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This Page is "in process". There are lots of gaps. Take a look around. If you have anything to contribute please let me know by contacting me at vintages@codecheck.com
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600-800?B.C.- Greeks described static electricity (Electrum Latin word for amber)
1600- William Gilbert describes electric force & magnetism - English
1752- Benjamin Franklin proved lightning is electricity and invented the lightning rod.- American
1790- First battery Allesandro Volta - Italian
1820- Right hand left hand rule Andre Marie Ampere - French
1827- Ohm's Law Georg Simon Ohm - German
1831- First DC generator Michael Faraday - English
1865- Vacuum light bulb Herman Sprengel - German [In addition, there were other inventers who worked on the light bulb and using a vacuum before 1865. The first I have listed in a book I am looking at lists an Englishman by the name of De Moleyns in 1841 using platinum in a vacuum to create light.]...Patrick Timlin
1878- First electric machine Henry Augustus Rowland - American
1879- First practical light bulb - Thomas Edison - American
1881- First commercial power plant - Thomas Edison - American
1882- First electric street lights Berlin, Paris, New York & London
1885- Transformer Galileo Ferraris - Italian
1888- First AC generator Nicola Tesla - Croatian
1897- First National Electric Code
The New York Board of Fire Underwriters, at a meeting held this day, adopted the following standard for Electric Light Wires, Lamps, etc., subject to future additions.
Applications should be sent to Wm. M. Randell, Secretary of the Committee on Police and Origin of Fires.
Subject: Electrical tape
From: danhicks@millcomm.com
I think several varieties of tape go back fairly far. The old "friction tape" was a fabric tape coated with a tar-like substance (gutta-percha?). Its adhesive properties left something to be desired.
Better was the old rubber tape. It would stick to itself quite well and could be molded into a fairly water-tight joint.
Subject: Re: Gas light piping
Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 21:57:48 -0400
From: Dan Friedman <dfriedman@inspect-ny.com>
PS here in NY (Poughkeepsie) we have lots of old victorians which still have active wiring run thru old gas piping. In fact it was a surprise to find gas piping in a house or two where the gas was still in the pipes and actually lit - yes I took photos. No that pipe was not running wire too. I'd guess that those wires were run as soon as electricity was available on the street, or in some cases maybe combined with K&T as I find both in those houses.
Also, we see lots of old houses, ca 1900, with wooden or metal-lined wooden fuse boxes, usually in the attic where power was brought to the house, typically 30A 120V; today those are either abandoned or are converted to big junction boxes as panels moved to basements.
IN my old house in Pok I was shocked to find a wood door in a wall at the end of the bath tub that I took to be a medicine chest, on opening it I found it serving as a big junction box to connect wires running from basement to attic to wire the top floor of the house. It's still in place, though the access door has been sealed against bathers...Dan
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Subject: Moulding Work
Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 21:19:25 -0700
From: Jim Mais <Volks@Star21.com>
No, it was called "Moulding Work" because at that time *wooden* moldings were used as well as metal. If you've never seen wood moulding work, it is a real treat. Grooves cut in long pieces of wood to hold each individual conductor separate. As of the 1915 edition, wood moulding was being discontinued in the code and large cities (New York and St. Louis) had banned its use. Had I mentioned that Armored cable was available at that time with a lead sheath over the conductors for damp locations? ...jim
Date: Mon, 04 Aug 97
From: David.Shapiro@airnsun.pcbuddy.com
Installations of ONE-PART wood molding were illegal by the 1930s, just like, and for the same reason as, current installations of Wiremold 2000 (R) from which the base has been omitted.
I've had a fun time exporing and removing the old wiring of my 1909 house. Apparently through the decades no one bothered to remove any of the disconnected wiring so I've been able to check it all out.
The house started with 30 amp service which came in at a fuse box in the attic. At some point they got 60 amp which was clearly added as another 30 amp phase. Someone then did a messy job of connecting some of the old circuits to the new phase. Then sometime in the 50s or 60s they brought in modern 100 amp service into the basement with a real panel (not professionally installed!) and went through the task of connecting the old curcuits to the new service.
The weirdest wiring I've found in my house was twisted pairs of STEEL wires. When it got close to an outlet, they screwed the wires to a bakelite block to connect it to conventional copper wiring. Fortunately all this stuff was disconnected and in the tradition of this house, they just left the wires hanging in the crawlspace. I have never ever heard or read of the use of steel wiring in resisidental systems, but most people think it would have been installed during WW2 when there was a shortage of copper.
Other anecdotes: two K&T wires in my house were run between sheathing boards. That's not good. One knob was nailed to the underside of the roof decking and clearly punched a hole through the roof.
> > Woody - you once mentioned the notorious "neutral fused" systems of the
> > 1920's. This practice was prohibited by at least the 1928 code, if not
> > before. It is in article 805(e) of the 1928 code. Most neutral-fused panels
> > I have every seen have been constructed with individual components
> > mounted on wood enclosures, lined with asbestos paper. Have also seen elaborate
> > layered copper bus systems with cartridge fuses and fused neutral
NEUTRAL FUSES (from the 1915 NEC)
I remember seeing several examples of this where elegant factory-made sub-panels sported Edison base fuses in both circuit conductors. I would guess the residence to have been built right around 1915...speedy jim
1882- Edison patents center-grounded, three-wire circuit [3 wire AC circuits are still called an "Edison 3 wire]rk.
1882- Edison began operation of the historic "Pearl St station" in Manhattan for centrally-distributed 120 volt DC. two-wire system...speedy jim
1883- Edison 3 wire systems made commercially available.
1894 America's first major AC electrical transmission project was begun at Niagra Falls. (This was a GE/Steinmetz project)...speedy jim
1886- Westinghouse and Brush market first commercial AC systems in Buffalo, New York .
1902- Interborough Rapid Transit (IRT NYC subway) was under construction featuring their own power generation and distribution system. Distribution was made at 25 HZ and rotary converters at substations produced 625 V DC for the trains...speedy jim
1920s- New York's Consolidated Edison was converting Manhattan from DC to AC [Pockets of DC distribution remained in downtown Manhattan until something like the '50's to serve tiny industrial sites which would not/could not changeover to AC. However, I feel that most of Manhattan was already served by AC as early as the turn of the century. Large scale distribution of DC was simply not practical.]speedy jim
1928? NEC- "Grounding required in conductive locations such as in basemets or in walls containing metal lath, even if the equipment was fed by Knob and Tube wiring, nonmetallic cable lacking a grounding conductor..."(c) 1997 David E. Shapiro
1845- Frst used. in the U.K.
BX is the common trade name for AC. BX was the trademark of cable made by G.E.'s Sprague Electric division.
189?- Gus Johnson and Harry Greenfield patent AC
1910- AC receiving acceptance.
1920s or the early 1930s widespread adoption.
1932 NEC- Armored cable was officially called Type AC
1952- Aluminum clad AC introduced.
1959 NEC- Aluminum bonding wire required under metal sheathing.
"In houses wired during the 1950s, it is common to find nonmetallic-sheathed cable whose sheath is cloth rather than vinyl, but whose internal conductors are plastic-insulated..: (c) 1997 David E. Shapiro
Date: Mon, 04 Aug 97
From: David.Shapiro@airnsun.pcbuddy.com
The 1928 NEC required a bare copper ground wire in NM. Peculiar, in light of the WWII and post-WWII non-grounded NM. Perhaps they retrenched; wouldn't be surprising...David S.
The electrical wiring FAQ discusses wiring vintages, and lists four:
The shellac-like stuff is truly awful to work with these days...Chris Lewis
On Fri, 18 Jul 1997 02:32:34, Don LaBrenz II <dlabrenz@gte.net> wrote:
> 1962 is the first year that the NEC mentions a ground in ROMEX®.
Houses built in 1947 on the east coast did not have grounds in the ROMEX®. By 1954, they did. However, the original grounding wire was sized 2 sizes smaller than the other two conductors, i.e. AWG 14 wire had a AWG 18 grounding wire. Not sure exactly when that practice stopped, but I'd guess in the 1960s sometime....dboultr
Date: Mon, 04 Aug 97
From: David.Shapiro@airnsun.pcbuddy.com
The 1928 NEC required a bare copper ground wire in NM. Peculiar, in light of the WWII and post-WWII non-grounded NM. Perhaps they retrenched; wouldn't be surprising...David S.
"After World War II, the steel shortage in Britain led to the use of aluminum and plastic conduits, flexible armored cable, and T.R.S. cable (roughly equivalent in design to UF cable)." (c) 1997 David E. Shapiro
Our house was built with knob+tube in 1931 (it also used circuit breakers instead of fuses which I am told is unusual for the time, at least here).
1904- Cutter Manufacturing Co., located in Philadelphia, produces circuit breakers.the firm introduced a product that became an industry success. The new protective device, first promoted as the Inverse Time Element breaker, came to be known as the I-T-E breaker. [Speedy jim]
1928- Cutter name changed to I-T-E Corp. (From EC&M Magazine) [Speedy jim]
1921 NEC- Circuit breakers are mentioned in the .
1925 NEC- Circuit breakers requied to be enclosed and externally operable.
[This looks to be the first desription of iircuit breaker as we know it]rk
1932- Westinghouse begins marketing their modern molded case air circuit breaker
1951- Square D introduces plug-in circuit breakers
I don't know when breakers were first introduced but Gisborne, New Zealand may hold the record for last ! The City electrical engineer there was gravely suspicious of the interrupting capacity of the available breakers and would not allow them during his tenure. When he retired - about 1983 - breaker protected circuits with unlimited numbers of outlets took over from rewirable fuse protected 1/16 circuits (230 volt) with two outlets (max). Wow ! kiwisam
18??- [Wires are pulled into abandoned gaslight piping.]rk
1899 NEC- removed a requirement that conduit be lined.
1916- Surface metal raceway was introduced by American Interior Conduit Co.(became American Wiremold Co. in 1919)...speedy jim
1923 NEC- 3/8"-1" EMT (Electrical Metallic Tubing) "Thinwall" for exposed, dry use only.
1928 NEC- 3/8"-2" EMT for exposed, dry use only.
" Brass tubing was one of the earliest raceways, and even speaker tubes (yes, like on an old submarine) were converted for wiring use..."
1909- Bakelite patent
1925-1929- Bakelite boxes become widely used.
1950's- Bakelite enclosures marketed by Challenger Electric
1960's- Carlon introduced PVC boxes
David E. Shapiro
ROMEX is a registered trademark of Southwire Company
