Saw something odd in a 1970s office building retrofit

I was checking out a job in an old office building downtown, built around 1973. In the main panel, they had a bunch of new AFCI breakers tied into the original cloth-covered branch wiring... The insulation on that old wire looked really brittle up close. Made me wonder how often you guys see that kind of mix, and if it's even a good idea to put modern protection on wiring that old. What's the usual move here?

2 comments

2 Comments

janahenderson1mo ago

My boss told me about a 2017 study from the Fire Protection Association. It found old cloth wire insulation often fails before the breaker trips, even with AFCIs. The usual move is a full rewire, not just slapping new breakers on a dying system.

olivia_barnes971mo ago

Hate that you're dealing with that situation. It's really unsettling when you find out something in your own home isn't as safe as you thought it was. Hope you can get a proper rewire sorted without too much hassle.