Went to change a switch in a 1920s house and found an old fuse box hidden behind drywall

I was swapping out a dimmer switch in a house near downtown Denver and pulled the old box out, only to find a full-on knob and tube setup stuffed behind there with a fuse box from like 1928. The homeowner had no clue, and I spent 40 minutes just tracing wires to make sure nothing was live. Has anyone else stumbled on something wild behind a wall that made you stop and think?

2 comments

2 Comments

chen.james17d ago

Found a similar situation in a 1908 house in Capitol Hill. Pulled a light switch plate off and saw wires wrapped in cloth that crumbled when I touched them. Ended up calling an electrician friend to come verify everything before I touched another thing. He said half the box was still live even with the main breaker off. We ended up tracing each circuit one by one with a voltage tester and labeling everything before I swapped out any fixtures. The homeowner was pretty surprised to learn their dining room chandelier was on the same line as the basement outlet.

lindareed17d ago

Honestly I gotta disagree with the whole "call an electrician" thing lol. Old houses are supposed to be fun and quirky, not lifeless and sanitized. Half the charm of a 1908 place is never knowing if you're gonna get zapped when you flip a switch. Tracing circuits and labeling everything just takes all the mystery out of it. Plus those crumbling cloth wires add character and tell a story, nobody wants boring Romex in a historic home.