Updating Wiring in Older Homes

sleuth

Livin' Like Thanksgivin'
If I were to hire an electrician to update all the wiring to current building codes (including the addition of grounding) in say... a 3000 sq. ft., 100-year-old Queen Anne Victorian home, what could I expect to pay?

Are they able to do it nondestructively? Do they snake the wires through the walls or would it involve punching a bunch of holes in the walls?

Just wondering what I'd be getting myself into with buying an older home. And whether I should/could use it as a negotiation tactic in the buying process.
 
sleuth said:
If I were to hire an electrician to update all the wiring to current building codes (including the addition of grounding) in say... a 3000 sq. ft., 100-year-old Queen Anne Victorian home, what could I expect to pay?

Are they able to do it nondestructively? Do they snake the wires through the walls or would it involve punching a bunch of holes in the walls?

Just wondering what I'd be getting myself into with buying an older home. And whether I should/could use it as a negotiation tactic in the buying process.
I assume you expect to get answers related to Southern Maryland... is that really going to do you any good... :eyebrow:
 

jwwb2000

pretty black roses
sleuth said:
If I were to hire an electrician to update all the wiring to current building codes (including the addition of grounding) in say... a 3000 sq. ft., 100-year-old Queen Anne Victorian home, what could I expect to pay?

Are they able to do it nondestructively? Do they snake the wires through the walls or would it involve punching a bunch of holes in the walls?

Just wondering what I'd be getting myself into with buying an older home. And whether I should/could use it as a negotiation tactic in the buying process.

Hope ya got deep pockets :yay: Having electrical work on your home can be quiet costly. Luckily when we deicide to buy a house, both myself and my husband are knowledgable to do the wiring ourselves.
 

Mikeinsmd

New Member
sleuth said:
If I were to hire an electrician to update all the wiring to current building codes (including the addition of grounding) in say... a 3000 sq. ft., 100-year-old Queen Anne Victorian home, what could I expect to pay?
Are they able to do it nondestructively? Do they snake the wires through the walls or would it involve punching a bunch of holes in the walls? Just wondering what I'd be getting myself into with buying an older home. And whether I should/could use it as a negotiation tactic in the buying process.
The cost to completely rewire is prohibitive. You would have holes everywhere. What you can do from a safety aspect is have GFCI (Ground Fault Circuit Interupter) receptacles installed on the 1st recept. of the circuit. It will then protect all receptacles downstream of it on the same circuit.

These are already required within 6 feet of a kitchen sink and in all bathrooms and anywhere directly accessable to grade level (outdoors, garage).

I would think the bank & insurance companies would require the seller to do this before the home inspection.
 

Mikeinsmd

New Member
jwwb2000 said:
Hope ya got deep pockets :yay: Having electrical work on your home can be quiet costly. Luckily when we deicide to buy a house, both myself and my husband are knowledgable to do the wiring ourselves.
Better not get caught doing it without a permit.... :yay:
 

sleuth

Livin' Like Thanksgivin'
kwillia said:
I assume you expect to get answers related to Southern Maryland... is that really going to do you any good... :eyebrow:
I'm guessing they'll be relatively similar in price give or take 10%. :shrug:
I have a cousin and uncle who are both licensed electricians, just can't get hold of them right now and I'm curious.
 

BabyGurl1978

Gone Crazy
Mikeinsmd said:
The cost to completely rewire is prohibitive. You would have holes everywhere. What you can do from a safety aspect is have GFCI (Ground Fault Circuit Interupter) receptacles installed on the 1st recept. of the circuit. It will then protect all receptacles downstream of it on the same circuit.

These are already required within 6 feet of a kitchen sink and in all bathrooms and anywhere directly accessable to grade level (outdoors, garage).

I would think the bank & insurance companies would require the seller to do this before the home inspection.



:howdy: I had a home inspection done and could not figure out what GFCI meant or what I should do about it? This information you provided me I believe helped my curiousity. Now back to reading the home inspection report. Thanks.
 

sleuth

Livin' Like Thanksgivin'
Mikeinsmd said:
The cost to completely rewire is prohibitive. You would have holes everywhere. What you can do from a safety aspect is have GFCI (Ground Fault Circuit Interupter) receptacles installed on the 1st recept. of the circuit. It will then protect all receptacles downstream of it on the same circuit.

These are already required within 6 feet of a kitchen sink and in all bathrooms and anywhere directly accessable to grade level (outdoors, garage).

I would think the bank & insurance companies would require the seller to do this before the home inspection.
My main concerns are grounding, and the need to run more modern appliances on a circuit without overloading. And I read somewhere about the refridgerator and other appliances not being able to run on the same line.

Also, I'm looking at four houses, and a couple of them only have 1 or 2 outlets per room. I wanted to get that up-to-date, also.
 

Mikeinsmd

New Member
sleuth said:
My main concerns are grounding, and the need to run more modern appliances on a circuit without overloading. And I read somewhere about the refridgerator and other appliances not being able to run on the same line.

Also, I'm looking at four houses, and a couple of them only have 1 or 2 outlets per room. I wanted to get that up-to-date, also.
The GFCI will compensate for the lack of a ground wire.

As far as appliances go, A fridge goes on a kitchen circuit which should be 20 amps. A kitchen is required to have (2) 20 amp circuits across the counter & in the dining room. You should identify which outlets are on different circuits & spread the load out across the two. Try not to plug everything into one circuit.

If the house has a crawl space, the outlets can be added fairly easily with minimal destruction.
 

BOHDEN

New Member
sleuth said:
If I were to hire an electrician to update all the wiring to current building codes (including the addition of grounding) in say... a 3000 sq. ft., 100-year-old Queen Anne Victorian home, what could I expect to pay?

Are they able to do it nondestructively? Do they snake the wires through the walls or would it involve punching a bunch of holes in the walls?

Just wondering what I'd be getting myself into with buying an older home. And whether I should/could use it as a negotiation tactic in the buying process.


my brother in law is an electrician maybe he can give you some idea
 

sleuth

Livin' Like Thanksgivin'
Mikeinsmd said:
The GFCI will compensate for the lack of a ground wire.

As far as appliances go, A fridge goes on a kitchen circuit which should be 20 amps. A kitchen is required to have (2) 20 amp circuits across the counter & in the dining room. You should identify which outlets are on different circuits & spread the load out across the two. Try not to plug everything into one circuit.

If the house has a crawl space, the outlets can be added fairly easily with minimal destruction.
Thanks for the info.
Also read the same thing about bathrooms too.
 

sleuth

Livin' Like Thanksgivin'
RoseRed said:
I thought you wanted to build a new old house?
I looked into it in my area and it's cost-prohibitive.

To build a Victorian-style home of at least 2000 sq. ft. in my area costs upwards of $250K, and that's without the land. :ohwell:

These older ones have an additional 500-1000 sq. ft. at under $200K, lot included. The hard part is finding out how much work needs done on them.
 

Steve

Enjoying life!
sleuth said:
My main concerns are grounding, and the need to run more modern appliances on a circuit without overloading. And I read somewhere about the refridgerator and other appliances not being able to run on the same line.
They won't usually. But you can take and split the wire from the appliance and run two separate cords to two separate outlets.

Also, I'm looking at four houses, and a couple of them only have 1 or 2 outlets per room. I wanted to get that up-to-date, also.
Lowe's sells all kinds of extension cords in the electrical aisle. You got all kinds of options to turn that one or two into ten or twenty!
 
Top