Remember when you could actually see the wires in a panel?

I was in a 1920s house in Portland last week and the old cloth-covered wire was so clear, you could trace every circuit by hand. Anyone else miss that kind of simple clarity before everything got packed in so tight?

4 comments

4 Comments

paige3311mo ago

Oh man, totally. My grandpa's old workshop was like that, all open and easy to follow. Now you pop open a new panel and it's just a solid brick of wire, good luck finding anything. That old cloth stuff had a certain charm, even if it was probably a fire hazard lol. Makes you appreciate how simple things were built back then.

keith9001mo ago

It's not just about finding wires either. Modern panels are sealed so tight you can't even add a new circuit without a fight. My neighbor tried to install a simple outlet and gave up after three hours of tracing lines. That old cloth wiring let you see the whole system at a glance, like a map of the house. We traded easy fixes for a false sense of safety inside a plastic tomb.

sage6051mo ago

Exactly, @keith900. We buried the roadmap for a puzzle box.

karenh566d ago

Honestly, my uncle had that old cloth wiring in his basement and you're right keith900, it was like reading a book. Tbh half the time he'd just point at a line and tell you what it went to. Ngl though, the one time it did short, it smelled like a burning sweater for a week. We definitely lost something when everything got locked up in those tidy little plastic boxes.