Over the years my family remodeled several older houses, and all of them had at least some old fashioned knob and tube wiring. In most of the houses, there was old lath and plaster, but no insulation anywhere. So our standard plan of action in the old houses was to remove the lath and plaster, put in a new service entrance and breaker boxes with all the necessary parts, rewire everything with the cable used at that time adding plenty of outlets, switches, and lights, insulating the walls with fiberglass and then putting up drywall. We also sometimes lowered ceilings and always insulated the attics, usually with fiberglass, but sometimes we used Vermiculite (which might be considered a problem these days). New kitchens, new and added bathrooms, some new windows and a bunch of finish carpentry and painting always made the houses a whole lot better and more valuable than when we started.
The first Winter we lived in the house I spent the most time growing up in, it was so loose that when the wind blew, my Dad said he had to cup his hand around the match to light a cigarette. And the oil heat bills were huge. We started working on it right away, and the next Winter was much more cozy. By the 3rd Winter, we had remodeled most of the existing house and built an addition that more than doubled the size of the house.
My Dad always deactivated and removed the wire from prior knob and tube installations, even if they were working fine. We never talked about why he did this, but I think he thought the old wiring might not be safe and wanted ALL of it replaced with new work he had done and knew it was done correctly. I saw lots of bare wires with the knob and tube wiring, especially in attics that probably were not as safe as they might have been, even though no one ever went up there. The removed knob insulators were handy sometimes for electric fencing on wood posts. I still have some removed tubes, and I like the idea of using them for knife sharpening.
I guess I disagree with the statement that knob and tube was the safest wiring system ever. It sure must have been a lot of work to install it, and the insulation that was probably supposed to be on the wiring seemed to degrade or disappear over time. I think that modern thermoplastic insulated cable is not only a whole lot easier to install, but I believe that it is MUCH safer than K&T, assuming both systems were installed in an approved manner. Time will tell as to how well current wiring systems hold up, but wiring we did 40 or 50 years ago that I have looked at recently looks just fine.
Remodeling or renovating is interesting: you never know WHAT you will encounter. But if a building was built prior to World War II, I would expect to see some knob and tube wiring, unless it had already been removed. Would I continue to use knob and tube wiring assuming it was working fine? Maybe if I was not going to do anything to the building, but not if I was going to do significant remodeling. New wiring is just one of the things I think is necessary to do a decent job. Good luck!
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Today's Featured Article - Listening to Your Tractor - by Curtis Von Fange. Years ago there was a TV show about a talking car. Unless you are from another planet, physically or otherwise, I don’t think our internal combustion buddies will talk and tell us their problems. But, on the other hand, there is a secret language that our mechanical companions readily do speak. It is an interesting form of communication that involves all the senses of the listener. In this series we are going to investigate and learn the basic rudimentary skills of understanding this lingo.
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