Defective wiring ?

[mayankbhat]

While the electrician was putting potlights at my new house, he showed me wiring which doesnt have an insulation within the casing. Its old house almost 80 yrs and thats why the ground is also not there
He mentioned that re-wiring cost could go 10-20K and its better I resell the house to avoid any accidents. Am worried as I have put almost all my saving on this house
Should I take a second opinion from another electrician?

 

[afjes_2016]

I have worked with old wiring like that. Quite honestly I turned away jobs that had wiring like this because I found that no matter how carefully you handle the old wiring the old insulation just falls off into your fingers. It just crumbles and you are left with bare wires. Just changing out a light fixture like you show can cause an electrician to spend so much more time fixing/repairing the existing wiring so the install is safe than it takes to actually change the fixture with more modern wiring. The problem is if I work on something like this and the insulation starts to fall off the wire then it is up to me to repair it and that is a job of all jobs sometimes because no matter how careful you are at handling the old wiring the insulation just keeps coming off further and further down the wire. Just moving the wires sometimes causes the insulation to just fall off. So I learned to just avoid it when ever possible even if it means passing on a large job. Unless it was to replace the old wiring with new I would not dare to touch it. Same thing when it came to working on a Federal Pacific StabLok panel. If I went to a customer's house and found this type of panel I just passed on the job. My fingers were not going to be the last fingers in that panel before it failed. The only way I would touch a FP StabLok was to replace it all together.

Yes, you can get another opinion from another electrician but I don't think you will get much more of a different answer.

The electrical system in your home is very important. You say it is a new house. New to you, meaning it is a very old house. I am surprised that your home inspector did not say anything to you about this even in general sense. Almost all home inspectors will not take apart fixtures, receptacle, switches etc when doing their inspections. They will normally advise you in general as to how old the wiring is and whether it should be replaced. They also concentrate on the electrical panel.

This is a decision you will have to make. I had to do the same thing with my roof. If I did not put $20,000 into it then I would never have a dry house and would have mold non stop in the house.
If your credit is fairly good check with your bank that you have accounts in. Find out about a Home Equity Loan like I did for my roof. The interest rates are far lower than personal loans or credit cards and much easier to handle each month.

Yes, with older wiring like that the chances of something happening is far greater than with new wiring. Only you can know where your comfort zone is by living with it or replacing it.

Take a picture of your electrical panel and post it here. Depending on what we see we may encourage you to go ahead and rewire including the panel. I know it may be something you don't want to hear but safety is important especially if you have a family and pets living there not to mention yourself. I would certainly becareful what you say to your home owners insurance company about it. They may force you to rewire or drop you.

 

[Sparky617]

Looks like old knob and tube wiring. They used ceramic "tubes" to go through studs and joists, and ceramic knobs to go parallel to the joists because the insulation wouldn't last for decades like modern Romex. Rewiring old homes is a major PITA especially if it is a two story home with limited access above and below the floor or ceiling. We rewired my parent's last house, but it was all part of a major gut renovation of a 1900ish house. One of the many joys of old home ownership.

 

[bud16415]

While the electrician was putting potlights at my new house, he showed me wiring which doesnt have an insulation within the casing. Its old house almost 80 yrs and thats why the ground is also not there
He mentioned that re-wiring cost could go 10-20K and its better I resell the house to avoid any accidents. Am worried as I have put almost all my saving on this house
Should I take a second opinion from another electrician?

The big bill you are looking at may be able to be brought down if you are willing to do some of the opening and closing of the walls and ceilings yourself.



In most of these old K&T homes the basement is where the main panel is and the basement ceilings are unfinished so new wiring can be run around fairly easily and then it is not to disruptive going up to the first floor for say wall outlets. You can also normally find a location for a chase up to the attic space in the back of a closet or something like that and then feed the second floor down from above. Some people are not as concerned about looks in second floor bedrooms and such and are ok doing some of the wiring as surface mounted tracks rather than opening walls. The first floor walls and ceilings are the tougher ones and often require cutting a 6” wide slot in the walls and ceiling to aid in running the wires and then repairing it by patching in strips of drywall and mudding it to match the old plaster. That work is not work electricians want to do and are often not that good at if you can even get them to do it. If they need to bring in other trades to open and close areas and paint that’s where a lot of money is eaten up.



Removing baseboards slotting out the plaster and repairing it later is all something not super hard as DIY. If you find an electrician that will work with you on the plan and you have everything ready to go when they show up to do the electrical work.



In my home when I rewired the first floor I knew it was easier to put up all new drywall on the ceilings as the plaster was in such bad shape. I put furring strips all over and used that space to run wires to all the ceiling pot lighting I opened slots in the walls where wires came up from the basement into the stud cavities.



Your K&T wiring looks like it has seen its better days and it is time to figure out how to update the house in the most cost effective way you can afford. The nice thing about K&T is the conductors are run a good foot apart and thru ceramic insulators so the chance of arching and fire in the walls is pretty rare. The problem is when the wires come together or where someone tied new modern cables to the old trying to fix problems. It is often underrated for the loads we use today.



Shop around and find someone that is willing to maybe not want you helping with the actually wiring but would be willing to do that part if you had all the nasty cutting into the walls done for them and you would do the closing up and finishing work.



Welcome to the forum.