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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?
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paige3317mo 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.
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keith9007mo 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.
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sage6057mo ago
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karenh566mo 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.
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