 120VAC, technically) se rvice would be more than enough. Today, pretty much every house needs a 200 A service for the myriad of devices taken for granted from multiple hair-dr yers, central air-conditioning, convection ovens, on-and-on-and-on, too man y to list.

Using our house as an example (built in 1890, substantially expanded in 192

8), the distance from the electrical panel on the northwest corner of the b asement to the light in the cedar closet on the southeast corner of the thi rd floor is very nearly 150 feet. If that line were 14-gauge wire, there *w ould* be significant line-drop were I to attach say.... a 10A load (perfect ly safe, theoretically). Meaning that there would be a small efficiency dro p for *that* line with *that* load, perhaps as much as 5%.

Would I reduce my electric bill by replacing that line with heavier gauge w ire? Sure. Would I be able to measure those savings in any linear way? Prob ably not as it may amount to a few bucks in any given year. Would I sleep b etter at night? Sure. Line-drop = heat.

Peter Wieck Melrose Park, PA

Don't forget that bane of the electrician's existence: The Arc-Fault Breake r.

But, replacing wiring without replacing the main panel (or the breakers wit hin it if of the correct pattern) is rather silly.

As already noted, the black coating is protective. Some old wiring was silv er-plated (very, very rare), some was nickle-plated (rare), and much more o f it was tin-plated. So the black coatings could also be oxides of these pl ating materials. Remember that back in the day, all this was once "new" and all sorts of 'stuff' was tried - leading, eventually, to the NEC.

Note also the K&T (Knob & Tube) wiring, if not overloaded, is extremely saf e. The conductors are sufficiently far apart that arcing is not possible, a nd as the conductors are individual, they dissipate heat well. Sure, some i nsurance companies charge extra if K&T wiring is present in an old house, m ost reasonable ones do not. And the amount of destruction necessary to repl ace K&T wiring entirely in an old house can be significant. Just know where it is, what it is, and treat it accordingly.

Peter Wieck Melrose Park, PA

And the Edison circuit in an older house.

snipped-for-privacy@aol.com wrote: "Note also the K&T (Knob & Tube) wiring, if not overloaded, is extremely safe."

Well, the last knob & tube left my house 30 years ago, when a 100ampere service replaced our 60.

Tim R wrote: " And the Edison circuit in an older house. "

One wire inny-outy?

That would be an old house indeed to be wired for 240 VDC.

Otherwise, yes. The standard H-N-H configuration even today.

Peter Wieck Melrose Park, PA

I gather they are being considered for inclusion in the 18th edition of the (rightpond) IET wiring regulations ...

Rewiring could possibly increase it, but probably not perceptible. The GFCI/AFCI outlets may draw a bit of current.

Is the OP/TS one of those people you believe that not having on of those child protection caps makes the electricity leak out?

If your going fuse to breaker you might get a break on your insurance.

If he has Knob & Tube wiring then he may have NO insurance. Of course knob & tube is pre-war (II) and most has vanished, but it shows up in older houses here in Vancouver (Canada).

John :-#)#

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(Please post followups or tech inquiries to the USENET newsgroup) 
John's  Jukes Ltd. 2343 Main St., Vancouver, BC, Canada V5T 3C9 
(604)872-5757 or Fax 872-2010 (Pinballs, Jukes, Video Games) 
                      www.flippers.com 
        "Old pinballers never die, they just flip out."

For the most part, those insurance companies tha

John Robertson:

If you read back through this thread you will see where I mentioned that the last knob & tube wiring was removed from my house back in the

1980s.