Some parts of it still have lead sheath. For some reason.
My house is from the 30s and we had old knob and tube wiring, some of which had the lead sheathing as well. I would advise you probably replace that old wiring as soon as you can. The insulation under the sheathing is most likely cotton soaked in asphalt. After a while the asphalt dries out and becomes brittle and the cloth kinda just disintegrates over time. If that insulation fails the sheath can become electrified or create shorts.
We thought about keeping some of the original wiring when refinishing the house, after chasing down shorts for a couple days and one small electrical fire later… We ended up redoing the whole system.
Wish I could replace it, but heavy case of living from paycheck to paycheck. Thankfully flat isn’t mine but a third party organisation belonging to city, so they cover every electrical f-up that happens.
I…am not sure if knob and tube was even used in EU, and between short search and LLM query the answer seems to be “no”. So this may be the closest EU equivalent to that xD
All in all tho, I can relate to hunting shorts. At this point 5/7 of my mini electrical boxes (can-like shape hole in the wall where cables junction?) were replaced by electrician, because they all shorted to all hell. When I moved in it was worse - I had parallel connection between lightswitch and outlet and similiar shit xD Last owner was a handyman builder and…it was showing. A lot.
Also I have only one circuit on singular fuse so that’s also fun.
My house is from the 30s and we had old knob and tube wiring, some of which had the lead sheathing as well. I would advise you probably replace that old wiring as soon as you can. The insulation under the sheathing is most likely cotton soaked in asphalt. After a while the asphalt dries out and becomes brittle and the cloth kinda just disintegrates over time. If that insulation fails the sheath can become electrified or create shorts.
We thought about keeping some of the original wiring when refinishing the house, after chasing down shorts for a couple days and one small electrical fire later… We ended up redoing the whole system.
Wish I could replace it, but heavy case of living from paycheck to paycheck. Thankfully flat isn’t mine but a third party organisation belonging to city, so they cover every electrical f-up that happens.
I…am not sure if knob and tube was even used in EU, and between short search and LLM query the answer seems to be “no”. So this may be the closest EU equivalent to that xD
All in all tho, I can relate to hunting shorts. At this point 5/7 of my mini electrical boxes (can-like shape hole in the wall where cables junction?) were replaced by electrician, because they all shorted to all hell. When I moved in it was worse - I had parallel connection between lightswitch and outlet and similiar shit xD Last owner was a handyman builder and…it was showing. A lot.
Also I have only one circuit on singular fuse so that’s also fun.