The Historic District

A coupe of projects going on at the house. We tore out the paneling in the kitchen that had some water damage. We are going to put up drywall where we took the paneling down, this was a later addition to the house. There was some evidence of old water damage and rotting studs, we replaced the studs....

I can confirm it was originally Kerosene. It looks from what I can see of the remains of the burner to be a Circa 1895 - 1905 center draft lamp. It would have put out good light for a Kero. I have restored and rebuilt a bunch of these. I collect their bigger brothers (store sized lamps) that often ...

We have finished the walls and the ceiling in the dining room! We still have to paint the trim but I am pleased to be at this stage with our first room! We are still debating converting the chandelier back to kerosene. We don't use our dining room the most and it would be a great conversation piece....

We have been working on the dining room -- nearing completion. About to pain the walls. We pulled up the old carpet and stripped the wallpaper. Reattached several places where the plaster had separated from the lathing. Also had to patch several places where the plaster/previous patches was beyond r...

If my insurance agent doesn't ask, then he must not want to know. They came out when we bought the home and did a quick look around. We have our policy and I actually really like the guy, very helpful. The inspector did not mention the k&t, but my guess is romex from the box and then its tied in...

Testing complete and the verdict is...hot k&t... The condition of the wires that I can see is pretty good. Surely the wires that I can't see are in even better condition... right. :/

The 220 to the rooms is all at the window -- they appear to have been added for window a/c units. I don't see any K&T into either panel box, but then they could have run romex out of the panel and then re-energized the k&t away. I am going to check the k&t lines I found to see if they ar...

It's a standard K&T installation. One wire is hot and the other is neutral. There's a simple tool available at most hardware stores that will light up when placed next to a live wire. That will tell you if it's live. I recommend every owner of a house that's had at least two previous owners hav...

Thanks. Now that I look it up, that is indeed what it appears to be. The electrical wiring for the fixture there does not feed off of that wiring. A lot of work was done a few years ago to add in a second power panel. Also 220 outlets were added upstairs on these same rooms. I am hoping the k&t ...

Sorry these are the cables/wires I am talking about. In the one photo you can see the electrical wire below it. These wired are thinner than the electrical.