I hate old wiring...

15 years ago

Okay well my friend's stepfather is a licensed electrician. I am not. I really can't explain how I've ended up working on his house.

Eitherhow, there's a light at the top of the stairs. You can control it from both ends - but only because this guy tied a long string that goes from the pullchain on the light all the way to the bottom of the stairs. There is a 3-way switch at the top of the stairs, but it doesn't go anywhere, and there is a 3-way switch in a 2-gang box at the bottom, but it only goes to the light at the bottom of the stairs.

Well we've been discussing for a week or so how the last guy probably just didn't know how to wire 3-ways, and how the wires were probably all there and just needed to be swapped around into the right order. I decided to tackle it today.

First, pull down the upstairs light fixture. Only two conductors. Knob & Tube. Yay. Well the switch wires aren't in there.

Downstairs light? Nope. Three conductors: two knob & tube, one that's actually the white wire of a piece of 12-2 romex, with the black and ground conductors just chopped off. wtf?

Downstairs switch box. Two pieces of 12-2. One is just a black wire - the white and ground have been chopped off again. The other wire is completely intact - bonus - except that the bare ground wire is wrapped in electrical tape. Huh?

Well it's a three-way switch. Maybe someone tried using the ground as a traveler. Bad idea but let's explore it. Get out the meter, and put the fuse back in. Yes, the *FUSE*. Little round screw-in thingy. Eitherhow, start testing, carefully.

Well the black wire of the intact romex goes to the 3-way's common terminal. It's hot at all times. Alright.

The white wire of the same romex goes to the 3-way's "DOWN" terminal. It's... also... hot... at all times. HUH?

And the bare ground? Well it's attached to the UP terminal, and powers the downstairs light... The other end of this is one of the k&t wires in the ceiling.

The single black wire in the downstairs box goes to the outside light, whose neutral is the single white wire in the downstairs light...

The wires from the switch upstairs don't appear ANYWHERE, and there is no voltage on the switch anywhere (tested to a known ground)

I was permitted to enlarge the hole around the downstairs light to try to follow the wires that way. I also pulled the switch box out of the wall. The wires from the switch disappear somewhere between the original plaster slats and the drywall!

I am not permitted to destroy the wall or the ceiling.

Son of a...

Featured Answer

fixizin

15 years ago

... there's a light at the top of the stairs. You can control it from both ends - but only because this guy tied a long string that goes from the pullchain on the light all the way to the bottom of the stairs.

ROTF-LMAO!!... OMG, there may be a light at the top of the stairs, but there is NO light at the end of THIS tunnel, LOL!

Forrest Gump, unless this job is BY THE HOUR, open-ended, installments paid IN ADVANCE, and NOT quoted in advance, and paid later, run Forrest, RUN!... FLEE to the nearest exit! ;')

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Comments (10)

bigbird_1
15 years ago
You may as well burn the house down now and start from scratch, because that's probably going to happen regardless sooner or later.
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bobtins
15 years ago
Hm...if you have access to an attic above (or basement below) the stairs, maybe you can go on a fishing expedition and rewire it correctly. The only saving grace of my electrical wiring is that there is a decent crawl space (enough room to be a stoop space) and three attic spaces, which let me get to a lot of the wiring so I can sort it out and/or replace it.
pharkus
Original Author
15 years ago
This job is randomly-paid by the whenever-they-have-some-cash-to-spare-they-give-it-to-me method.

The opening paragraph of my original post should give you some kind of idea of the situation. It's a friend's house, they just moved in. Myself and his fatherly figure (who is licensed) are fixing things piece-by-piece.

So the general idea is, I'm just kinda hanging around, nobody's really doing anything too exciting, so I get bored and go fix something. There's no payment officially involved, but they've been helping me quite a bit with various stuff.

--- --- --- --- ---

Directly above the downstairs light is a closet. We're going to rip up the floor to get to the wiring, then put a piece of plywood down after. The upstairs light is accessible from the attic. We have no idea where the wires from the upstairs switch go, but I think I can get into that wall also from the attic... So there is already a plan for how to fix this mess.
fixizin
15 years ago
Best of luck... good friends are well worth helping out... but that Rube Goldberg arrangement with the 20' pullcord (plus whatever pulleys and screw-eyes are involved)... PRICELESS!
bondrey102
15 years ago
When I was a kid back in the 40's we lived in a house that had a light at the top of the 2nd floor stairs with a 20 foot pullchain to control the light from up or down. This system worked well except when my old man would come home drunk and yank the chain too hard and pull down the fixture. It was my older brother's job to repair it. Ah the old memories. Best of luck. Bernie
pharkus
Original Author
15 years ago
{{!gwi}}

{{!gwi}}
fixizin
15 years ago
From the 2nd pic, it looks like the cable TV wiring is much more squared away than the electrical... and thus the tragicomedy continues... I'm afraid pharkus is a bit phukused on this job! <:o>
pharkus
Original Author
15 years ago
indeed, fixizin.

the upside-down circuit breakers are driving me bonkers.

I've got a couple weeks' vacation from this project due to the death of one of the homeowners' relatives.

I'm hoping someone comes up with the cash and/or parts to replace the fuse box...
s_anthony
15 years ago
I should start posting pics of all my old K&T in my house.. It got to the point it was so scary how things were hooked up that I shut it all down and only half our house is currently powered right now while I try to at least run some single boxes to the rest of the rooms for now (yes I know it won't meet code, but I don't have 10k to rewire my entire house to meet code).