wazzat wire?

[oscarMadison]

yeah, I got lots of questions lately.

ok, see the wire the runs off to the right, black and yellow.  What would it be used for?  I haven't followed it out yet.  The bottom I believe, with four wires, yellow, black green and red, I think is an old phone wire.  Looks similar to others.  I can't believe how much junk wire this house has in it.  I've removed a couple hundred feet of old phone wire going to those old style four prong phone jacks.  One room the guy looped it all the way around the room, never connected it to anything, just out to another room with a jack.

I'm replacing the wire below tomorrow but just curious, a 12/2 of some type.  Nothing major since I'm replacing it but was just going to look it up and I'm not seeing it.  My google skills must be weak tonight.


oh yeah, I just want to say GAH!!  The silver wire, by the way goes to a ceiling box, very accessible.  From there one side goes to a fluorescent I'm replacing.  On the other side it goes two and a half feet and then stops.  Has a couple of wire nuts on it.  Then the ceiling was covered so you never see it.  All he had to do was open the ceiling box and take the wire out of the loop.  

[Just_Dave]

In the upper picture the first things I noticed.  The lower 4 conductor cable is definitely older phone wire.  I believe the single conductors are old door bell wire.  The white jacketed stuff looks like a cable Radio Shack used to sell.
Based on the note on the one wire, how it is wired, and the letters on the board below the terminal block I would guess door bell wiring.

The silver wire in the lower picture is an early form of Romex.  It was all over dads house.  2 wire in the 40's part of the house.

[oscarMadison]

the one marked buzzer is actually kind of a funny / odd thing. There is a 10' or so square room in one corner of the basement. When you open the door to the basement there is a door bell button that rings a buzzer in that room. What is odd is the basement has no real exit, a couple small windows and that is it. The door to the basement had a dead bolt, but it only goes half-way through the door. So you can lock/unlock the door from upstairs but not from the basement. So basically you could lock some one in. The door isn't real strong so it wouldn't take much to force it open but still kind of odd. Makes me think of some of those psycho type movies.

I was guessing the other wire was an old form of romex but wasn't sure.

[fredhargis]

I'm pretty sure whoever did your wiring also did my last house!

[Robert Adams]

Yeah looks like bell wire like already mentioned. I have removed all of the phone wire from our house. If the next guy wants aa land line that's his problem but very few have landlines anymore and many new housing developments don't even have it available.

     The wire in the bottom picture is 1950s style of romex. Te wire is tinned (coated in solder) then it's jacketed in rubber. It has no ground as many houses didn't have grounds until the 70s and even many in the 70's were still using romex with no ground. 

          Our house was built in 1960 and they used some of that wire in In a few places. I have replaced all but one piece of it. Take it all in for scrap. Copper prices are way down but it's still worth a little.

[EricU]

I'm doing a little work and I find myself really unmotivated to preserve any of the land line wire.   There is one phone jack we never used that is hanging from its wire.  I thought it went into the basement and came back up, but when I took the ceiling down in the basement, there is no wire.  So they must have run it behind the base trim.

I guess it's never much fun tapping into someone else's electrical work.  Right now I'm just replacing what the previous owner did in the basement.  He made the typical beginners mistake of only pulling an inch or two of wire into the box.  That makes things really difficult to change.  Of course, I'm a little annoyed with some of the stuff I decided to do when I put a subpanel in the shop.  Didn't make it easy on myself.

[oscarMadison]

...
     The wire in the bottom picture is 1950s style of romex. Te wire is tinned (coated in solder) then it's jacketed in rubber. It has no ground as many houses didn't have grounds until the 70s and even many in the 70's were still using romex with no ground. 
...

is there a reason it was coated in solder?

[geek2me]

Te wire is tinned (coated in solder) then it's jacketed in rubber.

It would look a little like it was tinned, but it was actually electro-plated with tin for corrosion protection, as the insulation was gas permeable.