My 1902 house has 100 amps coming in and all the wiring I can see is covered in mesh fabric. Per the inspection we had before buying, some of our circuit breakers are old and need to be replaced because they are faulty. We want to upgrade to 200 amps and get some re-wiring done. I need a reliable licensed electrician. I’m also wondering what this costs?? It’s a 10 room, 3 story, 1 family fully detached house. The previous owner did do some electrical upgrades – or so he says — but I’m concerned about the safety of my family in a house full of very old wires and a breaker box overflowing with breakers.


Comments

  1. yes, 7:14, OP here & we are in Ditmas Park. Great old Victorian with gas lines to every fixture, very old wiring etc. Love teh house but the electrical scares me to death. I will try to find a phone # for Alan Riback. Thank you!

  2. Hey-
    Based on description of your home (1902, freestanding, etc…) I’m wondering if you’re in the greater Victorian Flatbush area? If so, we’ve had really good luck with Alan Riback at Electrical Security Co. (sorry, don’t have the number) He lives in this hood in one of these houses and was really helpful in fixing similar issues that we had.

    Good luck.

  3. I believe Rick is correct when he writes “The cloth only becomes a problem when it’s out of the BX cable and exposed to the air for a hundred years inside your fixture box & switches.”

    My 1899 house was built w/o electricity and wiring was installed a few years later. I still have some remnants of the original wiring (thankfully disconnected). It’s scary looking stuff–looks like cloth covered bell wires with NO BX armor.

    I still have much of the old BX from a c. late-1930s rewiring. I know the aprox. date, because the electrician who rewired my house in the mid ’70s told me that, coincidentally, he had installed that BX in my house about 35 years earlier. At some ceiling electric boxes, where light fixtures were changed a number of times, there was a problem with the old insulation crumbling. About 15 years ago an electrician (Tony Beherens, who I’ve recommended here before) was able to pull some of the BX out , expose fresh insulation, and make new connections at those boxes. He told me that electricians often left enough slack in BX cable to allow for this to be done in the future. It’s worth having an electrician look at old BX like this to determine if it can be safely repaired–you might be able to save a lot of money. IMO this ins NOT a DIY job, unless you really know a LOT about wiring .[I USED to think I did, but learned better after some spectacular mishaps in adding circuits in my first apartment, years ago–I’m lucky to be alive :-)]