I have a new tenant to the newly acquired building.. On top of leaky roof and low cold water volume, she showed me a video of bathroom light gets brighter and darker on it own, she also stated that around dinner time, half of the ceiling lights/outlet went dimmer and out, then came back on its own.

We all heard of flickering lights due to loose wire. What would have caused the symptom she described.. (She invited me to stay late, which I haven't done so since I am 1 hour away and need to educate myself on that first)

Some wires are on knob & Tube. I did notice the hack job of wiring.. Two 30AMP wires from basement to 3rd floor on top of a 50AMP for the electric stove. One 2-30AMP goes to a sub panel which only has three 15amp breakers wired without ground (subpanel has to wire the netural and ground on separate bar, should be 3-30A wire minimal) The other 30AMP wire I have no idea. Some outlets are on new wire, all got their ground wire cut, whoever did the job had no idea about electricity.

Will figure out which breaker ties to what shortly. Will have to rewire eventually. My electrician just did the hardwire smoke and is aware of all the odd wiring in the basement and upstairs.

Re wire the building now...avoid serious, I mean serious problems later.

Did you have the building inspected prior to close of escrow?

If not, remember doing so next time.

Half of my properties are on knob and tube, and none has started a fire yet..

I am not sweating that.. knob and tube has been here more than 100 years.. the percentage of house burnt down is .... Not that I am looking for that..

Just wonder about the electric issue..

Elliot - I would possibly call National Grid - my daughter's condo building had an electrical issue a few years back and it was "half the building was fine, the other half seemed to be on half power". This was after a storm and no one could figure out what was going on. National Grid came out and it was a transformer.

Then last year - a building here in December - a new tenant moved in. When I was there on the move-in during the day everything was fine. Then they called later and said "our stove (which is electric) isn't working". I went and checked to make sure it was plugged in and it was a bit odd - the time, etc all worked but the burners wouldn't operate. I went to the breaker box and just checked the breakers. Turned them off then back on. No difference. This also affected their bathroom lights (not bright - very dim or wouldn't work at all).

I had no idea so I called my electrician to come out and check it out. By the time he was there - all was working good again. However - another tenant in a different apartment (same building) called and said that their stove wasn't working. The electrician was still there. So he checked that out. He then checked the electric meters and the panels and they were not operating (voltage was way off) and it was affecting ALL apartments in the building.

I called National Grid to have them come out and there was a branch from the tree near the road rubbing on the wire. They had to replace it (and trimmed the tree back some).