Felis_Catus_Domesticus

not touching it (until you replace it) is a good game plan.

that eliminates breakage and just leaves rats as the unpredictable variable.

check out “knob and tube” wiring if you really don’t want to sleep well at night.

that stuff’s a horror show by today’s standards.

simple solutions are the best solutions.

keep it far enough from the house so that you don’t have tree trimming issues when the tree gets big or when a storm hits…

to not create a sealed environment since the homes that did have good insulation and a good seal generally had more ‘mysterious’ deaths that were attributed to ‘stale air’ and even brought back the term ‘miasma’ for a while.

use (ceiling) fans & turn the AC down. way down. heat rises. make the high ceilings work for you not against you. just like they did in the 1920’s.

plant shade trees to the south and wait a few years for them to grow?

old wiring is sketchy. materials degrade over time. plastic polymer technology used in insulators before the late 70’s was not what it is today. insulation on new wires will last 80++ years. The old stuff, not so much…

tongue AND groove.

using real timber so it’s probably not going to fall down

Nothing wrong with today’s lumber, but there’s a lot wrong with antique building standards of the 1920’s + lack of code enforcement + old carpenters attitude of “that’s the way it’s always been done” if they even knew the current/correct rules in the first place.

A lot of near furniture grade lumber was used in old houses because it was common and cheaply available- unlike now. But there is no special advantage to using it in old houses for structural purposes. Today’s houses are as engineered as automobiles are for cost and safety.

wasn’t an issue at the time older housing was built. US population was 1/3 what it is today. There was plenty of oil and electricity to go around for everybody.

Yeah noticed that myself.