In Which Some Minor Electrical Work is Performed

----Super late post is super late. Sorry.----

The Problem

When we opened the basement ceiling, we were confronted with some lovely knob and tube (k&t) wiring that was hooked up to the basement lighting and furnace. Since I knew the furnace and lighting worked, it was no great logical deduction that at least some of the k&t in the house was live In 2014, the house had a permit pulled to remove k&t wiring, but I guess it only went as far as the attic and the other half of the basement (and not even that thoroughly, I know for a fact there is still k&t in the upstairs lighting fixtures). Regardless, it had to go. From a theoretical standpoint, k&t is actually pretty safe, IF it is in pristine condition. At 90 years old, the insulation on most of the wiring was in pretty bad condition (read crumbly) and should be replaced, especially since there are modern wiring and appliances tied into the k&t feed. What really gets my goat is that there is a run of NM Romex (not B color coded) PVC jacketed wiring running right next to the old k&t circuit.

The Plan

Fine, whatever. I was planning on having electrical work done anyway (hence the ceiling removal) to get the basement ready for my workshop. So I called up the best local electricians and to my surprise, they showed up the same day to take a look at my little problem. Before we get to far into the actual work, I should explain what my grand vision was for the house electrical systems:

• Add support for a 240V 40A induction cooktop to replace the gas cooktop
• Add (not move) a laundry circuit to the first floor of the house (120V 20A and 240V 30A)
• Add a subpanel to the garage for outbuilding isolation and future welder/compressor needs
• Add a subpanel to the basement and move all the basement appliances and circuits for future simplicity and the addition of 240V 30A table saw/dust collector circuits
• Open up space on the overfilled main panel: all 20 spaces were filled and only 2 breakers were not tandems (including the 240V breakers)
• remove as much of the old rag-wire NM cable as possible (for my peace of mind)
• eliminate all k&t wiring

Considering the size of my list, I'm surprised how much of it was completed. Unfortunately, the subpanels require 2 breaker spaces each, so the panel is still overfilled and nearly all tandem breakers. Additionally, the basement panel ended up only being 60A, so it wasn't possible to move the new 30A dryer outlet or the heat pump to the basement. We did move the water heater and washing machine circuit as well as the old knob and tube furnace and lighting to the basement panel. I didn't end up getting the cooktop circuit added because we don't really have any room on the panel. I'm satisfied with the gas cooktop's performance, but I still wish I had an induction burner every once in a while. The electricians also left most of the rag-wire romex intact since removing and re-running the stapled cable would've required opening up the plaster & lathe walls: yeah, that wasn't going to happen.

The Fix

I won't bore you with every single detail, but the entire project took an extra 8 hours than quoted and it dragged on for quite a while. There was a scheduling snafu after they provided the quote, and then the owner (and poor sap who would be doing the crawlspace work) took off on an unannounced honeymoon with his brand new wife after their surprise wedding (also unannounced) for two weeks, pushing back the start date by three weeks from the day I got the estimate. The delay wasn't the worst in the world, I managed to get the laundry room construction and basement demo completed before the electrical work even began. And considering that the 2 days of work spiraled into a week of off and on work, I appreciate that I wasn't working around the electrician's schedule to get things done.
Once the work started, I had no complaints. Yeah, it took longer than they thought it would, but I had my suspicions that they didn't know what they were getting into in the crawlspace and I'm honestly just glad it wasn't me down there. One complication that we found a really good solution for was the feed to the garage subpanel: there was already a 2" conduit that ran right from the garage, under the breezeway, and terminated just inside the addition foundation crawlspace that was perfect for the feeder conduit needed to support the 100A subpanel. The problem is that the conduit went below grade, so the conductors had to be below grade rated (makes sense), but the conductors (individual insulated wires for each leg+neutral+ground) aren't rated for running inside the house and crawlspace, so they had to be terminated and connected to Aluminium SE-R cable somewhere in close proximity to the house-end of the conduit. Their original plan was to mount a big ol'e junction box above one of the crawlspace vents, but I pointed out that they could mount the box inside the kitchen closet, which just happened to be right above the conduit termination point: perfect. (BTW, this is why you should always pay attention and make sure you know what the heck is happening when contractors are working on your house)
Another problem they ran into was the way the addition foundation was poured/built: for some reason (likely because they needed undisturbed grade) the addition concrete foundation wall was poured a yard away and parallel to the existing foundation wall with a small man sized opening to access the space in between. Apparently, once you entered the lobster trap, you couldn't actually see the exit or even any light from the crawlspace vents. Yikes, can you say confined space! better hope your flashlight doesn't run out of power while you're down there... I think the close quarters added a couple of hours to the project alone, although waiting for the crawlspace guy to show up 3 hours late while the primary electrician tried to keep busy didn't help either.
After the first 2 days of scheduled work were complete, they ran into scheduling issues and weren't sure when they could return to finish the job. Too bad we all (me included) forgot that the water heater was disconnected when the basement subpanel was installed and never reconnected. Oops. Luckily, the electrician managed to open his afternoon and came by for what would be many late evenings of trying to get my house completed.
Other than that, the project took as long as it took. I got my laundry room and my subpanels (still wish I had insisted on 100A in the basement, though I have no idea how they would've managed to run the size conductors they would've needed, 6 AWG was hard enough) and the basement is now wired with romex. The subpanels make adding additional circuits super easy and limit my chance of frying myself since I can shut off the feed to the entire subpanel from the main panel.
Doug, the electrician, was great. As I mentioned, I have no problem with how long it took once the work actually started (and it's unlikely that the owner is going to be getting surprised married again anytime soon).

The Gifts

Of course, no project on this house would be complete without finding some little gift that the previous owners left. This time, in addition to the live k&t, we found some fau-mex cable: old ragwire (braided NM cable from the 50/60s without grounds) with the outer jacket stripped off and NM-B color coded jacket slipped over the conductors as they entered the main panel. Sneaky. The electrician was confused as to why the last guy cut off the grounds from all the romex entering the box until he yanked on it some more and a 4" piece of jacket slid off. At best, you could say that they just wanted to protect the conductors after they overstripped the jackets, or that they wanted to identify the wire sizes for convenience, but most likely, they were trying to fool the inspector into thinking that whatever work they did was new and up to code. Luckily, those circuits in fau-mex were being removed anyway, so what's done is done.