Got schooled on old cloth wiring in a 1920s Seattle bungalow

I was checking a panel for a sale and found the original cloth stuff, brittle as a cracker. The homeowner said 'it's been fine for a hundred years,' but one tug near a staple showed me why you never trust it. Anyone have a good method for convincing clients this isn't a 'maybe later' fix?

2 comments

2 Comments

tyler_hernandez2mo ago

Man, I used to think the same way. Old house, old wiring, no big deal. Then I saw a cloth wire crumble apart behind an outlet plate. Just from someone plugging in a phone charger. That insulation turns to dust. It's not about if it fails, it's about when.

tessa_schmidt192mo ago

Yikes, that's a scary visual. Was it the actual cloth around the wire that just fell apart? I'm wondering how old the house was, like are we talking 1920s or more like the 1950s? That really makes you think about what's hiding in all the walls.