Old House Renovations

You’re tempted to leave well enough alone and keep those old electrical wires behind the walls where they are. Tempted to leave that screw in fuse box hanging there for a few more years. Tempted to just replace a light fixture without worrying about the connecting wires. Avoid temptation and update your electricity. It just isn’t worth risking your life over.

The one time I lived in a 50’s era home, I didn’t bother with electrical updates. There was a fuse box, but I didn’t worry. Well, my brother just happened to be sitting nearby on his weight bench when the fuse box blew up. In fact, since flames shot out four feet from the box, he barely missed getting scorched.  It turns out that the whole development had faulty fuse boxes and ours was one of the few that hadn’t been replaced by the homeowners when a man up the street burned to death in a fuse box fire a few years before.

My current old farmhouse had terrifying electrical issues. A washer was being powered by an outlet that was wired into the house with a section of extension cord - the lightweight kind you use to reach the outlet when you have a short cord on your lamp. Needless to say, rewiring was our top  priority! If you have an older home, please make sure you put electrical updates on your priority list, too.

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