Electrical help USA

[frank13]

reposting this from the general section, since i clearly missed the labeled eleectrical section...lol


Ok, I have an older house built in the late 50's.....was built with 2 wire cloth covered "Romex"

Most of teh wires in the house have been replaced with current Romex.....


However I have a circuit of outlets and switches which are out cause of a bad nuetral and I decided to replace all the feed to the outlets and to the feed side of the switches.....

I really do not want to replace the wire from the switches to the overhead lights....what a freaking mess that would make not including the extra work involved...

I have a new feed to each location an outlet was, and where the swiches are....I am NOT replacing the original light fixtures.....

My question is can i run the grounded romex to the feed side of the switch and the two wire older "romex" to the other side to the light fixtures?

Frank

 

[nehog]

An answer like "Will it work? Yes, will it meet code? No, probably not..." sufficient?

Most code requires you upgrade all of the circuit at the same time. (Personally: go for it...)

 

[frank13]

Nah, i wanna do it "right" but i really do not want to rip into any walls I dont "have" to....

If current code says from the switch to an overhead light with one bulb is ok on the two wire I am leaving it, if not, I am gonna have to replace it since I wann asell the house in five or so years.....the outlet power inputs and the switch power inputs were on a bad nuetral, so I replaced all of them, the over head lights will be a nitemare

 

[VHF]

Current code would require three wires to the light fixture--hot, neutral, and ground--but 1950s code would certainly have been OK with two wires. I think it is reasonable to replace a section of bad wire without having to re-wire the entire circuit to current code, but of course some juridictions would like you to re-wire the whole house if you change a switch plate cover!

From an electrical standpoint there is no problem with running 3-conductor to the switch and 2-conductor to the fixture. The fixture itself will not be grounded (but neither are most floor/table lamps even with today's codes!)

If you have any doubts as to the integrity of the remaining cloth-covered cable it might be a good idea to put this circuit on an arc-fault breaker. I think they are a silly requirement in new houses, but they provide some good additional safety in an older house where there is a potential for the insulation to have degraded.