Lesson in Wiring.

I picked up a really nice wiring book at Home Depot in order to complete projects necessary to finish off our room!

I am really proud of myself for learning how to install new three prong outlets.

We have an old knob and tube electrical system, so making updates can be tricky. K&T systems are found in homes built from the mid 1800s to 1940s. K&T systems are not to be deemed as bad or inferior however, infact they were made to last indefinately, 100+ years. The people installing them were highly skilled, as there was a fear of electricity and little understanding of it's nature back then. Thus, wires were almost mummified, wrapped incredibly well in rubber, and asphalt coated cloth made to contain even intense heat, and then wrapped tightly around porcelain knobs. These knobs were meant to act as insulation even if and when wires were to become exposed. The knobs were also meant to keep the wires away from flammable rafters. The neutral and hot lines in a K&T system run independently as this was meant to make sure they never touched, potentially creating a short circuit. The only downside to this old style of wiring is no ground wires, making it difficult for updates. In addition to a lack of grounding ability; like ours, many older systems had neutral and hot lines that were not color coded, requiring careful skill to make sure wires were not crossed and incorrectly installed to the terminal.

I can say that I have successfully installed two new three prong outlets in our bedroom. We had one existing grounded three prong that had been painted over and one old un-grounded two-prong. Unfortunately, I discovered that only 1 two-prong outlet in the entire house was installed after 1970, therefore containing a ground wire. All the other outlets are quite old, a couple are even I would say antique. This is going to pose a bit of a challenge.

I simply replaced the two-prong outlet in our bedroom with a three prong open grounded outlet, and eventually I will need to pull out a slug and fish down a green grounding wire, to ground to one of the last remaining copper cold water pipes. (the rest of our pipes are pvc.) Currently, the thee prong outlet however poses no threat, and will allow us to plug in a surge protrected multi-outlet in order to plug in our phone, internet, and a basic lamp. Otherwise, conditions were poor, plugging everything in with adapters, which fall out or get tugged easily which could even result in damage to the old lines. The three-prong works great, and looks great, so we'll stick with this set-up for now.