max415•25d ago

Showerthought: A job at the old theater downtown made me rethink how I check for voltage

I was working on a panel at the Grandview Theater last month, a place built in the 1920s. I got a zero reading on my non-contact tester for a wire I was about to cut. My gut said to double-check, so I grabbed my meter. It read 120 volts to ground. The old cloth insulation was so degraded it wasn't giving off enough field for the pen to sense. I almost got a real bad surprise. Now I never trust just one tool, especially in old buildings. Anyone else have a close call that changed their routine?

3 comments

3 Comments

tara_jones9425d ago

Man, that's terrifying. So the cloth insulation just... stopped working like it should? I've heard old wiring can do weird stuff, but that's next level. Did you find other spots in that theater with the same problem, or was it just that one wire that went totally silent on the pen tester?

the_cameron25d ago

Yeah, it's wild how it just gives up after all those years, right? I read a forum post from an old electrician who said the cloth can get super brittle and basically turn to dust inside the walls, @tara_jones94. We checked a bunch of other spots in the balcony and found a few more wires that tested kinda weak, but nothing else was completely dead like that one. Makes you wonder how many old buildings are just quietly falling apart like that, you know?

jana_fox5014d ago

Honestly that's so true, it's scary how much old stuff is just hanging on by a thread. Tbh I helped my buddy rewire his grandma's place last year and we found wires where the cloth just crumbled if you breathed on it. Ngl it makes you look at every old light switch sideways after that. You're totally right about buildings quietly falling apart, it's like a hidden time bomb.