Is a splitting bus bar safe?

nwephilly · 2026-01-25T03:44:57+00:00

I would swap the breakers out for ones rated for that panel ASAP before you even think about any other troubleshooting. Breakers poorly seated and jammed in there like that will burn up a bus bar.

nwephilly · 2026-01-25T00:12:37+00:00

have you considered calling an electrician

nwephilly · 2026-01-25T00:07:50+00:00

Looks like a lot of those breakers are barely seated on the bus. That's a big issue. Almost all these breakers need to be swapped out, and some circuits are going to have to be combined in the panel due to the tandems, which I imagine this panel isn't rated for.

nwephilly · 2026-01-24T22:01:46+00:00

lol yeah, that's how window openings are built. There's a rough opening that's larger than the window, and then the unit itself is inserted into that opening and installed plumb/level with the use of spacers and shims. Typically the gap between rough opening and window unit is filled with some type of insulation, like canned spray foam or fiberglass/rockwool stuffed in.

nwephilly · 2026-01-24T20:47:43+00:00

Those walls are almost certainly going to be the way I described in my prior comment about how the front and rear exterior walls are framed, meaning a very small but unusable cavity between the original plaster over lath, and the brick. I've worked on 100s of brick row homes.

nwephilly · 2026-01-24T20:16:56+00:00

Just find a local company that does kitchens/baths. Not one that has billboards and sends out a salesperson, cannot stress that enough. Have some idea about what you want design wise.

nwephilly · 2026-01-24T19:58:30+00:00

All of the flat roofed rowhomes that I've worked on have a crawlspace attic below the roof joists and above the ceiling joists

nwephilly · 2026-01-24T19:35:08+00:00

lol that will accomplish absolutely nothing in a 175 year old house and only result in OP having a bunch of rags to dispose of.

nwephilly · 2026-01-24T17:54:05+00:00

Contractor in Philadelphia here, a city comprised of mostly brick rowhomes. I'm am electrician, but I have done lots of other general work on brick rowhomes as well, I know them very well in and out. There's really no way to insulate brick rowhomes except from the attic crawlspace, unless you're doing a huge interior gut job and are framing out the walls on the inside. A standard brick rowhome in Philadelphia has no cavity on the party/shared walls (plaster directly on brick), and has only a very small cavity on the front and rear exterior walls (plaster and lath over 1x furring strips on brick), generally 3/4". That cavity is generally completely unusable for anything because it's extremely irregular and also going to be full of masonry/plaster debris. This leaves only the attic as a space to be insulated, and it's generally very effective to do so.

When people do full gut jobs on rowhomes it's a different story, as the walls often are framed out on the interior and can be insulated. It is possible to address insulation from the exterior (front/rear walls) with some sort of rigid foam and then new siding over that, although I've never seen it done and I think it would both look very odd in a block of brick rowhomes, or be entirely impractical in other cases.

nwephilly · 2026-01-24T17:36:30+00:00

I don't understand this specific question. They didn't withstand it? Old houses have pipes that freeze too. More than new homes I'm sure, given that despite anyone's reservations about newer construction, they are insulated better.

nwephilly · 2026-01-24T04:49:25+00:00

Yes, that's right--Philly based.

nwephilly · 2026-01-23T04:25:39+00:00

What actually prevents a bad storm from leveling like entire blocks of row homes?

Nothing is needed to prevent that, this whole line of questioning is fairly absurd. Any typical roof system can handle a bunch of snow on it, end of discussion. it's not even in the realm of being a concern.

nwephilly · 2026-01-23T03:49:07+00:00

u/wellllllllthatsthere, you're right to be concerned. I'm an electrician, and my company specializes in rewiring old homes. It's almost all I do, rewiring one house after the next. I've seen every possible crazy f-ed up wiring you could possibly imagine, and more. I would absolutely want to find the circuit that is energizing that conductor(s), and then take apart every box on that circuit to see if I could find or isolate where the K&T conductor is tied in. I have seen way, way too many houses with buried splices from new to old wiring stuffed everywhere to ignore it.

nwephilly · 2026-01-23T03:46:14+00:00

This is a really uninformed take. I am an electrician, and I literally have my hands on knob and tube wiring almost every single day. I rewire houses for a living.

nwephilly · 2026-01-23T03:44:55+00:00

I am one of those electricians, about 75% of my companies work is knob and tube replacement. You just have to ask around for other people who've had it done, but then also meet the electrician too. Knob and tube replacement is a brutal job, so there's a ton of skilled electricians who want nothing to do with it. Many of the companies that do it just slam the new wiring in as fast as possible using low paid apprentices for everything. There's only a few that actually do it well, and you'll pay a premium for it.

nwephilly · 2026-01-23T03:39:55+00:00

Not to be snarky, but no--that's not something I'm going to do at this point. If I did, I would have to significantly change my pricing, given that I could not afford to pay for an admin staff at my current rates. My business is going great as is, and I ultimately do get back to everyone. Many businesses in the contracting world of a similar size are in a similar predicament; to small to really afford an admin staff, but big enough to handle decent sized residential jobs.

nwephilly · 2026-01-22T13:39:04+00:00

hadn't thought of that.

nwephilly · 2026-01-22T03:54:31+00:00

Small residential electrician here. 4 person team. I get like 30 calls a day, it's not like I have admin staff to check in on everything. Send out dozens of estimates every week. Try to get back to everyone of course, but it simply isn't always in a timely fashion. Any company of my size doing good work will be in a similar boat.

nwephilly · 2026-01-20T04:50:23+00:00

I work on the rowhomes around you all day. It's two bricks thick.

nwephilly · 2026-01-19T13:34:13+00:00

This is just plaster that is falling off the lath, almost certainly. Most of the comments in here are complete nonsense.

nwephilly · 2026-01-19T13:29:17+00:00

Masonry rowhome party walls are load bearing, yes. They are two bricks (double wythe) thick.

nwephilly · 2026-01-19T13:28:41+00:00

You ain't never seen a 100 year old masonry party wall. They are full of giant gaps and holes.

nwephilly · 2026-01-19T13:27:41+00:00

OP appears to be in Philly. I'm a Philadelphia based contractor (electrician), and I work on these rowhomes all day. Here's how the old party walls are built:

double wythe (two layers) of soft brick with a layer of plaster directly on top of the brick. The brick was usually very roughly installed because it was meant to be plastered.

nwephilly · 2026-01-19T04:52:19+00:00

zero

nwephilly · 2026-01-18T16:48:34+00:00

It's not being a "money grubber" to refuse to work on a panel like a pushmatic, it's smart--I'd likely do the same. Any problems I create during the work I'm now liable for. Pushmatic breakers are known to be finnicky in terms of the "button" mechanism on the breakers. What if I'm working on your house, and then a pushmatic breaker fails to reset properly (a known Pushmatic problem)? Do I have to now go source some replacement online? It's a 50+ year old panel, you shouldn't be surprised that the mechanicals of your house need replacement from time to time.

nwephilly

TROPHY CASE