What was electrical wiring like in 1910?

Question

In 1910, when they wired new homes, what kind of materials did they use? Did they have switches, outlets, and light bulbs as we know them today? Did they have screw-in fuses like they had before they started using circuit breakers?

Answer 1

The wires were run individually, supported on small porcelain insulators, either knobs or cleats which held the wires off the surface. When they were run crossways of studs, joists, through floors, etc, holes were drilled and porcelain tubes inserted. Where the wires connected to a fixture, switch, etc there was usually no box, just a mounting board with holes in it which had lengths of protective tubing that the wires passed through and the switch or fixture was mounted to. The switches were usually round, with a white porcelain base, a nickel plated brass cover, mounted on the surface of the wall and you turned a knob to make the lights go on/off. Some of these switches even had a little window in the cover that indicated "on" & "off" presumably if the actual light was not visible from the switch, like maybe the switch was upstairs and the socket in the basement. Later they had the switches that recessed in the wall and had two round push buttons for on & off. The main fuse box for an average home might only consist of 2 or maybe 4 screw-in 15 amp fuses for the whole house. These fuses are the same type you can still buy. The thread for these fuses is the same as a light bulb thread. If you thought a circuit was shorted, you could remove the blown fuse and screw in a light bulb and, if it lit full brightness, there was a short. If it lit partly there was probably an over load on the line, like an electric heater, electric iron, & hot plate all on the same curcuit or something like that. At the time, it was mostly electric was lights, with the occasional fan, motor, electric heater, electric iron, hot plate, etc thats why there were not a lot of circuits. The bulbs were not white, they were clear glass and had a little nibbin on the end where the air was evacuated. They didn't figure out how to hide the place where the air was pulled out within the base of the bulb is until about 1927. They were still carbon filiments (with various treatments to the surface) the tungsten ones came out about 1913.

Answer 2

1

Answer 3

real old houses sometimes had gold or silver wires in them knob and tube often times was the standard for like 50 or 60 years old screw in fuses or even hard wired no grounds i seen whole houses run on 1 or 2 circuits in the 50s and 60s craziness ensued extention cords run inside the walls or along base boards for entire top half of houses wired directly into the breakers switches varied from what you know to some industrial looking ones or push buttons old houses had gas or oil running to lamps on the walls through black pipe or even copper and when they took them out and put in electricity often times they would run the wires beside these.

Answer 4

Well, it was primitive, and often dangerous. If it was professionally installed, it was knob and tube wiring, with soldered connections, wrapped with friction tape. Installed by a non-professional, anything could be found. Switches were two push-buttons, outlets only had 2 slots, light bulbs were remarkably similar, though relatively expensive, as were fuses.

Here's a good sight to begin research http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_wiring

Answer 5

I aren't aware where you are located in the world so I cannot accurately say what early electrical wiring or how it was installed etc.in your zone. I can tell you how and what materials etc were used in Australia during those times. up until 1919 not one Authority was in control of any Electrical supplies or generation of such supplies etc. The local Councils usually generated the supply and that varied substantially from Council to Council which were basically City or suburban. Some Councils Generated DC at 110Volts per side and 220 V.DC when both phases were used.Others used 220V AC with the 2 wire system and basically no earthing was required for safety reasons as such except in the one power outlet which was normally in the Kitchen with no others anywhere else. The 110 V. 2 phase was normally controlled by using 2 main switches with an on- off toggle on each switch so you couldn't turn off 1 phase without the other by having in some cases, an insulated bar attached to the one toggle on each switch on each live conductor and fuses on each side of the incoming supply. The neutral consisted of a round "Bakelite" insulated brass circular connection facility. Early fuses were constructed of porcelain and were also round in design with a screwed cover and were capable of being rewired with fuse wire. The switches were of porcelain with brass covers and were surface mounted with in some cases a wooden block to permit surface wiring to be connected. The wiring on the surface and also normally in the roof space was done using rubber / cotton insulated wire, now referred to as "Building electrical wire" encased in Wooden casing with an attached wooden lid nailed onto the casing and each 2 wires or one circuit ran in a separate channel in the wooden casing which was phased out slowly around 1930 when they went to steel split steel conduit in dry areas and solid steel screwed conduit in wet or external usage. In some very rare instances you still come across the wood casing being used where there has been no updating of that part of the installation since that period. To add to the point of using wooden casing you also had to be a skilled carpenter as well due to having to cut the casing at 90% and also 45% etc etc as the circuits branched off to various points. The lighting points were mainly screwed ES or BC fittings on the end of a short 2 core flexible cable suspended from a porcelain "Ceiling rose" and of which many early appliances were plugged into with a BC (bayonet cap) or ES (Edison Screw) adapter and also a dual parallel pin adapter also going into some cases a double adapter in either BC or ES in the bottom lamp holder. Lamps in those days were pear shaped glass with a top tip and normally a carbon filament. Some lamp holder adapters had a slide switch to enable the appliance to be turned off when not in use. If there were any power outlets apart from the kitchen which was extremely rare, it consisted of a 2 pin parallel, again female plug base, with the same brass and porcelain switch to control it. The earthing of every Power outlet didn't come into enforcement until 1967, prior to that only power outlets in earthed situations ie Laundries, bathrooms, kitchens or where any telephone installation existed needed to be earthed for safety. Compulsory earthing of ALL lighting points didn't come into force until around 1975. By this time basically all electrically supplies were regulated by an Act of Parliament to be LV 240VAC single phase and 3 phase 440VAC for Industrial installations or where required etc. In some country towns a Local Generator was sometimes used until the early 1960s and was run by the local Electrician or Council and used 240VAC in some areas, quite often the owner of the local generator installed the street and house / industrial supplies and also maintained same. In some rural towns etc. the owner of the generator switched it off around 12 midnight. A lot of distant farms and some locations used windmill generators, motor generator powered 32VDC.

The State Electricity Commission came into control in Victoria in 1919 and was established by Sir John Monash a WW1 General. From that time electricity was generated and supplied to most areas apart from certain Suburban Councils who controlled their own Supply and purchased the Electricity from the SECV at that time until about 1974 when Government changed the Laws to do away with many Council operated Electrical Supply regions. Thus we at last had one body controlling all Electrical generation and distribution throughout the state but some Council Electrical Inspectors decided they would enforce the SECV Wiring Rules and Regulations in a way that was varied from the application by and with the SECV . The Laws were again changed in the 1980s to allow the sale of Electrical Generators and distributors of electricity in some cases to Foreign ownership which mostly was abhorred by the population in General then and still now, the lack of preventive maintenance now is evident as the system has outages from poorly maintained equipment in some cases, to save costs, the SECV had a comprehensive preventive maintenance scheme running where any problems were remedied usually promptly, a bit more efficiently than what actually happens today.