Taking Apart the Knob and Tube Splice after Current Tests

[Sparky-wwre]

seeing how homes were electrified 100 years ago, really makes me have respect for the electricians that lived and passed on long before any of us were around. The pre-planning the wiring runs, then drilling with back and brace, nailing on the knobs, twisting (western union splice) soldering with blow torch and soldering copper, and finally wrapping with friction tape, that was very tedious and time consuming, compared to how we wire homes today with j boxes, romex, staples and wirenuts. but then again 200 amp with 40 or more circuits seems to be the norm lately, compared to 30 to 60 amp service with 4 circuits maximum for even a good sized two story home where one receptacle per room, with a pendant light in the center, were considered luxuries.

[davidahiwaaynet]

I have always had great success with soldered connections, even in fault conditions. Thanks for showing this!

[Ivar]

From a cooling perspective. Horizontal wires will always have cool air along the length. Vertical ones get hotter the higher up cause the cooling air is already warmed from the section underneath. And the cooling air for the top wire is probably warmer due to the hot wire underneath it. Then with the higher temperature the resistance also increased thus it took more of the juice.

[SG-zhxd]

This is good to see, flippers that leave old cloth non ground wiring in the walls and flip out the panel get a idea of what is going on .

[jensschroder]

AWG 14 corresponds to 2 mm2 cable according to European standard.
A 16 amp fuse is good.

[awireless]

Good old friction tape, I still use it.

[Sctronic]

Do you feel the heat weakened the solder? That seem to come apart fairly easy.

[retrozmachine]

Nice to see how it fared but that joint doesn't impress me all that much. The solder was still holding on but it had definitely had a hard time with the temperature. With a proper, longitudinal (?) twist the wire takes all the stress and have large firm contact area with the solder just providing electrical conduction assistance which is what is supposed to happen. Even with the high temperatures a proper twist joint wouldn't have relied on the near or actually molten solder keeping the wires stable nor the crispy wrap tape. With the way those wires were tail (?) twisted you can see the gaps the solder was having to bridge. All up though I guess that's how things were done back then but full appreciation of why old wiring burnt places down if an abnormal load was placed on them.

[carlubambi]

Ozone is knob and tubes enemy .Same issue with the old cloth rubber bx armoured cable.The advantage of knob and tube is cooler operation, the disadvantage is that it acts like an antenna and picks up RF like crazy, Sensitive to OZONE and higher temperature and oils/solvents in the air (Frying Indoors hair spray and other VOC).My mom's house had a 15 amp service, then a 30 amp service and then I got my hands on it and changed it to a 100 amp service ..A majority of the wiring was knob and tube to the second and 3rd floor .Most of the main floor was converted to Romex .
Amazing how durable and how week the same wire could be .My mom's house was built in 1935 !Balloon wall construction, plaster and lath with horse hair .No asbestos !
Houses built with brick and real wood .they were designed to keep the windows open in winter .huge oil fired forced air furnace for a small 1800 sqft 3 story home

[bentboybbz]

"maybe it would be interesting". Really? I was mad it was not cut open in the main video....lol. It's like photonicinduction except slightly less dangerous and crazy and slightly more scientific.