Electrical issue

[Bright Raven]

House I grew up in had fuses, not breakers and there were only 4 fuses for the whole 3 bedroom house. When a fuse blew, 1/2 the house went dark. :bang:

The old farmstead house I grew up in had fuses. The house was a hewed log house. It is 200 years old based on county records. It was wired probably in the 1930s. All the wiring and boxes were outside the wall. When the walls were painted, the boxes and wiring was painted over. The floor in the living room had a steeper pitch than the roof. Dad tried to jack it up some to get it level and the logs in the walls started making so much noise he stopped. It did help, but it still had a strong slope to the west.

 

[ga.prime]

Bright Raven, sounds like the house I lived in for 12 years after I got out of college. Some of the lights in the rooms hung by wire from the ceiling and were simply bare bulbs that you turned on and off by pulling a chain. I remember one time I went to turn one off and my hands were so cold the 100 watt light bulb shattered when I touched it while turning it off with the chain.

 

[M-5]

Bright Raven, sounds like the house I lived in for 12 years after I got out of college. Some of the lights in the rooms hung by wire from the ceiling and were simply bare bulbs that you turned on and off by pulling a chain. I remember one time I went to turn one off and my hands were so cold the 100 watt light bulb shattered when I touched it while turning it off with the chain.

I only have light switches in the kitchen and the remolded end of the house. the rest are all still pull string . There also was a time when the light string used to be tied to the head board so it was almost like having a wall switch .

 

[slick4591]

Bright Raven, sounds like the house I lived in for 12 years after I got out of college. Some of the lights in the rooms hung by wire from the ceiling and were simply bare bulbs that you turned on and off by pulling a chain. I remember one time I went to turn one off and my hands were so cold the 100 watt light bulb shattered when I touched it while turning it off with the chain.

Grandparents house was the same way until it was remolded, then my grandmother was scared to death of the wall switch. They had three rooms with one single bulb each hanging from the ceiling.

 

[greybeard]

Bright Raven, sounds like the house I lived in for 12 years after I got out of college. Some of the lights in the rooms hung by wire from the ceiling and were simply bare bulbs that you turned on and off by pulling a chain. I remember one time I went to turn one off and my hands were so cold the 100 watt light bulb shattered when I touched it while turning it off with the chain.

I only have light switches in the kitchen and the remolded end of the house. the rest are all still pull string . There also was a time when the light string used to be tied to the head board so it was almost like having a wall switch .

Same with the house I grew up in and when my grandmother came to visit every winter, that string was extended out to her headboard so she could turn the light on to get up and use the slop jar. I think ours did have porcelain fixtures but had the old cloth covered wiring. Some, there was no switch..you reached up and just unscrewed the bulb a little. It was knob and tube in the attic and down the inside of the walls.
We thought it a huge step up and great advancement when my father installed a big florescent light in the kitchen. By today's standards it would be ugly as hades since it came from an old boiler room that was torn down at the refinery my father worked at but my mother was tickled to have it.

 

[bbirder]

I hate to do electrical work behind a novice. I went to change a light fixture for my Mom once that my brother had installed and like to killed myself. He had wired the hot to the light and returned to the switch. It lit me up!