Knob and Tube Wiring Guides

How the system works, why it was a sound design in its day, what goes wrong with it now, and how Los Angeles owners decide what to do.

What each device senses, when the code requires them, and why they reduce some risks on old circuits without replacing the wiring.

Who issues it, who is allowed to pull it, what the inspector checks, and how Pasadena, Glendale and South Pasadena differ from LADBS.

Each stage depends on the one before it. Here is what has to be known before the next step starts, and where the path splits by house.

The schedule depends on circuits, access and inspections. Here is what decides it, and what an occupied house should plan for.

A look-only guide to the clues in attics, crawlspaces, fuse boxes and rooms, and why what you can see is never the whole answer.

How the risk develops in old wiring, which signs mean a circuit should go off today, and what nobody can know about your house without seeing the wiring.

Existing wiring, new work, the insulation rule, permits and licensing, and how the state code is enforced in Los Angeles and nearby cities.

What carriers tend to ask, how to get their answer in writing, what an electrician's letter can and cannot say, and where the FAIR Plan fits.

What a ground wire does, why knob and tube never had one, and the options the electrical code allows for replacing two-prong outlets on old circuits.

Both use cloth over rubber, so they get confused. They were built differently, come from different decades, and fail in different ways.

Rewiring opens painted plaster, and sometimes older materials that can contain asbestos. Federal and regional rules set how that work is done.

Interior rewiring is usually outside preservation review in an HPOZ. The exterior, the finishes and the paperwork are where the care goes.

How to fit an electrical evaluation, an insurance answer and a negotiation into the time escrow gives you.

How live, dead and mixed wiring is told apart, why the answer is rarely visible, and what it changes for an insurer, an insulation job and removal.

They are separate jobs on separate parts of the system. Here is how to tell which one your house needs, and how they fit together when it needs both.

A cripple-wall retrofit and a knob and tube rewire both happen in the crawlspace. Planned together, one job can make the other easier instead of harder.

The disclosures every California seller gives, the choice between rewiring first and pricing it in, and the paperwork that keeps a partial job from becoming a surprise.

Two quotes for the same house can be thousands apart because they describe different jobs. This list shows what to look for and how to line them up.

The ranges, what moves a house within them, and the parts of the price that come from public figures.