Recently we inspected a home in Yellow Springs, the house was built in 1920, our report being detailed identified that there was Knob & Tube wiring in the home.
Our client was very diligent and immediately hired a licensed electrician to inspect the wiring and recommend if any rewiring would be necessary due to the “knob & tube” wiring.
The electrician went through the 900 Square foot home and reported back that her home inspector was wrong, there was absolutely no “knob & tube” wiring anywhere in the home and nothing to worry about. It had all been rewired and there were no safety concerns with the current wiring. Needless to say it was not long until our “now very unhappy” client called us to say that we had caused her a lot of anxiety over older wiring and a substantial sum of money for the electricians inspection.
We immediately said that if we wrote it in the report it was there, one hour later we were back at the house and met out annoyed client, entered and went up the stairs, crawled into a small closet, removed the rear panel and took the photos of the wiring which was in use! Yes: Is was “knob & tube”!
Then we went into a bedroom and removed a switch plate (which we do not do during inspections) and observed the “knob & tube” wiring for the lighting circuit.
Our “now very happy” client is hiring a different electrician to do some rewiring. We are thorough and so often we have to defend our reports because the experts are not as detail oriented as we tend to be, we find problems that others often do not!
Knob and tube is older wiring designed for light loads like light bulbs and radios and not hair dryers and curling irons, heaters or multiple things plugged into a multi strip.
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