Knob and Tube - scary stuff

During my wanderings in our basement, I took some pics of some knob and tube we have more for historical purposes since this nasty stuff is getting turned off and ripped out as soon as possible...

Here is an older porcelain light fixture with two knobs with a hot and neutral wire running through them to the fixture... yes the bulb is kinda just hanging from the cord below.. yikes!







Heres a picture of some tubes that again the neutral and hot wires are going through the tubes... see the nice safe Romex wiring behind it ...








Here's an oldie, but goodie...

See the wood piece next to the light switch (the picture is sideways)...

This was how K&T was originally ran through a house I think .. through wood pieces that had grooves cut into them. Two pieces would be put together so that the neutral and hot wires would be covered and seperated at the same time..

And yes, this lightswitch is still in use and running off of those wires in the picture...

Bathroom Progress

I wanted to keep track of progress in the house with projects etc, but for whatever reason I keep forgetting to take the *before* pictures :(

Today I worked on the bathroom, specifically the shower. When we bought the house it had sliding glass doors which I took out. Then hubby wanted one of those rounded shower curtains installed. We went to Home Depot and got one of them, but when I came home to install it I realized that we had live knob and tube BEHIND the shower! Not good...

Because the caulking job was horrendous and the tub surround was installed backwards, the diverter spout leaked into the tub, etc - I tore it all out and to my surprize realized there was rotting boards behind the shower. So those also got torn out too.

Also in the process I got to take a peek to see exactly where the knob and tube was and how much space I had to be able to screw into the wall. I also got some CLR at Home Depot and cleaned out the piping before I replaced the leaky diverter stem.. ick.

Now after 2 caulking jobs, 5 tubes of Liquid Nails, 3 tubes of GE Tub Caulking some painters tape and a LOT - I mean a LOT of scrubbing and scraping with a mud knife I got all the yucky old caulking off and we have a somewhat decent looking but most importantly a FUNCTIONAL shower and tub. Next project is replacing the flooring I ripped out because of the toilet leak and then also repairing the leak in the sink...

Our House

Finally, after nearly 4 hours at closing, we got the keys to our new house!

Within the first 3 days of moving in, we have had to do some work to remedy issues in the house.

1. 1) Leak in the roof - this was existing when the sellers had the house and I guess they thought they fixed it.
2. Leak in the bathroom - the toilet seal wasn't working so I had to pull the toilet up and replace the wax seal, which lead to the removal of our linoleum flooring because we thought the floor underneath was soaked, which lead to the removal of the shower doors (just because hubby didn't like them) and then when I went to hang the shower curtain we realized that the wall behind the shower is hot (still wired with live knob and tube wiring). So that led to me trying to reseal the wall of the tub (it's waterproofing board behind the tub but not sealed well). So now we have a completely torn apart bathroom - that still functions somewhat. It's first on my list to do. I'll also have to redo some of the plumbing because of some water leakage. It's somewhat expected considering the house is 105 years old.
3. 3) Mold - this was discovered in our basement after moving some wooden panels left in the basement. It looks as if the mold was painted over because it's coming back through the walls. I've been spraying a bleach mixture temporarily on the walls for now until we can get a de-humidifier for now for the basement. I also noticed that our newly installed french drain/sump doesn't have an electric outlet to plug into that was installed by the seller to remedy the wet basement issues... a good website to review if you have mold issues is http://www.moldinspector.com/. So I am going to do a test while I do the radon testing next week just to be safe so we know what we are dealing with.
4. 4) Electrical - the house is wired with knob and tube still. That is going ASAP. I just bought 6 reels of 250 feet of Romex 14/2 wiring and plan on using my upcoming weeks worth of vacation to at least get one outlet into each room, then I'll start working on wiring the rest of the house. Having every wall in the house hot is making me a nervous wreck.

More to come... the joys of home-ownership.