>>18969776Higher levels of current were fire and electrocution hazards with knob&tube wiring. You just had this shit exposed on people’s walls, attics, and crawl spaces.
From there it was inertia.
We had many American towns that didn’t force people to upgrade from fuses, K&T, or 80 amp 110v service until almost 100 to 120 years after electricity was in.
You wouldn’t know bout it if you haven’t had to upgrade all of this shit to breakers conduit etc by city order under threat of fines and condemnation in a couple of 120-150 year old houses.
It’s “easy” to do but not for my elderly neighbors who paid someone $35000 in 1990s dollars to do it.