On being mobbed

Flip a switch and complete the circuit—current flows over a wired distribution system designed by Edison and a lightbulb emits light to illuminate your home. Flip the switch again, and you interrupt the circuit. The flow of current from the utility stops and the glimmer of the lightbulb ceases. These stretches of conductive copper wire, some short and some long, are interrupted by metering and switching devices, by tower and by pole, by the duress of travel, and by their cut and frayed ends. Circuits are minute transistors, and they are vast as the grid. Circuits are nanoelectronic, (“How Circuits Work, “https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/energy/circuit.htm), and they stretch for hundreds of miles.

Knob-and-tube wiring is also a circuit. Knob-and-tube circuits were most often created by running the hot wire out to the switch, and then running the neutral wire in parallel to the hot, back to the service box. This method of laying out a circuit stood as a counterpoint to the best practices in the field, which even in the early 1900s included conduit and armored cable. Where modern wiring methods package the conductors that create a circuit in shielded lengths, the conductors in a knob-and-tube circuit were separately installed, each carefully insulated in cloth or rubber, secured away from wood by ceramic insulators. The safety of knob-and-tube was in its installation.

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George Cukor’s Gaslight (1944) was made during the era of nitrate film. For roughly the first half of the 20th century, motion pictures—”films”—were made on film stock with a nitrate base. The purpose of the film base—-even at 98% of the thickness of the stock—is utilitarian, allowing the adhesion of the photosensitive emulsion. The film base becomes vehicle for this medium of silver halide, cut with sprockets that move it frame by frame through the camera lens where the fragile emulsion is exposed to light, and then again through the lens of the projector where it is illuminated and enlarged onto the silver screen.

The base of “nitrate film” was nitrocellulose—cellulose that was treated with nitric acid and a solvent. Nitrocellulose, the first human-made plastic, supplied the strength and pliability that brought film to life. With luscious blacks and a tonal range that exceeded the contrasts of the grey scale, the nitrate image captivated. “Unparalleled,” claims the British Film Institute (BFI), noting a “luminosity and metallic lustre” unknown to other film stock (“All about… nitrate film,” British Film Institute, https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/all-about-nitrate-film). There would be a cost for the visual pleasure.

Nitrocellulose, high in oxygen content, is fundamentally unstable. Cellulose nitrate is volatile and used as gunpowder. Nitrate films were known to ignite and burn uncontrollably, the nitrate generating oxygen that kept the film burning even underwater. “When new, nitrate film could be ignited with the heat of a cigarette; partially decomposed, it can ignite spontaneously at temperatures as low as 120 degrees F (49 degrees C)” (https://blog.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/introduction-nitrate-film/).

Nitrate film, the first stock of commercial film production, was illuminated by carbon arc projection. Built on the same principles as Humphry Davy’s carbon arc lamp, carbon arc projectors supplied the power required to enlarge a 35mm film frame to fill a theater screen. “The light was created by two carbon rods with a small gap between them. When electricity was made to pass between the rods, the ionization of the air created a very bright ‘arc’ of light. The bright light was due to the highly luminous nature of carbon vapor” (Eastman Museum blog by project archivist Kelsey Eckart, https://www.eastman.org/node/5901). Light is heat, and the carbon arc lamps generated intense heat. “Celluloid is also extremely dangerous. It is essentially a solid form of nitroglycerin dragged across superheat carbon rods at extremely high speed. If celluloid combusts, which it can do at ‘car parked in the sun’ temperatures, the fire generates its own oxygen, creating a flame which cannot be extinguished. It can burn underwater. It can burn beneath a fire blanket. It burns until the celluloid is gone, and any attempt to smother it creates clouds of poison gas” (https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-explosive-truth-behind-the-movie-theater-projection-room).

Around the time of the millennium, when the film industry was moving to video and traditional filmmaking equipment was being unloaded on Ebay, I purchased a vintage 35mm film camera that made it through the USPS mail system, a strip of decomposing nitrate film wound within. The nitrate stock was immediately recognized by a local expert who did a lot of time-lapse cinematography on old cameras—I remember talking to him about the Bell & Howell Eyemo camera—another 35mm camera used on the battlefield, in newsreels, and later in film stunts, that was being repurposed by film artists eager to have the larger film frame at a lower cost. Assuring me that the explosive potential of the nitrate was on the wane, he broke off a piece of the brittle film and lit it with a match. We watched it sizzle and self-extinguish.

The nitrate base made the stock explosive (“Burned Out: The Nitrate Legacy,” Chicago Film Society, https://www.chicagofilmsociety.org/2013/10/02/burned-out-the-nitrate-legacy/). The carbon-arc projector provided the spark. The combination of nitrate film with the intense heat of the lamp set the stage for conflagrations in and out of the projection room. The death of projectionists by fire was routine. In conflagrations like the 1897  Bazar de la Charité fire in Paris, 126 were immolated along with the cinematograph (“The Bonfire of Destiny, a Parisian Disaster on Netflix,” France-Amerique, https://france-amerique.com/the-bonfire-of-destiny-a-parisian-disaster-on-netflix/). Fire was the likely outcome anytime the projector jammed and the nitrate base film was ignited by the lamp (“The Explosive Truth Behind the Movie Theater Projection Room,” Atlas Obscura, https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-explosive-truth-behind-the-movie-theater-projection-room). Completion of Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon (1950) was twice threatened by fire in postproduction, the volume of nitrate film in the editing suite making the room “a virtual tinderbox” (Waiting on the Weather: Making Movies with Akira Kurosawa, by Teruyo Nogami, https://books.google.it/books?id=rgNKdNBGea4C&lpg=PA63&dq=teruyo%20nogami%20smiled%20on%20by%20lady%20luck&pg=PA87#v=onepage&q=nitrate%20film%20stock&f=false).

Smoking was not allowed in the projection booth. Nor were switches and ignition devices, attributed by “A House on a Rock” home inspection of Virginia to fears of a spark (https://ahouseonarock.com/5-fascinating-facts-about-knob-and-tube/). House on a Rock compares the prohibition to modern codes that disallow ignition devices within 18 inches of a residential garage floor. From this perspective, the incendiary capability of the carbon arc lamp was an obvious consideration. Knob-and-tube was prohibited in locations where any hazard might exist, for example, commercial garages. 

The projection booth evolved into a highly controlled environment purposefully isolated from public areas of the theater. Projectors were outfitted with fire extinguishing systems ready to snuff out fires and halt the ignition of jams at the film gate that “registered” each film frame for illumination. “Fire chambers” were installed at the film feed and take-up reels (“Dangerous Beauty: Nitrate Films Return To Hollywood, Thanks to the HFPA,” https://goldenglobes.com/articles/dangerous-beauty-nitrate-films-return-hollywood-thanks-hfpa/). Projection booths were designed and built to contain the spread of uncontrollable fires. Emergency buttons were added as a fail-safe to stop the projectors. Metal fire shutters were installed and readied to drop, buying time for cinema patrons to escape and trapping the projectionist within. Even as it was installed in American homes, knob-and-tube wiring was forbidden at the cinema.

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The first edition of Norman H. Schneider’s “Wiring Houses for the Electric Light” was published in 1911. In the second edition, Schneider introduces the chapter on conduit and protected wiring with the observation, “There exists no doubt of the greater safety and general superiority of iron pipe or armored conduit wiring systems over knob and tube work.” The second edition, heavily referenced in Mobbing, knob-and-tube wiring and the tactical use of wireless services at home (part 1), emerged in 1916. Though early armored cable systems—commonly referred to as BX—were not properly grounded, metal shielded conductors were the choice for the electrification of industry. Schneider concludes his comments on metal-shielded wiring systems: “They are as fireproof and damage-proof as any system can be” (p. 84, Wiring Houses, in “Chapter VII. Conduit or Protected Wiring”). According to Service Plus Master Electrician David Sanders, the original code book specified that the hot and neutral conductors used to create a circuit must be encased in the same stretch of metal-shielded cable (“Knob and Tube Wiring Pros and Cons 1,” Service Plus Electrical, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRUMOkX4C2U). The treatment of the conductors that were shielded in armored cable was similar to those in knob-and-tube; the two conductors were separately cloth-covered and insulated by rubber (“Power cable,” in Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_cable).

What made knob-and-tube attractive was affordability. Small towns required economical solutions for electrification. Knob-and-tube was deemed the solution for residential application. Once invested in the standard solution of the time, home owners were unlikely to consider upgrade.

By the time the second edition of Wiring Houses was published, knob-and-tube wiring was accepted as the most practical method of electrifying the American home. In 1914, George J. Kirchgasser, the author of another electrical manual, observed “there has been nothing radically weak proven against the knob and tube method as installed” (“Early Electrical Wiring Systems in American Buildings, 1890-1930,” by LaLuce D. Mitchell, APT Bulletin, Vol. 42, No. 4 (2011), pp. 39-45). Nevertheless, there were calls for the National Electrical Code to “disallow” knob-and-tube wiring systems as early as 1907.

Criticism of the knob-and-tube wiring system focused on the fact that the conductors were not shielded by armored cable. As a retrofit, the loomed wires were installed on the surface of interior walls as “open work.” As an economical solution in new housing, the loomed wires were installed within walls as “knob-and-tube.” In either case, the guiding principle was the dissipation of heat.

Electricity is energy. The flow of electricity through a wire creates heat. The greater the flow, the greater the heat and the more difficult it becomes to shed that heat. As David Sanders observes, the physics were against knob-and-tube.

The knob-and-tube wiring style was carefully specified to allow for the dissipation of heat within walls of plaster. This meant following rigid guidelines on the distance of hot and neutral conductors from wood, from metal, and from each other.

The image above shows the ceramic knobs that were used to secure the conductors the specified distance from the wooden joists. The conductors are exposed and able to dissipate heat. Kuhlman Electric owner-electrician Jesse Kuhlman states in Knob and Tube Wiring: Top 5 Issues that the State of Massachusetts does not permit residential insulation work without the certification of a licensed electrician that the house includes no active knob-and-tube wiring.

When rubber overheats, according to Sanders, its performance as an insulator is compromised. The insulated wire becomes brittle; its life may be shortened by half. When the conductor must be bent to make repairs, insulation falls from the wire in chunks.

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In the last year and a half, I had the natural gas furnace and supply removed from the basement of the Albany house. This is detailed in earlier posts. I seldom used the heating system that my mother turned up ever higher as her lung disease progressed and her condition deteriorated. In late summer the first year of the pandemic, she called me and told me that something in the house was “bothering” her and that she had decided to move.

I enabled the furnace only a few times after my mother asked me to return to the Bay Area to tend the house. For short periods during the coldest months, I endured the amplification of the mobbing harassment that flowed with the current of air through the ductwork, shutting down the furnace when the house became tolerably warm. Eventually I got an oil-filled radiator that could be left on for longer periods of time with less exacerbation, and used that to get through winter. The radiator operated without forced air, generating less of the electrical interference that is central to the mobbers’ platform.

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It was dusk on one of those balmy nights when mosquitos hang in the air ’til moonrise. I stood at the base of the driveway at the Seattle house, watering Japanese cedar in the sandy soil. A pickup truck pulled up the hill and stopped in the roadway, straddling a makeshift fence I had installed to discourage incursions over the property line. A truck door opened. A woman slid out and climbed the driveway to the neighbor’s house. The veranda of the south mobbing house owner was lit with the din of a Sonos sound system that I thought had been installed sometime before by technicians in unmarked white vans.

I was uncomfortable with the truck’s stopping even partially in front of my driveway. Over time I had become aware of the constant and deliberate alignment of the neighborhood watch co-captain’s vehicle, complete with an obsessively tended phone and hotspot, with the smart electric meter, the wireless gateway and other infrastructure installed on the south side of my home. Not to mention the fact that numerous of those who frequented the houses around me were involved in the mobbing. But the guy in the back seat was pleasant enough, leaning out the window and asking about my European car with a German accent before turning to the screen of an open laptop on what appeared to be an airplane style fold-down table, typing intently. The one or two others in the truck remained silent. Five or ten minutes later, the woman returned to the running vehicle and they departed.

In the months and years since, with increased awareness of the role of mobile services and devices in drive-by and fly-by-night mobbing, I think how easy it must be to briefly park within line-of-sight access, perhaps under cover of some ruse, and infect, configure or interfere with residential services that are not defended against signal attack.

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The gas furnace remained shut down until well after my mother’s death. The decision to remove the furnace and make a fuel change unfolded over the course of events in the mobbing. One night I woke to hear yet another indiscreet communication in my signal-boosted environment. It was a male voice advising someone: “She’s been keeping the gas off.” The reference to the natural gas utility reinforced my increasing discomfort with spark-ignited fuel. This was during a time when, with most circuit breakers shut down, the use of plumbing as a transport for mobbing harassment became clear. I had also read that, in some locales, it was illegal to use gas line to conduct charged matter. This detail confirmed the conductive potential of the metal piping. It additionally heightened my suspicion that conducting charged matter along the outside of a pipe might stimulate the flow of natural gas inside the pipe and result in the increased venting of unhealthy and even dangerous matter into the environment. I have not so far been able to confirm that this is true. Another event was receiving a link to an article on the radio frequency interference (RFI) that heating and air conditioning systems generate (Mobbing HVAC: Sources of RFI in furnaces and air conditioning). It was in consideration of this understanding and these events that when I was finally able to install the heat pump heater, most of the system was lifted to the attic, a location further from the ground plane and less accessible to the saboteur next door.

Along the way, I was pleased to learn that the HVAC contractor was required to remove the old furnace and ductwork that would not be reused. Unfortunately, this did not include the metal ductwork that was built into the ceiling. It would be months before I found a contractor to remove a painted metal duct that stretched 10 to 12 feet across one side of the basement.

The duct is the stepped down span at the far end of the basement. Not only did I want to remove the duct to extract the register from the floor above and to then patch the floor. Given my circumstances and experience with being mobbed in the house, I needed to know what was inside.

The above image shows the termination of a conductor on the portion of an old incoming water line that was not removed when the pipe broke. One end of it protruded from a hole that had been cut for it in the metal work. I had put a compression-expanding cap on the exposed open end when it became clear that the area was a target of the mobbing. I had no idea where the pipe ended and what it might transport.

I had upgraded the old water line that entered the house fewer than six feet away to copper. The inlet for the water line was about 20 feet away from the rear of the parked and charging Tesla next door I had also found and unplugged a low voltage transformer that was just inside the pictured door beneath the duct. The mobbers appear to maintain lines—attack vectors essentially—that cut through the Albany house, over infrastructure or major appliances, and into adjacent yards and locations that are the site for the deployment of hotspots and access points. Lately there’s always what looks like a generator tent about three feet on the ground from the back door of the Albany house. The area of the tent, cluttered with metal, wood, and propane cans, could be the terminus of a line that begins with the rear of the Tesla, angled for charging in the driveway, the cross-connect box, or the vehicles that park just beyond. In the past, I’ve photographed a large plastic tube that seemed to be used to transport smoke or liquid from the lowlife side of the fence to mine. Drenching the area near the fence with water seems to slow the ingress when it is severe. Drenching the wooden boards of the back staircase seems to dampen the rise and infiltration through an earthen area that runs close to the foundation below.

The transformer supported some low voltage two-prong bulbs in lights my mother had hired someone to install to illuminate the front steps some years before. I had removed the lamps from the fixtures as I came to understand the involvement of the low-voltage lights and their spark-gapped prongs in the mobbing.

For a time I slept in the bedroom over the old metal duct, the window open wide to soften the mobbing harassment. One night a flash of light hit the wall and rolled over me, seemingly from some untoward electrical interaction. I suspected the high-efficiency lights in the adjacent bathroom (Lighting and mobbers’ living-off-the-land exploits). Decades before, my mother slept in the same room when she was being treated for breast cancer. She later told me of the pleasure she took in the fragrance of the blossoming jasmine in the garden below.

_{A broken conductor at one end of the metal duct. I am not sure if the cabling on the right side of the image is coaxial and related to antenna effect at the Albany house}

I do not know if the house was this way when my parents purchased it in 1970 or thereabouts. I do not know if the ductwork was placed or replaced when a second electrical panel was installed nearby in the years after my father died when my mother did a major remodel, or when the transformer was installed.

In the other corner, there was a segment of old water piping that appears to have been used in an attempt to “ground” the conductor. The metal piping exhibited galvanic corrosion and was likely conductive. Nearby, there was a transformer. When the gas furnace was enabled, the ductwork funneled heat through the register to the room above. The closure of the conductors in heated metal likely ensured the transfer of heat to the conductors. The entirety of the condition was hidden from view.

This is but one area of the corner of the house that the mobbers used in their attempt to disrupt and frighten me from my childhood home before I might inherit it. I use “past tense” here because I have removed the worst of the conditions they originally sought to exploit, not because they have abandoned their efforts. The position of the duct and its contents is linear and close to being equidistant from what may be the install of the Tesla PowerWall in the garage of the family that broke down the fence on the south boundary of the property, and the original knob-and-tube panel overlooked by the radio frequency-spewing air conditioner of the lowlife house on the north side. You have to wonder what kind of town elects, reelects, and then protects those whose avocation seems to be criminally abusing and harassing neighbors out of their homes. The mobbers appear to be unwilling to walk away from their “investment” in crime and have been doing their best over the holidays to evict or to kill me—I don’t know which. The stench of a generator hangs in the air. Perhaps this is because until this house sits empty, they will not be paid.

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My Oakland electrician was kept busy rewiring classic homes—knob-and-tube wired houses—over the past months. Numerous of those requesting upgrade were under threat by California home insurers. Given my circumstances, I’ve wondered whether insurance carriers have gotten wind of the fact that speculators and those who do residential “clearing” are using heat and spark-generating processes, including solar and battery, to sabotage people’s homes. It would be unfortunate if, instead of going to bat for customers by helping to expose a dangerous predatory scam, insurers dropped customers to mitigate their own potential losses—for example, to house fires caused by malicious action. But knob-and-tube is not the only feature of a home that can be sabotaged by those who seek enrichment by preying on others.

As knob-and-tube wiring installations have aged, misgivings about the system have grown. With the advent of plastic-insulated conductors for installation within the wall and metal shielding that can be properly grounded for installation on top, perhaps the most frequently stated objection to knob-and-tube wiring is that the system does not provide a ground wire. In a rare series of YouTube videos for laypersons, founder Steven M. Brown and David Sanders of Service Plus Electrical Solutions LLC explain what those who live in houses with knob-and-tube wiring systems need to understand.

The knob-and-tube wiring system was designed to bring electrical service to a home using two conductors—hot and neutral. The two wires created a circuit. The modern system of grounding did not exist. The hot wire ran current out; the neutral brought it back in. Two conductors was all it took.

The wire we call a ground is not intended to be used—not in normal conditions. A ground wire is a fail safe. It is not made to take resistance and should have no impedance. This wire exists for use in fault conditions, when it acts as a shortcut to get the current back to the origin.

The lack of a ground wire becomes increasingly important not only because of the dangerous modifications that are most commonly made by those who are not licensed electrical contractors, but because of the electrical loads being run over wiring systems that are commonly a century old.

In the 1920s, the chief goal of electrification was lighting. Illumination brought progress. The working day was longer. The nights were safer. Educational levels improved with the increased time for study. Homes continued to be warmed by gas furnace and steam radiator. With “a clean, well-lighted place” (Hemingway, published 1933), and perhaps a radio by the hearth, little else was required.

The modest requirements for residential electrification allowed knob-and-tube circuits to be designed for small loads. According to David Sanders of Service Plus Electrician Education, the 1897 code book limited the knob-and-tube circuit to a 12-amp load. The conductors were sized to accommodate that load, with additional requirements for materials and installation flowing from there. The typical wire size was 14 gauge, with larger wire sizes offering increased tolerance to heat. The conductors must tolerate the load they bear and must be able to dissipate the heat of the load into the environment. Location and ambient temperature can increase the heat that must be dissipated. Because heat rises, more heat must be dissipated from knob-and-tube conductors that run through an attic.

The circuits in an electric service depend on service size. In the early days of electrification, an allocation of 60 amps was typical. This specification means that, by modern standards, knob-and-tube wiring systems are undersized and likely to be subjected to conditions of heat that outstrip design. The minimum size of a modern electric service is 100 amps; 200-amp services are common. With the increased density of electrical and charging appliances, as well as the growth of heat pump technologies over these last decades, residential demand for power quickly exceeds the 200 amp expansion.

We think fuses and circuit breakers protect the appliances and devices we run. Maybe, if we consider them more broadly, we understand them as protective devices for electrical circuits. A protective device opens a circuit and allows heat to dissipate before catastrophe.It’s easy to forget about the role of the protective device in safeguarding the strands of wire that conduct energy from supply to demand. But if you take the time to watch the videos of Service Plus or other licensed electrical contractors who share their expertise on YouTube, is that fuses and breakers are sized for the electrical tolerance of the wires they protect—the wires that create the electrical circuit. And when wires are sized for a small load, even the wrong size bulb can overheat the circuit. Knob-and-tube wiring systems were specified to support 12 amps of electricity—not 15, not 20, and not 30. Loads over 12 amps are excessive, create heat beyond tolerance, and can damage the wiring system.

Service Plus‘ David Sanders says it is common to see 15-amp fuses installed to protect 12-amp wires in the field. Even in houses that are more than 100 years old, Service Plus electricians commonly see knob-and-tube circuits “fused” with 30-amp devices, a dangerous situation made worse when the knob-and-tube circuit is “smothered” in insulation that’s been blown into the walls. According to Jesse Kuhlman of Kuhlman Electric, in Massachusetts residential insulation work is prohibited without an electrician’s written certification that there is no active knob-and-tube wiring. The installation of wall insulation over conductors with damaged insulators exacerbates problems with heat dissipation and can lead to a fire. Per the NEC (National Electric Code) Wiki, concealed knob-and-tube wiring is not permitted within the “(E) Hollow spaces of walls, ceilings, and attics where such spaces are insulated by loose, rolled, or foamed-in-place insulating material that envelops the conductors” (https://thenecwiki.com/2021/02/article-394/?hilite=398.19).

Protective devices help to prevent conductors from overheating and damaging their insulation. The rubber and cloth insulation on knob-and-tube conductors is not made for today’s loads, nor is the wire size. When you “fuse” knob-and-tube conductors, says Sanders, don’t “protect” them with a fuse that supports a capacity greater than that of the wire. The use of a 30-amp fuse on a 12-amp knob-and-tube circuit means that the wire may be exposed to up to three times the load it is specified to carry. In this scenario you could end up running 60 to 90 amps over a wire that can handle only 12 amps before the fuse finally blows. This is the scenario for a house fire.

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In Testing 100 Year Old Knob and Tube Wiring, Dr. Pete Jones, chief scientist and publisher of the Electromagnetic Videos channel on YouTube, stress tests knob-and-tube conductors under high loads. This section includes screenshots of from Dr. Jones’ video in accord with United States laws on fair use. For the best information on Dr. Jones’ work, see his videos.

The experiment is performed using knob-and-tube conductors wired through the same ceramic insulators that secure a concealed knob-and-tube circuit in the wall. The knobs are mounted to the horizontal 2×4; the tubes have been installed in the vertical 2×4. Some of the wire shows the cloth looming. Dr. Jones measures the wire size at about 14 gauge, which would these days be rated for about 15 amps. In the video, he slowly steps up the amperage to show how much power the conductor can handle before adverse changes due to heat.

Dr. Jones extracted the knob-and-tube from an old house in Ontario, Canada. This image shows part of the installation. You can see how the knobs are installed to sit atop the joists, securing the wires the proper distance from the wood. The tubes are installed in holes that are drilled into the wood, safely transporting the energized conductors to the next knob.

The experiment begins with the application of 15 amps sustained over 15 minutes. After each application, Dr. Jones checks the condition of the knob-and-tube components visually and by touch. He then visualizes the condition of the conductors using an infrared camera application. Because the experiment is done in the open air, the conductors benefit from air cooling that a concealed installation would not allow.

The infrared footage shows the conductor after 15 minutes of 15 amps load. There is slight warmth to the touch and a temperature rise of about seven degrees celsius. The ceramic insulators are cool.

In the next step, 30 amps are applied for 15 minutes. The wire and loom are warm to the touch. Slight warmth is palpable in the ceramic insulators.

Changes to heat begin to occur with a 40-amp load that is applied for 15 minutes. The loom is blackening and the wire is becoming sticky. The rubber insulator can be slightly moved.

At 50 amps, the cloth begins to delaminate. The wire is too hot to touch. The tubes are becoming warm, and so is the loom.

The insulation on the wire is increasingly soft. There is the smell of burning rubber.

At 60 amps with blown-in insulation covering the conductors and containing the heat, the effect could be catastrophic. Still, as Dr. Jones points out, the thick end of the ceramic tube continues to protect the 2×4.

At 70 amps, knobs, tubes, and wire are too hot to touch. The rubberized wire begins to smoke.

At 80 amps, the destructive process is well underway.

There is the smell of burning wood. Temperatures exceed 300 C.

The wire glows red hot; the cloth carbonizes.

At 90 amps, arcing is visible in the middle of the loomed piece of conductor. And then it bursts into flames.

The camera app can no longer render an accurate temperature; the temperature exceeds the scale. The tube preserved the wood although the loom area is charred. Considering the changes that were observed at 40 amps, the rating of the wire at 15 amps allows reasonable safety.

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Carbon arc projectors are an application of the electric arc. Humphry Davy’s carbon arc lamp produced light—heat—by arcing. In a residential wiring system, arcing in an electrical panel can start a fire. The prelude to electric fire is typically an overload.

When it comes to century-old knob-and-tube wiring systems, arcing is a serious matter. Knob-and-tube systems stretch to meet modern demand. Existing circuits are modified and new circuits are added over decades of remodels. We hire repairs based on cost instead of skill or safety. We expect a 100-year-old electric service to perform like one installed yesterday. From coast to coast, electricians see the same common problems in home with knob-and-tube wiring systems.

The core issue is electrical overload. Circuits may be incorrectly “fused” or damaged. Both can result in overloads. Incorrect fusing of knob-and-tube circuits starts when a fuse blows and is replaced with a larger one. In this case, the repair is made based on the logic that the larger fuse won’t blow. This refusal to accept the design constraints of the knob-and-tube wiring system can result in arcing due to overload. Damaged circuits also contribute to overloads. Damage can accrue to century-old knob-and-tube services based on nothing more than the natural deterioration of materials. This is especially true of the rubberized and loomed insulation that protects the wires. An additional source of damage is the modifications that are intentionally made to knob-and-tube systems over time. From this perspective, the change has the impact of damage.

Certain changes to knob-and-tube wiring systems should be regarded as design changes. This wiring system was customized for the installation. Post-installation changes modify the design. In the case of splices into a knob-and-tube circuit, the change strays not only from the design of the implementation, but the rules of the electric code on how to construct the circuit. Another change that is incompatible with the design of knob-and-tube installs is to cover it with insulation.

Knob-and-tube wiring systems were designed with soldered splice joints. Modern codes may allow the use of a splice cap to connect knob-and-tube conductors to today’s plastic-coated connectors but the knob-and-tube standard did not.

This image shows how a knob-and-tube circuit was extended to updated wires in metal shielding. I don’t know if the metal shielding is BX or a later shielding that allowed for proper grounding. Given the extension from a two-wire circuit, grounding was not a possibility. My Oakland electrician extracted the above sample from the ceiling in the basement of the Albany house about a year back. I don’t recall whether the splice was made with splice caps.

The policy of Service Plus Electrical Solutions is to avoid extending or “tapping into” knob-and-tube and to instead create a new circuit. Some codes prohibit the extension of a knob-and-tube circuit. Some also prohibit the extension of an ungrounded circuit. When the original wiring system is knob-and-tube, the circuits are ungrounded.

If your neighbors actively seek to exploit the vulnerabilities in your infrastructure, consider the path that provides good grounding with the least EMI and RFI. I prefer the work of a licensed electrician and am willing to wait for good work by a qualified specialist.

This splice, also extracted from the ceiling of the basement, was not in a metal box. This is a fire hazard. Master Electrician David Saunders of Service Plus explains that the purpose of the metal box is to contain the spark, should it occur. Modern codes forbid splicing outside of metal boxes. The rules on knob-and-tube forbade splices that were not soldered. Either way, this work modification is improper.

My mother hired a couple of remodeling projects whose quality and inspection became suspect as I started to make repairs to the house. I don’t know who was responsible for this splice that appears to be poorly done, though the insulation on the knob-and-tube conductors appears to be in good shape. In addition to being ungrounded, the knob-and-tube conductors in this circuit were detached from the ceramic insulators that keep them in a safe, fixed position.

In addition to making sure you work with a licensed electrician, try to find someone who has significant experience with upgrading knob-and-tube services. “Make sure you get someone who’s qualified,” says David Sanders in the Knob and Tube Wiring Partial Upgrade and Modifications video.

Mobbers, block coordinators and criminal speculators target women because they think women won’t understand the scam. And because they believe bias will ensure they get away with bullying a woman out of her assets. Those are our “vulnerabilities” as women, as tenants, and as we grow older. But women aren’t all that’s in the package. The ultimate target is your home. And the package becomes all the more attractive when your electric service is not only ungrounded, but badly modified and overloaded. Lack of grounding, improper splices, low voltage transformers, two-prong lights–these are the attributes of an electric service mobbers can monkey wrench with direct current power generators and hotspots, their LEDs, PowerWalls, and heaps of metal. It can be difficult to know who is honest, and who is qualified. Licensure is a test for minimum qualifications. Over the past year, due to some bad experiences, I began working this those who are specialists for work that does not require a license, for example, a professional carpenter for carpentry, or a professional sheet rocker for sheetrock. I learned that one of the licensed professionals I work with has found it is best to do the same.

I decided to tear down a large kitchen island that was built in one of the remodels my mother hired. This was necessitated in part by the fuel change from natural gas to electric. The island included a vastly inadequate downdraft ventilation system with gas stovetop, an oven, and numerous three-prong outlets.

I’m sure my mother thought the remodel was in qualified hands. But the construction of the island was shoddy, with holes cut but not well patched in the floor beneath and poorly done electrical connections, including one made across the island using only hot and neutral wires enclosed in aluminum. The contractor who removed it said it looked like it came out of a car.

It was one of the more disturbing finds in demolishing parts of the kitchen “improvement” my mother had contracted. The island was feet away from a row of cabinets that, having been put on top of the air return for the gas furnace, had caused the furnace to dangerously short cycle. I thought about how my discomfort with using the island grown, about its outlets that seemed to emit radio signals, and about its insufficient ventilation and the way whatever drafted down seemed to fill the kitchen overnight. It had taken time before I started to turn off the circuits of the ungrounded knob-and-tube electric system that I was not using and the cutting sensation of electrical interference was particularly strong when the island was in use. Over time, the mobbing of the gas line could be heard at the burners and I seldom used the stove.

It was the characteristics of what appeared to be a jury-rigged connection inside the island was very particularly disturbing. Not only did the aluminum tubing not use a ground wire, the tubing itself is a conductor and a recommended choice for many antennas (https://blog.solidsignal.com/tutorials/good-material-antenna/). Perhaps, like early BX cabling, the wires inside were grounded to the tubing. This would mean that running into an area with poor ventilation, high heat from an oven and gas stove, and an automatic ignition system, there was a radiator. This is the environment that the mobbers chose to pollute with clouds of dirty electricity and direct current power from generators, PowerWalls and charging stations, signal boosters and interfering lights. And we must assume that even if they do not explicitly know of the bad work done in these older houses that they surround and attack, it is clear that those involved in real estate speculation and “rehabs” understand the utilities and systems that were built into older homes as well as the vulnerabilities built into them. It is for this reason that mobbing can be argued to have arsonous if not murderous intent.

To be continued in part 4.