Electrical woes...breaker box what??

[mike31154]

Originally Posted by Myka

Thanks for all the continued information. I found out the house was built in 1958, so it's pretty old! I haven't checked the panel yet to see what gauge the wires are.

Mike, the plan is to add two 15 amp breakers each running to a GFCI receptacle. The only reason I havent' installed the GFCI receptacle I have is because I am worried about nuisance trips. I work out of province, and the tank sitter only comes by Monday, Wednesday, and Friday

1958, that's about the same age as my old house! Built well structurally, but I've found some scary stuff with the electrical. I've been gradually doing upgrades to the wiring after hiring an electrician to replace the main panel. Much of the old wiring was the black 'tar' insulated stuff but I've replaced most of that. There are still a couple of wire runs that are two wire with no ground, very scary. Thankfully I do have a 100 amp service, but the old panel that I had replaced was totally full, no extra holes for circuits. In fact, the previous owners had to physically switch the wiring in the panel depending on whether they wanted to use the dryer or the air conditioner. We're talking a 220 volt circuit with very large gauge wiring here that had to be rewired every time the chosen appliance was required! Anyhow, I've got plenty of extra room for circuits now.

I can understand your reluctance regarding the GFCI receptacle. I ran my system without them as well for longer than I'd care to admit, but I now have two protected circuits running the tank components. I recall having the GFCI trip when one set of my T5HO lamps would switch on (or off) through the timer power bar. Not sure whether the culprit was the lights or the power bar, but I only use one set of T5s currently and there's been no problem. My 250 watt MH on magnetic ballasts & timers work like a charm, never a hint of tripping the device. The odd time the GFCI has tripped when I unplug the air pump running my skimmer but since I'm there when that happens it's not an issue. I'm not away that often either, so there's less of a chance of disaster due to a nuisance trip. They've never tripped on me unless I've unplugged or plugged a component in or the issue with the lights switching on the timer. They've always reset automatically after a whole house power outage.

[Myka]

Thanks Mike! How do you go about rewiring the house? Do you just leave the old lines in, and rewire going through the attic, and down through the top plates of the walls?

[DiverDude]

The way I did it was to rip out the walls

If you're not up for that scale of job, then you can add circuits/outlets by either going up from the floor (helps if you have an open or hung ceiling in your basement) or, as you suggest, up, through the attic and down, which, IMO, is a lot more work.

Regardless of how you do it, it's not a lot of fun.

[mike31154]

Originally Posted by Myka

Thanks Mike! How do you go about rewiring the house? Do you just leave the old lines in, and rewire going through the attic, and down through the top plates of the walls?

It's best to remove the old wiring and run the new stuff along the same run..... if possible. It really depends on the configuration of your house though. I have a bungalow (rancher?) so everything is quite accessible since the service panel is in the basement. The townhouse I had in Ottawa was a different story! A second level really complicates matters when you need to rewire. You're going to end up opening a wall or two for some of it. The wiring in my kitchen along the south facing outside wall is the 'scary' stuff I haven't replaced yet, since I'm still reluctant to tear those walls open. Getting ready to do a tank upgrade, so it will be happening soon I hope.

I had to tear out the ceilings in the finished part of the basement to replace much of the wiring, but that's okay since I wanted to redo them anyway. Once the ceiling tiles were gone, things were pretty simple. I've got some pretty good electrical training through my Air Force trade, so wiring a house is pretty straightforward. I did contract a qualified electrician to install the new Siemens breaker panel, but the rest of the wiring I can handle on my own. The contractor installed a new grounding plate/rod in the yard as well, since my old panel was simply grounded to the copper water pipes in the house. This was over 3 years ago now if I recall correctly and cost around $600.

I think I mentioned this earlier, but definitely get your hands on the book "Electrical Code Simplified (Residential)". It's published by PS Knight and is specific to each province, I think yours for Sask is green. The BC one is red. Either way, they're all based on the National Code with province specific amendments, which generally aren't all that radical, available at most Reno centers. I purchased mine a few years ago for $11.95, money very well spent even if you don't intend on doing the work yourself. The info in there is invaluable and quite understandable, hence "simplified". It will give you a very good idea of what lies ahead with regard to a rewire job. It will also show you how your current wiring stacks up against the latest code requirements.

[mike31154]

Thought I'd mention that the 'Simplified' book I have for BC includes an entire section on rewiring an existing house.

http://www.psknight.com/book1.html

Here are a couple of pics of what I found in my place...

Old Pushmatic load panel. Only had 12 circuits available and they were all used... and then some. The capped wires at the bottom are either the dryer or air conditioning cables which needed to be hooked up, depending on which appliance you wished to use... they go to the double breaker (2nd from bottom) to give you the 220volts required for large appliances.. I actually got a few bucks for that old panel at a local electrical contractor. It seems that the 'pushmatic' circuit breakers are in demand. They certainly no longer make them..



Some scary old wiring I found in a switch box in the basement hallway. The insulation literally fell off some of the wires as I pulled the switches out. By rights, my house should have burned down years ago. Ironically, I understand it was built by a one time Vernon Fire Chief. But I think some of the subsequent owners did most of the 'unauthorized' wiring like the dryer/air con fiasco.

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by mike31154

Thought I'd mention that the 'Simplified' book I have for BC includes an entire section on rewiring an existing house.

http://www.psknight.com/book1.html

thats a good book, but you still need to knwo a little about wiring and electrical basics to understand it.

Steve