I had a quick question here. I know a lot of knob & tube when entering a junction box is protected by a protective loom. Now after viewing an open junction box, the (presumably)knob and tube here has 1 conductor within the loom. While no knob and tubes were visible this would most likely be KB?
I ask because I know some of the older NMD stuff looked very similar, but usually had two conductors within the single loom sheath?
Or would you all only conclude knob and tube when finding the actual ceramic knobs and tubes?
That doesn’t look like any k&t that I’m familiar with. But like you, I don’t think I’ve ever seen individual conductors in a loom sheathing like that. Very interesting.
I don’t think I would call it k&t in this situation.
Strange stuff, looks like some sort of single conductor NM cable which I’ve never heard of. The bare EGC is from the NM cable with the more modern thermoplastic insulated conductors.
The stuff was very popular in Simi Valley, CA in 1960-era builds, and I sometimes see it in 1950-era builds in Los Angeles.
I call it out because it’s usually ungrounded, often frayed, and I don’t want to hear from some electrician “your home inspector should have told you about this”
There are at least more pieces of information I’d want:
(1) Original construction date
(2) What the area near the main panel looks like, as there may be way more clues and more old wire.
(3) What’s below that cloth — is it plastic coated wiring with cloth?
In the end I’d avoid the “knob & tube” designation since that’s a trigger word for uninformed insurance underwriters. You saw no knobs, you saw no tubes.
The cloth may cover a plastic wire.
The loom may have been slipped over both.
Or, not.
Either way the modern splice looks more or less correct, but of course needs a cover plate. That ground wire should be tied back, so it can’t tangle with the exposed hot. Check for hot-neutral swap at the outlets.
And for the report? Call out "two wire outlets", which is presumably what you visually observed. In those cases I recommend a whole house surge protector, as local power strips can’t work super well without a ground.
Yup, it wasn’t bonded too a thing, although I suppose what was it supposed to be bonded too? It was a plastic box, to another plastic box, with a light.
Some valid information here. @imayer you bring up a good point. This house supposedly was built in 1912, however the foundation is clearly much newer. I’m very familiar with the early 1900s and this concrete block foundation looks more like what I typically see in a 40s-60s build.
@bnesbitt 1912 - but foundation has me questioning updates; the main panel has since been updated and all wiring that made its way too the panel had been as well; as far as I could tell, clother, possibly plastic coated with cloth, was difficult for me to tell.
This brings up another point; I’ve seen something similar, where I didn’t call it out as K&B (couple years ago), electrician said they needed to spend 20k to rewire, when the pictues they had provided the buyer as proof showed less than what I’ve provided. 2nd electrician found it to be a version of the 40s loom stuff, but regardless. this was all concealed but they threw me under the bus saying I should have found this wiring that was in the wall.
Great questions. There was 1 single 2 prong in the entire house (that I could find, it was staged with furniture, but not much). As far as I could tell there were no false 3 prongs. I didn’t remove covers of outlets, but from where I could access there was NM cable in all access panels on the 2nd floor and from where I could see on the 3rd floor. I suppose it could be that some were bootlegged. Is there a way that you know to tell without removing covers?
I have, I haven’t found definitive info without invasive inspection regarding bootleg ground. Sorry I probed the conductor i could get to which was live, however, regardless, if the circuit is completed, and there is load, regardless of the wiring system, I imagine it wouldn’t be definitive?
I’ve seen this in the past a few times and it’s K&T. If I recall correctly, I could be wrong but it seems I’ve seen used to route the wire through the sub-flooring and into the walls.
