Took 6 hours to wire a 3-way switch that should have been 45 minutes

Old house in Denver, knob and tube everywhere, no neutral in the boxes. Had to pull all new Romex through walls that were packed with old insulation from the 1920s, crawled through an attic with 6 inches of clearance. By the time I traced every wire and got the travelers running right it was dark out. Has anyone else dealt with these pre-1950s switch loops that somehow have a hot on the wrong screw?

3 comments

3 Comments

rosepark11d ago

Ran into the same thing rewiring a house from the 40s. It's like every contractor back then had their own secret wiring language nobody else knew. Makes you wonder if they just made it up as they went.

dakota_miller9311d agoMost Upvoted

That old wiring stuff is just part of the bigger pattern where people back then built things to LAST but also made it impossible for anyone else to ever fix it. It's like they assumed nobody would be around in 80 years to deal with it.

henryr4510d ago

Wait, they seriously didn't label anything?