Redoing electrical - thoughts?

[Spook50]

If funds allow, this year I'd like to have the electrical (everything downstream of the service panel) completely redone in my house. The majority of the wiring is very old with either a very small gauge ground wire, or no ground at all, and a lot of circuits are all manner of screwed up from halfassing by previous contractors or just s***ty band-aid fixes by previous owners. Ideally, I'd like to have it done room by room, with each room having its own circuit (maybe combine two bedrooms at a time if necessary); 20A for the kitchen, 20A for garage, 20A for exterior power/lighting, 15A for each other room, and either 15A or 20A for the living room and theater room. I'm sure this is a big undertaking and I have no intention (or desire, ha) to do it myself so I'd hire an electrician.

For those of you with residential electrical experience, is this even a realistic/feasible thing to do without completely butchering every wall in the house? I'm sure several will have to be cut into, and that's fine. But obviously the less cutting the better.

I'm sure cost is gonna be ugly too, so I'm not even gonna ask what you guys think something like this could end up costing...

 

[Koffer]

I'm sure cost is gonna be ugly too, so I'm not even gonna ask what you guys think something like this could end up costing...

The biggest thing $$$ will be the type of house , ranch with attic and basement is alot less the a 2 story split level . Like you side the house is older so who knows what type of cross bracing might be hiding in the walls .

 

[-Spike-]

Feasible, yes. Talk to your contractor of choice, anything you hear here is pure guesswork.

 

[D'Animal]

I'm not an electrician but I did build custom homes for 5 years. We dug the basement all the way to installing the kitchen sink to pouring the sidewalk.

I bought my first house in 1988. It was built in the late 1800's. In 1912 it was moved 700 feet. Closer to the outhouse I guess. Sometime electrical was added. In 1951 the house was jacked up and a basement was added. indoor plumbing was added at the same time.

I started to remodel and found the electrical was pole and knob style with cloth sheilded wiring through out the house. I hired tried an electrician to change out the 60 amp panel with screw in glass fuses to a 200amp service with actual breakers.

I tried doing the remodel room by room but the electrical was a PITA. The plaster and lathe boards were 2" thick in some areas. I assume to make up for a few alignment issues after the house was moved?

I ended up gutting 1/2 of the house, installing insulation, new electrical wiring (to code), upgraded the plumbing and added and new sheetrock. Yes, I lived in a construction zone for awhile, LOL.

That is the only way I could see doing it correctly.

 

[LAMBCRUSHER]

If funds allow, this year I'd like to have the electrical (everything downstream of the service panel) completely redone in my house. The majority of the wiring is very old with either a very small gauge ground wire, or no ground at all, and a lot of circuits are all manner of screwed up from halfassing by previous contractors or just s***ty band-aid fixes by previous owners. Ideally, I'd like to have it done room by room, with each room having its own circuit (maybe combine two bedrooms at a time if necessary); 20A for the kitchen, 20A for garage, 20A for exterior power/lighting, 15A for each other room, and either 15A or 20A for the living room and theater room. I'm sure this is a big undertaking and I have no intention (or desire, ha) to do it myself so I'd hire an electrician.

For those of you with residential electrical experience, is this even a realistic/feasible thing to do without completely butchering every wall in the house? I'm sure several will have to be cut into, and that's fine. But obviously the less cutting the better.

I'm sure cost is gonna be ugly too, so I'm not even gonna ask what you guys think something like this could end up costing...

Where you be? I got license and bond in California.....

 

[LandCruiserPhil]

Small ground wire in older romex would not bother me(not unsafe). A non grounded system means your house was built in the late 50's or early 60's if you are out west. With that said you more then likely have plaster walls and ceiling with wallboard with holes in it. If this is the case you biggest problem is your walls suck to work with and you need someone that understands your age home $$$$. If it was me I would address the areas that are giving you problems regularly and make sure the existing wiring is fused properly and enjoy life.

 

[Spook50]

Small ground wire in older romex would not bother me(not unsafe). A non grounded system means your house was built in the late 50's or early 60's if you are out west. With that said you more then likely have plaster walls and ceiling with wallboard with holes in it. If this is the case you biggest problem is your walls suck to work with and you need someone that understands your age home $$$$. If it was me I would address the areas that are giving you problems regularly and make sure the existing wiring is fused properly and enjoy life.

You guessed it. House was built in '57. Alot of wiring has been added since then, which is up to code, but hell if I can find any rhyme or reason to why the circuits were routed the way they were. Luckily all the walls are drywall, with no plaster. I guess whenever they were all redone, they didn't care about updating the electrical

Lambcrusher, we're in eastern WA.

 

[LandCruiserPhil]

You guessed it. House was built in '57. Alot of wiring has been added since then, which is up to code, but hell if I can find any rhyme or reason to why the circuits were routed the way they were. Luckily all the walls are drywall, with no plaster. I guess whenever they were all redone, they didn't care about updating the electrical

Lambcrusher, we're in eastern WA.

Dont feel alone the same can be said about a lot of brand new homes built today.

 

[Shanecc68]

I'm owner of SCC electrical license.#800091 c-10. Currently RME at major Solar group in OC. SMALL GROUND wire is permissible or acceptable to code and electrical engineering. Old and new construction code allows for downsizing of electrical wire.
I just started a 85 toy 4runner build. If you've a skill set or parts or some form of barter I can assist. Lol. I'm assuming your in so California. Where are you.

85 Toyota 4runner OC status READY.

 

[LAMBCRUSHER]

You guessed it. House was built in '57. Alot of wiring has been added since then, which is up to code, but hell if I can find any rhyme or reason to why the circuits were routed the way they were. Luckily all the walls are drywall, with no plaster. I guess whenever they were all redone, they didn't care about updating the electrical

Lambcrusher, we're in eastern WA.

I love it up there. When were you hoping to get rolling on this? A job like this can't really be quoted or estimated to within a degree of accuracy, most guys would say time and materials. Depending on the square footage and number of circuits and just how fubarred it is and just how custom you want things done, something like this could take a couple guys a couple to 4 weeks to complete depending on how much can be opened and left till the job is done at any given time. A circuit per room is a bit overkill.....what is the building? a single story, or? is there attic access and/or a crawl space?

 

[Spook50]

I love it up there. When were you hoping to get rolling on this? A job like this can't really be quoted or estimated to within a degree of accuracy, most guys would say time and materials. Depending on the square footage and number of circuits and just how fubarred it is and just how custom you want things done, something like this could take a couple guys a couple to 4 weeks to complete depending on how much can be opened and left till the job is done at any given time. A circuit per room is a bit overkill.....what is the building? a single story, or? is there attic access and/or a crawl space?

It's a rancher with basement, with easy attic access. I was starting to think one circuit per room might be overkill. Maybe thinking combining the two bathrooms to share one, and then four of the five bedrooms into two circuits would maybe make things easier. Not sure though. I'll be calling around and seeing what some of the local guys would recommend/advise once I'm actually at the point of being able to have it done.

 

[-Spike-]

It's nice to have dedicated circuits per bathroom, two hair dryers/curling irons can overload a 20 amp circuit. I recently did my house, each room got its own outlet circuit, each floor got its own lighting circuit (tri-level) and the kitchen got 5 circuits. Lighting is separate so if I blow a breaker running something in an outlet I'm not in the dark.

 

[Spook50]

It's nice to have dedicated circuits per bathroom, two hair dryers/curling irons can overload a 20 amp circuit. I recently did my house, each room got its own outlet circuit, each floor got its own lighting circuit (tri-level) and the kitchen got 5 circuits. Lighting is separate so if I blow a breaker running something in an outlet I'm not in the dark.

Good point on the bathrooms, and especially the lighting versus receptacles. I hate working on something and having to limit my work to either daytime or using a damn flashlight.

 

[splitshot]

It's nice to have dedicated circuits per bathroom, two hair dryers/curling irons can overload a 20 amp circuit. I recently did my house, each room got its own outlet circuit, each floor got its own lighting circuit (tri-level) and the kitchen got 5 circuits. Lighting is separate so if I blow a breaker running something in an outlet I'm not in the dark.

Crazy how easy it is to fill panel space...
Oversize.. I wish I would have dedicated exrta runs for things like switchable circuts for the Christmas lights.

 

[nspctr1]

My brother in law and I rewired my wives grandmothers house. It's on pier and beam and has a decent attic so access was good. Funny thing is, is most of the wiring was run underneath the house and the lighting was run up the wall and into the attic and then down the walls. We left the original boxes in place, used the old wiring to fish the new wire thru and hooked everything up. Two days and we were done. We even upgraded the panel to account for updating the kitchen and bath... As mentioned earlier, the damned walls were the toughest part to work through when we added a few plugs for cable TV etc....

 

[LandCruiserPhil]

My brother in law and I rewired my wives grandmothers house. It's on pier and beam and has a decent attic so access was good. Funny thing is, is most of the wiring was run underneath the house and the lighting was run up the wall and into the attic and then down the walls. We left the original boxes in place, used the old wiring to fish the new wire thru and hooked everything up. Two days and we were done. We even upgraded the panel to account for updating the kitchen and bath... As mentioned earlier, the damned walls were the toughest part to work through when we added a few plugs for cable TV etc....

Thats amazing when it takes 2 days for 2 guys that do it every day to rough in a new track house.

 

[Ebag333]

My brother in law and I rewired my wives grandmothers house. It's on pier and beam and has a decent attic so access was good. Funny thing is, is most of the wiring was run underneath the house and the lighting was run up the wall and into the attic and then down the walls.

Sounds like my house. Exactly the same with wiring underneath, then pulled up through the walls and back down. It was rewired at one point with romex and I suspect old wiring was used to fished the wire through as a lot of the boxes are/were old.

For rewiring, that's one route to go, and not a bad one. The other is rip open the walls.

If you have any other reason to open up the walls, I'd go that route. Gives you an opportunity to upgrade/install insulation, add/move outlets if you so desire, etc. Some of the drywall they're offering now is cool, stuff that seriously dampens sound or you can go with the 5/8" firewall stuff (seriously heavy, but helps dampen sound a ton).

I've done both, prefer to tear open the walls. It's a lot cleaner and easier install, you're not compromising on location or setup. Gives you a chance to do whatever you want.

As I've been told before, drywall and paint is cheap. It's more work, but gives you the opportunity to do a lot of upgrades you might not otherwise.

 

[LAMBCRUSHER]

ideally, it would all be done within the framing from below or above. SOMETIMES the framing requires some access thru the wall, but any good electrician would not consider it unless there was no other way or the walls were to be torn into otherwise. the second story is usually where opening up wall and ceil;ings becomes necessary. sometime the fixtures can be strategically placed thus giving small openings that will be filled in by boxes and fixture trims instead of cutting arbitrary holes thru which to fish

 

[Jetboy]

I'd agree with what's been said. Should be able to do 95% w/o any drywall work. Almost any outlet or light can be reached by going either up or down through the walls. I wouldn't expect much fire blocking in a 1957 home.

If you're going to attempt yourself, make sure you plan your circuits well before hand and use a good reference book for help. That way you can end up with a professional result, and probably a lot less breakers than you think.

The kitchen will be the worst. If you want to do it right, you'll need separate circuits for the micro, the ridge, the range (240v), the DW, the vent hood, and then the outlets and lights. My kitchen I just remodeled has 4 light circuits. All together it takes up about 50% of the breakers for the entire house.

 

[LAMBCRUSHER]

jumpin jimminy! 4 lighting circuits in a kitchen???? you guys gettin a tan in there or what? the fridge, microwave, and and dishwasher/disposal(together) all get dedicated 20 ampers, then you have you range(maybe 240, maybe 120 for gas /electric and the vent hood) then at least 2 more circuits for counter top appliances.....and a 15 amp lighting circuit can handle 1800 watts of light bulbs- a 20 is capable of 2400 watts. DO NOT mix 12 and 14 gauge wire within the same circuit- even after light switches only feeding a single low watt bulb. ALL CONDUCTORS IN A CIRCUIT MUST BE RATED FOR THE FULL LOAD OF THE OVERCURRENT PROTECTION FEEDING ANY GIVEN CIRCUIT. so don't feed a light w/14 gauge if the switch is being fed by a 20 amp circuit with #12 wire.....amazing how often I see this type o s***- even by 'lectricians.