Strange old wiring with bare neutral jacket

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#1

Originally Posted By: fbartlo
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house for many decades, and it would be a bugger and a half to replace.


The outlets are almost all 2-hole throughout the house.

![](upload://Ty7zhKaCVJNUIAjBD7yYo2R95m.jpeg)
Service panel. Note the metal, jacketed wire,
the stranded neutrals from it, mostly on the right,
and the hots from it on the right breaker terminals near the top.


Detail of the old wiring



Old wiring seen near pipe running through joist in unfinished area of basement

#2

Originally Posted By: dvalley
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manufacturer/installation problems associated with this old BX (armored cable) wiring.


The hot & neutral wires are insulated with cloth and the stranded wires that are twisted around the exterior of the cloth wiring is fine...It's utilized for grounding at the electrical panel.

You do have double lugged neutrals on the upper left (NM wires).

--
David Valley
MAB Member

Massachusetts Certified Home Inspections
http://www.masscertified.com

"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go."

#3

Originally Posted By: cbuell
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The stuff posted in the picture looks like armored “single” strand. I have heard of it but never seen any-----I am pretty sure they ran one strand for the neutral and one for the hot just like Knob & Tube. In this installation if they were using the wrap as the neutral it would be “just plain wrong”.

#4

Originally Posted By: fbartlo
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used the wrap – which was making electrical contact with the jacket all along the run – as the neutral. No cloth insulation around the neutral: All the light-colored strands in the older wire were metal, not cloth.


This stuff is pretty thin, comparable to about 6 gauge stranded wire in overall thickness. For comparison, the ground wire (also out of date), appeared to be 8 gauge.

The first thing I did was look for parallel neutral wires, but seeing the way the wires run through the basement it was obvious there were none, and there was only one wire per outlet, light fixture, etc. connection, not 2 parallel wires, as in knob and tube. Note that none of the old insulated wires connect to the neutral bus bar, only the wrap.

#5

Originally Posted By: Greg Fretwell
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A guy over at Bob’s house says that is some kind of German WWII wire.


Maybe a vet brought some home. I have heard about houses wired with GI twisted pair wire too. I guess after WWII there was more building going on than available materials.

#6

Originally Posted By: dedgren
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I saw some of this wire today. It was part of a system, has special bakelite boxes. It was installed in the thirties.