Yes and yes. That is a problem, you sometimes find those blocks and sometimes they seem to be randomly placed. I ran into one in a partition wall when trying to install a light switch. Many of these old houses had a light in a bedroom with a chain or string hanging down in the middle of the room. In this case the box had been plastered over so I had to liberate it, knob and tube which that circuit still is but of course these days unacceptable to be swinging your arms about in the middle of a dark room looking for a hanging string.
I destroyed a long drill extension too trying to get through that block, don't know why but twisted the end off of the extension. One of those with a couple of Allan screws to hold the spade bit into place. I have another I can't get the bit out of. Damn poor arrangement. As far as I know all cable types are available with multiple conductors and same color coding. ----- Original Message ----- From: Lee A. Stone To: [email protected] Sent: Monday, September 21, 2009 11:00 PM Subject: Re: [BlindHandyMan] insulation and wiring. dale, you mentioned a old house so let me ask you . have you ever come across what I was told are fire stops which is just usually a rough cut two by four between the uprights in a outer wall? the first old house we had was that way but oddly only on the North and w est sides.. now my other question. some cities do not allow the use of romex wire so there must be some sort of the old style b x cable for sale right? does the bx style wire incased in a cable . have different sizes like 12,14,16 and so on? Lee On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 10:46:52PM -0400, Dale Leavens wrote: > Hi Dan, > > There doesn't seem to be much information about wiring chases which I find amazing since they are not uncommon any more. I did read one article which mentioned only fire blocking which is amusing really given that you have a balloon style construction building as is mine with all those open runs. > > Getting good insulation into that sort of construction should be relatively easy, just block the bottom and blow it through from above, the main challenges then would be to get the voids under and along side windows. > > I discovered in this old house that some of those had been missed because the installers didn't seem to understand balloon style construction. There were windows where the bottom and top frame members run through between studs and have one or both verticals between the horizontals thus forming more vertical and closed compartments than you would expect in frame construction. Those were missed. > > I have seen chases deliberately built in on some of those "This Old House" programmes but never really noticed or understood how or what they did. > > I don't understand why there would be a bigger heat issue pulling three 14-2 cables through an inch tube than stapling them over each other then blanketing them in insulation as is often found in ceilings and walls though. > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Dan Rossi > To: Blind Handyman List > Sent: Thursday, September 17, 2009 1:45 PM > Subject: [BlindHandyMan] insulation and wiring. > > > So I've been asking around on various web sites and various people about > putting a wire chase in my wall before having cellulose blown in. > Apparently, it is not code to pull Romex through any kind of conduit, > except in a few limited cases. It has to do with heat loading of the > wires. Individual, single conductors, are rated to 75 degrees C, but > Romex or multiconductor wires are only rated to 60 degrees C. So it seems > that I will have to run the wire chase, then pull a bunch of single > conductor wires through which I bet makes for some interesting times > making sure that you have the right set of wires connected to what you > expect to have them connected to. > > -- > Blue skies. > Dan Rossi > Carnegie Mellon University. > E-Mail: [email protected] > Tel: (412) 268-9081 > > > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > -- When you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship. -- Harry Truman . [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
