Complete re-wire

[sigtauenus]

I have a 30 year old house and and like others have issues with multiple rooms and lighting being on one circuit.

As we progress and get more and more electronics, the problem only gets worse. Thank goodness I don't have girls or have to worry about curling irons.

Has anybody taken an old house and tore out all the drywall and rewired it from scratch? Other than the time and mess involved, it may be cheaper than hiring it out and physically easier than trying to fish wires through closed walls.

I was thinking that with some very carefull planning of circuits and accurate measuring of wire length that I could go one room at a time and pull all the wire to successive rooms as I go.

Is this one of those things better left alone? My wife wants to keep the house and this problem will only get worse as time goes on.

 

[hidollartoys]

You can do this, especially if you have sheetrock (drywall). Do you have a basement? Is it a single story? Is your attic accessible? You will not be required to remove all of the sheetrock to do a rewire.

 

[sigtauenus]

The house is on a slab, with attic access. The roof pitch is very shallow, you cannot reach the outer walls from the attic.

I assume you mean that you can selectively open up the walls to change the feed to specific circuits. If that is the case, I assume some effort is needed to identify what outlet/light is on what circuit, and how it is fed?

 

[GarageEnvy]

I did it. During the pre-purchase inspection of our house I climbed into the attic and noticed a TON of loose wires uncapped in the attic. Turns out almost all were hot and sitting in old wood fiber insulation. After chasing that stuff all over the attic and filling two garbage cans I ripped open one wall and found hot wires dangling in the walls uncapped. That was it. Ripped open every wall and pulled every circuit. We have/had Romex stapled to the studs so there really wasn't a better way. Upgraded the panel. Ditched the old Zinsco breakers and 55 year old rat chewed wiring and sleep far better at night. I did consult an electrician who had good recommendations on separating and in some cases consolidating circuits. Downside was like you said, HUGE mess, nasty attic work and just a general PIA to get wires where they needed to go in some cases. Also discovered the walls didn't have any insulation so two birds, one stone.

 

[z28snksknr]

I have 35+ year old aluminum wiring in my house and have been replacing when I can during remodeling projects. So far, I've pulled out over a dozen switches / outlets with burnt / melted wires where a fire has started in the boxes. I've also pulled out outlets that blow the breakers after taking the faceplates off because the faceplace was the only thing holding them together.

I can't afford to re-wire hte whole house, but I'm going to do what I can, when I can. Kudos to you for even considering taking on that kind of effort.

 

[Falcon67]

Unless there is some real requirement, the walls can stay intact. This is the second house I've had to completely rewire. My advice is to put a new service on the house and pull several sets of runs to a central location in the attic. Have a plan and you'll know how many runs you need. The big stuff (refer, dryer, any single circuit appliance or load) is pretty easy. Plan the move to you new service and connect your old service temporarily as a sub panel. You are then set up to start moving rooms, etc over to the new terminations. Its a PITA to fish in old walls but you'll get the hang of it. Knob-and-tube is the best since you get at least two fish wires to work with. I personally would not rip out all the walls in a house unless a) I saw a real danger that was concealed 2) I had a **** load of money or was retired and bored to tears or 3) a gun pointed at my head. And I'd argue with the gunman. I hate sheetrock work so much that given the choice of ripping apart the outside walls for insulation or tearing the siding off the house - I picked the siding.

 

[rodnok1]

First thing I would do is check to see what kind of wire you have, copper or alum.
You don't have to rewire the entire house, find the box that supplies the next room and isolate it by running new cable to it. In my last place it was outlets and they were back to back almost, so I cut the cable running between the two and stuffed it into the wall and fished a new one into the second outlet. Was a PITA but the LR and Bedroom were on the same circuit, big tv, stereo, space heater..pop goes the breaker.
For a kitchen that needs more power upgrade to a 20 amp circuit and run new wiring.

 

[GarageEnvy]

I hate sheetrock work so much that given the choice of ripping apart the outside walls for insulation or tearing the siding off the house - I picked the siding.

Totally agree with this statement but the what-if's running through my head with 3 small kids and my wife (not to mention myself) sleeping in the house were too much to bear. The really scary thing is that the guy I bought the house from was a quadraplegic. He had a motorized chair but if there had been a fire he would have been dead for sure.

 

[thirdmouse]

How big are your baseboards? You may be able to solve some access issues by pulling the baseboards up and drilling sideways holes in the studs and fishing the wire through there. Just be careful to put the wire in an area where you won't put a nail through it when putting the baseboards back down. You can easily put an outlet just about anywhere this way, or run extra light switches somewhere, even on a slab. It beats redoing drywall or plaster. It also saves a whole lot of wire over dropping a line from the attic everywhere you want an outlet.

 

[Falcon67]

Totally agree with this statement but the what-if's running through my head with 3 small kids and my wife (not to mention myself) sleeping in the house were too much to bear. The really scary thing is that the guy I bought the house from was a quadraplegic. He had a motorized chair but if there had been a fire he would have been dead for sure.

Oh, yes - you made the right pick. Sometimes you just gotta bite down. We were pretty luck with this house. It was 80% knob and tube with some of the silver "romex" tacked on. As re-wires go, not a bad deal. Took me about 3 months of nights and weekends. There is only one plug run that didn't get new wire because the old was trapped in the wall. The window and siding around that area will require replacement in the next couple of years and I'll deal with the plug then. My only "D'oh!" is that I used too small boxes in the attic to terminate new circuits. When I work the kitchen, I plan to replace several of the boxes with deep 4" items. I didn't allow enough room for expansion.

Another thing that I did appreciate over time is that when I fanned out in an area or ran several circuits, I nailed in new work plastic boxes as a termination point for each run in that area, put a lid on the boxes and labeled the lid with a circuit number and/or a description.

 

[RM209]

Ditto on Falcon 67's comments. When I installed central A/C in my house, I had to upgrade the breaker panel. During that exercise, I uncovered numerous electrical sins committed by the previous owners. While fixing those problems, I pulled several new circuits into the attic and terminated them in separate boxes to accommodate future growth.

If you haven’t done much electrical work, I’d recommend you invest in one of the $20 electrical books at Lowe’s. Overall, the electrical work was very enjoyable and time well spent.
RM209

 

[HoosierBuddy]

My 1918 farmhouse was partially upgraded when I bought it. They had taken out the fuse box and put in a 200 amp breaker box and run some new circuits, but all of the knob and tube was still hot and much of it was still in use.

I did not take out the plaster. I worked through existing access routes, drilled holes, pulled wire after wire after wire and got all of the knob and tube replaced and eventually got it all disconnected.

After I was done...I figured out that the easist way to do this would probably be to take out strategic sections of plaster (interior walls) in each room. If you were going to pay an electrician...you might want to remove all the plaster.

When doing this with the walls in place, every wire is like a puzzle. How to get from a to b? It takes a lot of time, patience, and some LONG LONG drill bits.

Phil