Remove or terminate old wiring

[Portage_Bay]

When you remove something electrical and don't immediately reuse the wiring pull it out, terminate it correctly or cut it off short at the bulkhead. I like a lot of TFers have an older boat that has been "modified" by previous owners and the wiring looks like a ball of yarn the cat got after. It's bad enough just trying to chase circuits down. It's another matter when I'm working in a tight space full of spaghetti wiring to get a nasty surprise. It's happened twice in recent days.

For the benefit of those coming after you I'll repeat myself. Pull the old out, really how likely are you to reuse old wires? If you can't then terminate them properly. If you can't do that then cut them off short at the bulkead. At the very least disconnect them from the power source. It ain't that hard.

Please save the lecture about killing all the power. Then what? Work by head lamp and flashlight for hours if not days on end?

 

[Comodave]

On our current boat I have taken out hundreds of feet of unused wiring. Several of them were hot and had no over current protection.

 

[High Wire]

I'm 100 percent for removing the old wiring completely once you are sure you won't need it again. It makes tracing what is left easier and frees up room in the FB to lower station raceway for future changes. Everything in the pic below was deadended and left in the harness.

https://www.trawlerforum.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=40361&stc=1&thumb=1&d=1432238944

 

[PMF1984]

Take to a recycler, or leave at boatyard for them to recycle, copper is getting scarcer.

 

[Lepke]

Try it with an 80 years old boat. Miles of unused wires, under size wire, new plugins added to existing circuits w/o any consideration of the load. Instead of using subpanels, po's tried to run everything from the main panel in the engineroom in a long boat.

 

[Comodave]

Try it with an 80 years old boat. Miles of unused wires, under size wire, new plugins added to existing circuits w/o any consideration of the load. Instead of using subpanels, po's tried to run everything from the main panel in the engineroom in a long boat.

Gotta love POs...

 

[OldDan1943]

On my 1989 N46, it was about 8 years old when I bought it. When working on the electrical side, primarily 12vt, each day for a week I would take out 1/2 of a trash bag of unused wire and BUNCHES of wire ties.
AND more than a few wire nuts.

 

[rslifkin]

I go with remove when possible, cap and abandon if it can't be reasonably removed.

 

[Flatswing]

Can’t speak to (or condone) wire nuts but Most often it’s not the actual PO but the yard they employ. Think about it. They install a new doo dad. Not gonna risk warranty issues using old Wiring - run new wires since they are getting paid for it anyway. Remove old
Wires? Owner doesn’t want the added expense. Rinse & repeat over the years.

 

[OldDan1943]

Can’t speak to (or condone) wire nuts but Most often it’s not the actual PO but the yard they employ. Think about it. They install a new doo dad. Not gonna risk warranty issues using old Wiring - run new wires since they are getting paid for it anyway. Remove old
Wires? Owner doesn’t want the added expense. Rinse & repeat over the years.

Flatswing, wire nuts on a boat is a very loud NO NO NO
ANY yard knows that. If you find a yard that uses wire nuts, find another yard, quickly.

 

[tiltrider1]

First I determine if the wire has a potential future. If it does then I tag it with info as to where the other end terminates and which circuit breaker if relevant. Then I install a wire terminal, if not possible I cap the wire.

If the wire does not have a potential future I remove it completely.

I never leave live wires not connected at one end. If I can’t throw a circuit breaker or pull a fuse then I disconnect the wire from the power source.

For instance, I had a multi bank battery charger that was wired to my house and start battery. I changed the start battery to being charged by a DC to DC charger. I removed the battery charger wire from the battery, labeled it and capped it. I then disconnected the wire from the battery charger, labeled it and capped it as well. The wire is now available for future use should my DC to DC charger fail and I need to reconnect to the charger.

 

[boomerang]

Flatswing, wire nuts on a boat is a very loud NO NO NO
ANY yard knows that. If you find a yard that uses wire nuts, find another yard, quickly.

It's a no no no according to the ABYC die hard crowd. Common sense prevails in a lot of cases. There is no reason why a wire nut cant be used to terminate a dead/unused wire. I have had,for years without issue, wire nuts on a fresh water pump under our cockpit because it's a bear to access. The rest of the boat is wired in a way that would probably exceed ABYC's standards but I don't loose sleep worrying if my cables are bundled every 18" or if my AC cables are sheathed and bundled separately from the DC cables. Yes, good practices are important but I'm not going to stop using a boatyard if they don't bow to the almighty ABYC standards book.

 

[psneeld]

Thank you Boomerang.


A big difference between the luxury of building a new boat and restoring a boat you are currently living on.


With inferior materials and techniques, many of out trawlers survived 30+ years without burning or sinking.....when repairs are done with better materials and some better techniques.....I am confident in my safety for another 30+.


And for the rah rahs.....sure if I can meet or exceed when and where I can I will, but wont lose sleep over a well designed and installed repair that gets near the recommended or meets the spirit of the new safety practices as best possible.

 

[wkearney99]

I'm retrofitting some new chartplotters and autopilot. I didn't take a picture but I've got a similar PILE of cut zip ties.

One surprise was an actual Raymarine 4" display mounted UNDER the lower helm. Had a Seatalk cable ended to it from an NMEA-0183 bridge link to the plotters. My guess is it might have been installed to configure or translate for a long-since replaced depth sensor (current one is NMEA-2000).

Found a few dead-enders from past upgrades. Helm chair jog button for auto-pilot, old Simrad network cable and rudder indicator and the radar's ethernet cable.

Removing them it's always a simple decision. If they come out cleanly you're fine. But if they were zip-tied to other cables, or there's any sort of connectors inline it becomes a problem. Finding all the attachment points is a problem, especially if something 'clever' was done like pulling them as a bundle with zipties installed before the install. Or they've become braided with others through a conduit. You can sometimes cut out segments and pull those just as long as you can clearly identify the correct ones to cut!

So sometimes it's simpler to just identify them and tie off the extra.

 

[JDCAVE]

I have a pile of coaxial cable from a previous TV installation. There’s a pile in the fly bridge area and another in a cupboard in the Saloon. There is also a run of it in the engine room. We don’t watch TV and have no need for it, but I had left it in case some future owner wants it.

Is coaxial on a boat something that is now obsolete with satellite TV, or is it still useful for TV installations?

Jim

 

[Comodave]

I have a pile of coaxial cable from a previous TV installation. There’s a pile in the fly bridge area and another in a cupboard in the Saloon. There is also a run of it in the engine room. We don’t watch TV and have no need for it, but I had left it in case some future owner wants it.

Is coaxial on a boat something that is now obsolete with satellite TV, or is it still useful for TV installations?

Jim

I would get rid of it. It will free up room in the chases for new wiring. Also if I bought a boat and it had old coax or wiring that was unused, I would cut and pull it out and install new cable for the device. How could you trust the old cable lying there to work?

 

[wkearney99]

Just mind that you don't pull anything back that still has a connector on it. Otherwise you stand the chance of it snagging on other adjacent cabling and damaging it. Always best to cleanly cut off the ends if you're going to pull it out.

It'd be tempting to put a string on it, to help pull something else through later, and that can work... unless there's braiding that has happened while other cables were pulled and then you risk more tangling.

I find it useful to find places along the cable's route where I can push/pull slightly on it, to feel for how freely it'll move. If it won't, or worse, the whole bundle shifts, then I go looking for what's causing it to bind. I don't just yank harder to pull it out.

 

[Capt. Jon]

Any boat we've owned I have always removed the old wiring when installing new equipment. I do not want to be chasing something electrical and have to wade through old unterminated wiring. Once had an older larger outboard boat that was bought from the original owner. The boat had been through 3 sets of engines and 4 complete sets of electronics. When I finished removing all the old unterminated wiring from previous installs I wound up with two 33 gal black trash bags totally full of old wire. Figured I reduced the weight of the boat by 100 lbs and made under the console look fresh. Also saved me lots of headaches in the future.

If its old and unused it needs to go! Best to remove it.
YMMV

 

[mvweebles]

Not sure to make of this thread. The preponderance of opinion says more about the hi-post TF members and their knowledge than reality.

I don't think there is enough emphasis on just how difficult it is to keep wiring tidy offer the years, and just how expensive it is to correct messy wiring. I understand the desire, but there is a practical aspect that undermines.

As part of the refit of my small and relatively simple Willard 36, I had the entire boat rewired. Everything. Panels, wire, everything. Much of the klugey wiring was my hasty repairs over the years and I was just tired of looking at it. Despite the fact that it brings almost zero additional value to the boat, I spent a considerable amount to have it done. While I admire anyone who does similar work, I cannot recommend the expense given the cost/value of the work. Let's face it: for the most part, it provides almost no enhanced functionality.

Someday, someone will get a very nice Willard 36 for not a lot of money. In the meantime, I smile widely when I swing open my main panel.

Peter.

 

[rslifkin]

I agree, there's a point where trying to make it perfectly neat is just too much work. As long as it's functionally good, I can understand what goes where when I need to work on it, etc. then it's good enough. Anything beyond that is a nice bonus.

 

[Gdavid]

I agree whole heartedly with MVWeebles, the investment of doing your wiring correctly is unlikely to bring a return on your investment at sale, it will assure a smart buyer and improve a survey results but is unlikely to see any major impact to sale price. The owner who maintains his/her own systems is really the benefactor of their own investment, life is much more pleasant when things are properly arranged but for the owner who writes checks and doesn't dig through electrical cabinets, it is out of sight and out of mind until something goes wrong.

I prefer to use terminal blocks for my wiring connections near the location of the powered device, assuming that I have a dry location to do so. For example, in an aft bilge compartment, I'll locate one terminal block high, close to deck height and bring all wiring feeds to it, positive and negative with the wiring labeled. Usually the device I'm feeding will need it's factory leads extended which is simply through heat shrink butt connectors, then it connects to it's power feed at the terminal block. When that device needs to be replaced, it is easy to swap out with a screwdriver, I can even have a replacement device prepared with extended leads on hand as insurance. I would have no hesitation leaving wires to a terminal block unused if I no longer needed the device but may want to install something else later, as long as the wiring is in good shape and labeled.

In most cases, when I'm re-wiring, the wire has is not worth reusing and of unknown age so I remove it.

 

[OldDan1943]

Pete, you did it right. Far easier to trouble shoot.

 

[Capt. Jon]

Peter, I agree with you 100%. I’m sure the next owner of our boat will appreciate it. I will say I now feel much better sleeping at night on the boat! Gdavid, your concept and mine run about the same. I use terminal blocks where I can. Since we will normally own a boat 8 to 10 years it makes my life much easier when it’s time to replace the device at the end of the wire. It always seems that item always breaks at the worst possible place and time. I have my spares ready and the amount of time needed to do the replacement is minimal.

 

[psneeld]

There's a reason why a certain look is often called "factory"....it's the only time it's practical.

 

[Constellation1]

I always remove it. My rationale is that even when well labeled wires going nowhere can be confusing in the future.

 

[Iggy]

I'm 100 percent for removing the old wiring completely once you are sure you won't need it again. It makes tracing what is left easier and frees up room in the FB to lower station raceway for future changes. Everything in the pic below was deadended and left in the harness.

https://www.trawlerforum.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=40361&stc=1&thumb=1&d=1432238944

Same problem and removing old wires. In come cases I sent a tone though the wire so I could find the other end.

 

[socalrider]

I found that the process of removing old wire from my boat was actually pretty satisfying, and a good way to get familiar with the vessel after I bought it. It's pretty easy to do. I certainly wouldn't pay someone to do it, or recommend a full re-wire. I must have removed several hundred feet of crap, mostly zip tied together.

Of course, in the process of doing this I found lots and lots of safety issues that needed to be resolved, and ended up re-wiring a fair bit. I had wire nuts *in the bilge* (shudder).

 

[Marco Flamingo]

I found that the process of removing old wire from my boat was actually pretty satisfying, and a good way to get familiar with the vessel after I bought it.

That's what I've been going through. My electronics were old, so in updating them I'm already chasing wires around (with a label maker with me). My PO must have had stock in zip tie companies. I've cut hundreds in removing +200 feet of abandoned wire from a 30' boat.

Some abandoned wires I have left because they are zip tied into a bundle. For instance, originally an unfused wire left the alternator to the upper helm ammeter, then to the lower, then to the panel. Too much work to unzip tie all of that when the ammeter was replaced with a voltmeter. I disconnected, folded over the last inch, wrapped with electrical tape, and then labeled "ABND FB AMMETER."

I heard Jeff Cote of Pacific Yacht Systems answer a question about injuries to himself or crew when working on boat electrical systems. He said the vast majority of injuries were from zip ties. Cut off the long tail and it makes a sharp little shiv that can tear your skin. Yep.

What I have replaced them with is lengths of spiral wire wrapping (here is some big stuff that isn't spiral). What I don't do is use long lengths to mummify the entire wire bundle. Pick a size that wraps tight around the bundle and use 4 inches every foot or so. It will grip the wires together just like a zip tie, but easily removed, easy to reuse, and no sharp edges. It even makes a tidy way to send out branch lines as per the picture on Amazon.

 

[socalrider]

I heard Jeff Cote of Pacific Yacht Systems answer a question about injuries to himself or crew when working on boat electrical systems. He said the vast majority of injuries were from zip ties. Cut off the long tail and it makes a sharp little shiv that can tear your skin. Yep.

Good sharp flush cut dykes will not leave that shiv. My problem is that by the time I'm zip tying I'm usually tired of the project and rushing to get it buttoned up, so I grab whatever's nearby...

 

[JDCAVE]

What I have replaced them with is lengths of Spiral wrap

My preference is a braided weave product for wire bundles.

Jim