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Double R said:
I hear you! I can’t believe what we’ve found over the years! At this point we just shake our heads and laugh
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it’s either laugh or cry. Nothing is standard, they got a “deal” on everything. Fortunately the original builder was good and the bones of the house are excellent. Everything that followed was sketchy. Renovations have been an adventure
 
We pulled apart a 10ft wall in our sunroom and that one wall had nails, flat heads, phillips heads, t20 and t25 screws in it. And liquid nails, LOTS of liquid nails.. They plastered that stuff on every joint. It was a mess. There were no outlets in that wall but there was wire run. I guess they changed their minds and just capped everything with wire nuts.
 
Terri9630 said:
We pulled apart a 10ft wall in our sunroom and that one wall had nails, flat heads, phillips heads, t20 and t25 screws in it. And liquid nails, LOTS of liquid nails.. They plastered that stuff on every joint. It was a mess. There were no outlets in that wall but there was wire run. I guess they changed their minds and just capped everything with wire nuts.
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Sounds familiar only in places they didnt cap off we had live lines just hanging in places with the breakers turned on.

On set of wires left the main panel and went to a breaker in a sub panel to a breaker in another sub and wired back into the main panel.
 
Fort said:
Yep we are dangerous together. Or I am dangerous and he is just stuck dealing with me. I am not sure which ;D:D

I unplugged the possibly bad heater and plugged in the other new one that I have.

I might try starting a fire in the old stove tomorrow. It is cold in the original part of the house.
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Don't until it has been thoroughly checked out!

Fort said:
Do you mean the old stove? No. My neighbor came over and started a few fires in it for me. I wanted to get the chimney swept and inspected but the house is really cold so heat is sounding great right now.
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Better to be cold than burn your house down. It's not worth the chance!

Fort said:
I am going to sleep soon too. I set my alarm for the butt crack of dawn so that I can do more pre-cleaning before my neighbor comes over to help me in the morning. My late husband's parents are coming to visit for the weekend. I am trying to have the house clean (ok, maybe semi-clean) and warm before they get here.

Heating fuel will be delivered tomorrow too. I am hoping my furnace will go back to working like it was.
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Wait for the fuel. Don't build a fire!

Terri9630 said:
We pulled apart a 10ft wall in our sunroom and that one wall had nails, flat heads, phillips heads, t20 and t25 screws in it. And liquid nails, LOTS of liquid nails.. They plastered that stuff on every joint. It was a mess. There were no outlets in that wall but there was wire run. I guess they changed their minds and just capped everything with wire nuts.
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BugoutBob said:
Sounds familiar only in places they didnt cap off we had live lines just hanging in places with the breakers turned on.

On set of wires left the main panel and went to a breaker in a sub panel to a breaker in another sub and wired back into the main panel.
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I've remodeled many houses over the years for people. I still can't figure out why some didn't burn down. A lot of horror stories there. I've even found where lamp chord (extension cord) was used as wire inside a wall.
 
gumpy said:
Don't until it has been thoroughly checked out!


Better to be cold than burn your house down. It's not worth the chance!


Wait for the fuel. Don't build a fire!




I've remodeled many houses over the years for people. I still can't figure out why some didn't burn down. A lot of horror stories there. I've even found where lamp chord (extension cord) was used as wire inside a wall.
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I bought a house that someone installed a sliding glass door in place of a window and used speaker wire and scotch tape to reroute the wiring.
 
BugoutBob said:
Sounds familiar only in places they didnt cap off we had live lines just hanging in places with the breakers turned on.

On set of wires left the main panel and went to a breaker in a sub panel to a breaker in another sub and wired back into the main panel.
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Our house was built in the same time period. Home owners in that time era must have had a thing for screwing up the electrical in a house. There was a switch in the garage that worked when it wanted to so hubs started digging. He found two hots wired together in a junction box. We found extension cords used in place or romex in a couple of places.

One of the first things he did when we bought this place was study the main panel and sub panel. A bunch of bad words kept falling out of his mouth while he was fiddling around with those.
 
My house was built in the 1890s. Some where along the line, they put in knob and tube which is actually pretty safe contrary to popular belief. The pieced in wiring that came after that mirrors what you'all have been saying. When we were looking at the place to buy it, we went into the barn. It was pouring rain and there was literally a waterfall flowing down off the barn roof into the electrical panel hidden in a small attached room. Hubby very gingerly took a long stick and tripped the master switch. The owner was so po'ed with him he wouldn't let us on the place again.
 
Our home was built in the 1970's and the basement originally finished in the late 1980's. When we bought it we gutted out the entire basement until it was just a cinder block room with some support posts. Apparently the woman who lived here hired 2-3 college kids to "finish" the basement for her and then she let them live in the basement the entire school year for free, she then rented it out until she passed and we bought the house from her kids.

In the process we discovered that every they studded out the walls about every 24 inches, every other wall stud was 2 pieces of scrap 2x4 nailed together from both sides, that they sheet rocked over a small window and in the living room area we found this small hole toward the top of the wall. It had a plastic single hole plastic cover on it, sort of like a cable outlet cover drilled with a larger hole. When we pulled off the sheet rock a massive pile of beer bottle tops and beer can tabs came flowing out. We had to get a shovel to collect them all. In another section of the wall we found 4 geodes. I have no idea who would put 4 geodes in a wall but there they were. Three were common and were appraised at $15 each. One of them was rare and was valued at $200-250. They now sit in that same room in the basement.
 
My late BIL was a nightmare when it came to electrical.
He added onto his house and just stripped off the insulation on a hot wire and wrapped the new wire around that and used electrical tape to cover it all up.
He would trip a breaker when he turned on the bathroom fan while the microwave was running so he put in a bigger breaker.
He wired a ceiling fan the same way except he wired it to 220v.
I kept telling him and he said there was no 220 it the ceiling.
The fan ran for a few minutes at a really high speed until it finally burnt up.
Then he remembered the wiring for his baseboard heaters was 220 and ran above the ceiling.
His name was Jerry and we called everything he did Jerry rigged.
 
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