An 1851 cape, six different electricians since 1923, and one closet back.

The house

An 1851 cape, two stories plus an attic. Original frame: hand-hewn hemlock posts, full sawn floor joists, plaster-and-lath walls. Original wiring (we estimate 1923 from the panel and the splice technique) was knob-and-tube. The current panel was a 60A fuse box from approximately 1956, replaced in 1978 with a 100A breaker panel that stayed mostly empty. The five interventions between 1923 and 2026:

1. ~1923: original K&T install. Two-conductor, no ground.
2. ~1956: 60A fuse box installed; service drop upgraded.
3. ~1978: 100A breaker panel; some K&T circuits re-fed via NM-B splices in mid-air, no junction box.
4. ~1986: upstairs bedroom wired for an electric blanket; another mid-air splice.
5. ~2003: kitchen GFCI installed by an unknown party; not on its own circuit, sharing the 1956 fuse-box-era 14-gauge K&T.
6. ~2017: wood-stove blower added; mid-air splice number three; the splice was wrapped in friction tape inside the wood-stove cavity.

The current owners (a couple in their late 60s, owners since 2008) had been told the wiring "was fine" by an inspector who didn't open walls. After a flickering-lights event during a January thunderstorm, they called us. The flickering was an SPD-less surge event; the wiring was indeed not fine; the surge had stressed an already-stressed K&T.

What we did, in order

1. Day 1: walkthrough. Mapped every fixture and outlet to a circuit. Found the 2017 wood-stove splice. Customers signed off on the scope.
2. Day 2: megger every K&T circuit, 500V. Eight of fourteen circuits read > 100 MΩ (acceptable); five read 1 to 8 MΩ (deteriorating); one circuit, the 1986 upstairs bedroom feed, read 0.4 MΩ (failing). The wood-stove splice circuit didn't have an insulation reading at all because one conductor was bare to copper inside the splice. The customer was on tour upstairs; we showed them the megger.
3. Day 3: attic-floor inventory. Pulled up loose attic flooring (the original 1×12 boards were not nailed in 19 places where 1923 electricians had pulled them). Mapped where each K&T run crossed the joist bays.
4. Day 4–8: attic and basement-ceiling fishing. Most of the new NM-B was pulled from the attic floor down through joist bays to outlet locations using fish tape and a magnet. The single closet-back opening was on the upstairs east bedroom: an 8" × 10" hole behind the closet's clothing rod, used to fish a vertical cable bay.
5. Day 9: kitchen rough-in. The 2003 GFCI got a dedicated circuit; old K&T removed; existing receptacle locations preserved.
6. Day 10: wood-stove cavity. Removed the 2017 splice, cleaned and inspected the conduit penetration, ran fresh NM-B, terminated the blower in a new 4" square box.
7. Day 11–12: panel changeout. 100A panel out, 200A combo meter-and-main in (we used this as an opportunity to upgrade the service; customer agreed). 32-space Square D QO Plug-on Neutral. Re-feed of all 14 active circuits onto AFCI/GFCI combo breakers.
8. Day 13: testing. Continuity, polarity, GFCI/AFCI function, megger all new branches.
9. Day 14: trim. Receptacles, switches, plates. Inspector visit (passed). Walkthrough with customer; panel labeled.

Plaster preserved

One closet-back opening. Three small holes for new outlets in framed-out walls (these existed as plywood-paneled additions, not original plaster). Zero plaster damage in original 1851 walls. We told the customer we estimated three to five wall openings; we delivered one; the customer took us to Parker Pie Company in Glover for the celebratory pizza.

What surprised us

• The original 1923 K&T conductors in the un-touched-since-1923 portions of the attic were in remarkably good shape. The insulation was hardened but not crumbling. The failure was not the original install; the failure was every subsequent re-feed.
• A single 1923 ceramic knob, on the south-attic gable wall, had a small porcelain crack that had been sealed with a coat of household oil paint sometime mid-century. The conductor had been live through that crack; the crack had not faulted in a hundred years; we still replaced it.
• The 2017 wood-stove blower splice was wrapped in 3M Scotch 33 vinyl over the friction tape, suggesting the same hand had returned to "improve" the splice at some point.
• A perfectly clean 1956-era cloth-jacketed conductor in the basement had a tiny notch in its insulation directly above where the cat had been sleeping for the last 15 years. The cat is fine. The conductor was replaced.

Final billing

Labor (master + journey, 14 days)

142 hrs · $14,400 (master 70 hrs $9,240; journey 72 hrs $7,776; less apprentice teaching pass-through)

Materials (NM-B, panel, 28 AFCI/GFCI breakers, fittings, smoke detectors)

$3,950 + 12% = $4,424

Service upgrade (200A combo)

add'l $1,800 labor, $720 materials = $2,520

VT DFS permit

$240

Repeat-customer truck-roll waiver

− $48 × 14 days = − $672

Total

$20,912

Customer paid 30% at signing, 40% at panel changeout, 30% net-15. They asked us to come back next year for a J-06 lightning protection assessment because the January storm event still has them rattled. That's on the calendar.

Related

J-04 Heritage rewire describes the methods. The almanac entry that pairs with this is April: Mud-Season Service Calls, which talks about why we book heritage work in February rather than May.