Just realized how much old wiring can mess with a new panel install

I was helping a buddy swap out a 20 year old system in this old house in the West End. The place had that old cloth wrapped wire everywhere, which I figured we could just work around. When we hooked up the new panel, we kept getting random zone faults on the keypad. Took us a solid afternoon of head scratching to figure out the old wire insulation was so brittle it was basically dusting off and letting the conductors touch inside the wall. We ended up having to pull new 22/4 for three of the zones, which added like 4 hours to the job. It was a real pain, but now I'm way more careful about checking the actual wire condition before I assume the old runs are good. Anyone else run into this with really old residential builds? What's your go-to move, replace the wire or try and salvage it?

2 comments

2 Comments

betty_walker16d ago

Pull new wire" is a waste of time and money.

carter.reese16d ago

You ever try to pull new wire through old walls? I spent a whole weekend fishing one line and ended up with just a spool of spaghetti and a new hole in my drywall.