Is It Safe To Have Cloth Wiring In The Attic

The attic wiring should be protected and secured to ceiling joists or other wood structural supports.

Is it safe to have cloth wiring in the attic. If the wires are within 7 of the attic access hole or along any attic flooring you ll need. On a single story home or the the upper floor of a multiple story home this means accessing your attic to run wire. Identifying old wiring. Having disconnected a 3 wire wall switch to an attic mounted whole house fan is it safe to leave live wires capped in the switch box covered by flat plate.

If that happens the chance for an electrical arc electricity making a short cut from one wire to another can occur and that s a major fire hazard. However cloth wiring is definitely out of date and poses some significant risks today. Even though we get electrician letters stating that the wiring is not dangerous and doesnt impose a threat insurance companies will not accept it. This wiring as in all others of this era is still lacking a ground wire for safety and usually needs repairs such as gfci protection added to make using modern 3 prong appliances with it safe to use.

Raul no this is not a standard practice and is most likely the result of improper installation of electrical attic wiring. Real cloth wiring does not have romex around the wiring. Cloth wiring can become abraded and chewed on by rats and insects leading the exposure of the wire underneath. If you drill holes in the joists and run wire through those holes you ll be disturbing the insulation.

This wiring is generally mistakenly called out on the 4 point forms as cloth covered wiring even though the wire itself is covered in pvc rubber and is actually cloth jacketed wire. Is it safe to leave live wires capped in switch box covered by flat plate. Yes this should be corrected and it would be good to have the wiring and all the circuit connections inspected as well. So the inspector is correct it is not cloth wiring the problem is citizens is the only company that will write that insurance with a letter.

The oldest type of wiring system found in homes is called knob and tube named for the insulating knobs and tubes are used to run the wiring along and through the house framing knob and tube wiring was run as individual wires one black hot wire and one white neutral wire throughout the home.