A New Panel Does Not Mean New Wiring
I was looking at the electrical system in an older Medfield house with a finished basement. The main panel and the subpanel were both new. According to town permit records the client supplied, they had been replaced in July, because the previous equipment had rusted out.
The panels were the newest thing in the building. The wiring running out of them was not.
Portions of the branch circuit wiring were still the original fabric covered conductors. At several accessible spots the outer insulation was deteriorated or frayed enough that I could see bare conductor. That is what was visible from where I could stand. I could not evaluate the runs where they disappear into finished walls, and that is most of them.
A panel replacement and a rewire are two different jobs. The panel is the box where circuits start and where the overcurrent protection lives. The branch circuits are everything downstream of it, running through the walls to every outlet, switch and fixture in the house. Replacing the first does not touch the second. You can have brand new equipment feeding decades old conductors, and that is exactly what was here.
What I recommended. Have a licensed electrician evaluate the deteriorated fabric covered wiring and replace the damaged sections. I also pointed out that with the panel work already done and other electrical work already opened up, this is the practical moment to identify and update what is left of the old wiring, rather than doing it as a separate project later.
My opinion is that a new panel is the most convincing thing you can put in an old basement. It is clean, it is labeled, it photographs well, and buyers read it as the electrical being handled. It tells you the panel was handled. It tells you nothing at all about what is running behind the plaster, and on a house of this age that is the part worth asking about.
Comments