Comments on: Home Inspection Questions - Electrical (Part 2)

By: Ethan

Ethan — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 15:34:48 +0000

Why S, Amalie,
I guess it is tough to compare. It depends on the size and type of your home. Along with how much work your willing to tackle yourself. Thanks for all the great feedback.

By: Amalie

Amalie — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 14:28:29 +0000

Our $14k estimate was the top end. There was also a $7-10k estimate from the guy we went with, depending on what the city demanded. And these were the ONLY 2 guys to call us back out of probably 10. We ended up paying $5k for rewire, a few new circuits and a breaker box. We went ahead and stripped the old fixtures and boxes ourselves…Our house is about 1450 ft2, but it was going to cost more because all our exterior walls are brick and mortar– they’re not hollow, so a big chunk of cost would go to drill bits to bring up to code. In the end, the inspector grandfathered our floor outlets. So tough to compare us too!

By: Why S?

Why S? — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 07:07:56 +0000

I think the total cost to update wiring on the whole house was around $9k. He didn’t do it all at once though. He came in for about 3 or 4 different periods over 5 years. We have a smallish house, under 1200 sf. And my husband did a lot of the less drastic work himself, after the pro laid the groundwork. Plus, we had a lot of copper wire that we inherited from his DIYer step-dad. So it’s tough to compare.

By: Ethan

Ethan — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 23:28:07 +0000

Why S,
I like the idea of show-casing some for history. Did the cost seem in line with the quote Amalie reported?

By: Why S?

Why S? — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 21:17:22 +0000

Like Amalie, I too was terrified of the K&T wiring that came with our house. I remember the first time I plugged in the vacuum. I think I gritted my teeth and closed my eyes. We’ve since replaced it all, but we are leaving some non-working artifacts that we’ll leave exposed. They’ll be historical conversation pieces.

By: Amalie

Amalie — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 14:56:48 +0000

I was terrified when I found out that our house had K&T and a rewire was quoted in the $14k range…so we did a lot of investigating. Romex is certainly preferable, and you never know what POs have done to a house, but it’s not always as bad as its reputation. The trouble with insuring a K&T house can be enough to rewire, though! It took us a lot of calling around.

By: Ethan

Ethan — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 14:45:55 +0000

Amalie,

Thanks for the feedback. I’ll update the post with your information. Sounds like you have a good deal of experience with K & T wiring.

By: Amalie

Amalie — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 13:55:01 +0000

Sorry! One more thing…Electricians who do older homes and who LIKE older homes are great. The guys who do new construction hate jobs like rewiring an old house, so you’re lucky if they even call you back; and if they do call back, they’re going to quote you so high, you won’t want to use them.

By: Amalie

Amalie — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 13:48:08 +0000

Ooohhh! The dreaded knob and tube. The bane of our existence, though not for the reasons you’d think. A few of the things I know about it, cause I think it gets kind of a bad rap… Knob and tube is actually made of copper– the 1950s stuff is the crappy aluminum. In fact, our K&T was of the appropriate gauge and was of a purer copper than modern wiring– in other words, it conducted better. The problems with overheating only come when they’ve been covered with insulation or the like; the wires air cool and too much covering too close to the wires causes the problem. The overheating also happens when the gauge is too small for our modern appliance load.

Since we knew that it is actually a great system if taken care of properly, we hired an inspector familiar with older homes– he’s actually a neighbor. Every house he’s ever lived in had K&T, and he was a very DIY kind of guy. (BTW– I’d definitely do that again– it was a huge benefit to hire someone with knowledge of the neighborhood, of living in older homes, and of the DIY mentality). Our K&T was in good shape, but due to a number of problems with the city inspectors (I won’t go into the details, they’re on the blog!) we had to rewire the whole house– NOT because it was K&T, but because we had exposed some of the wires when we took out the kitchen plaster and they have squirrely definitions of 50% of the wiring.

We didn’t want to rewire, but our electrician hates the city and was sympathetic to our financial constraints; he made it known to us what kinds of things might make his job easier and cheaper. Also, most cities have some provisions for grandfathering in a lot of things that would be difficult to bring up to code (and code isn’t always a safety issue– sometimes it’s a way to keep the industry employed). So we got out of the deal paying less than half the cost of the other estimates we had received.

Overall, it’s nice to know we can plug everything in safely and never have trouble with insuring the house or selling it down the road. Seeing other things the POs did, I wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d done a lot of these no-nos! All worked out in the end. (Sorry– very long comment! But a subject very near and dear to my heart…and my pocketbook!)