If you own your home for long enough, there will eventually come a time when you need to have some of your electrical circuits or your entire house rewired. The main reason that many people end up putting this project off is that they fear it requires extensive construction and/or will disrupt their lives for some time. While it’s true that rewiring isn’t necessarily easy, modern advancements have allowed the project to mostly be minimally invasive and not require removing much drywall.
How Do Electricians Rewire Behind Walls?
Rewiring some or all of a house is always easiest when you’re already performing major renovations since this usually includes tearing at least some of the drywall off of the walls and ceilings. That said, you can usually rewire at least most of the circuits in a home without needing to remove that much drywall or cut too many holes in the walls and ceilings. Sometimes it’s even possible to do the job without removing any drywall or pulling up any flooring, but this is uncommon.
In most cases, electricians can pull or “fish” many new wires into place through existing fixtures like lights, outlet boxes and switches. This involves feeding the new wiring down to the electrical panel from the attic or crawl space and then using a special tool to pull the wiring through the wall or ceiling to the opening left by the existing fixture. Before pulling the new wires, they will use a similar process to pull all of the old wiring out of the way.
Rewiring circuits in a basement or any other place that doesn’t have an attic directly above or a crawl space directly below is more difficult if the space doesn’t have a suspended ceiling with removable tiles. In this case, it will often be necessary for the electrician to cut a small hole in the top of the wall or the ceiling so that they can then fish the wire to each fixture.
There are also some situations where you’re better off cutting out sections of drywall to reduce the time and cost of the rewiring project. For instance, multiple outlets may be located fairly close together along the bottom of a wall or above your kitchen counter. In this situation, it’s fairly common for the outlets to be wired together in a “daisy chain.” That means you have one wire that leads to the first outlet that is then spliced together to the wire leading to the next outlet and so on. When rewiring the outlets, an electrician could just pull a new wire to each outlet and hook them all together inside a junction box. However, you’ll save time and need to use fewer materials if the electrician just cuts a small hole in the drywall so that they can daisy chain all of the outlets together. They may not need to cut out the entire section between each outlet, but it depends on whether they can fish the new wires through the existing holes in each wall stud.
An Overview of the Rewiring Process
Rewiring is a fairly time-consuming process, especially if you’re trying to cut out as little drywall as possible. The process and timeline depend on whether you want to be able to use your home while having it rewired. If you plan on staying elsewhere while your house is being rewired, the job will almost always take less time and be less expensive. In this situation, the electricians will have the power to your house shut off while they rewire each circuit and fixture.
Doing a “lived-in” rewire is far more difficult since it requires the electricians to go room by room so that you can still use most parts of your house throughout the project. In this case, the electricians usually won’t need to shut the power off to your entire house the entire time. Instead, they’ll just shut the power off to the circuit they’re working on. They’ll then need to temporarily shut off the power to the entire house by flipping the main breaker when connecting the new wires and circuit breaker to the electrical panel.
When considering whether you want to try and stay in your home while it’s being rewired, you need to think carefully about the time, cost and disruption to your life. Unless your home is fairly large, rewiring it when you’re away can usually be done in only a few days or a week at most. If you’re doing a lived-in rewire, the job could take up to two weeks or more and you’ll also have to deal with dust and possibly not being able to use certain parts of your house for certain periods.
How to Know if You Should Have Your Home Rewired
The age of your home and whether it’s been renovated in the past few decades are some of the biggest factors that can indicate whether rewiring is necessary. Electrical wires deteriorate over time and can eventually create a safety hazard. That’s why experts recommend rewiring a house every 25 years or so. While this may seem like a fairly short time, it can go a long way toward avoiding electrical fires and potential shocks or electrocution. It can also help to lower your electricity bills by ensuring your electrical system works more efficiently.
Very old homes may not have grounded outlets. This means that your home can be at risk of things like power surges. Most smart devices and computer-based items can be damaged unless you use a grounded outlet with a surge protector. Newer homes or wiring installations are required to have outlets grounded. They also have extra protections like GCFI outlets near water sources.
Frequent electrical issues like lights that often flicker or breakers that keep tripping are also a good sign that some circuits or your entire home should be rewired. Some sure signs that rewiring is necessary are if your home has aluminum wiring or still has an old fuse box and not a modern circuit breaker panel. Either of these issues can be a disaster waiting to happen, which means rewiring is not something you should put off.
The best way to know if your electrical system is safe or if you need to have your house rewired is with regular electrical safety inspections. Newer homes generally only need to have their electrical system inspected every few years other than when issues arise. If your electrical system is more than 25 years old, you’re better off having a full inspection performed yearly.
Beck Electric, Generators & Plumbing is a family-owned company that has been providing expert electrical services and plumbing services in Waynesburg and the Canton area since 2007. We specialize in rewiring both residential and commercial buildings and have what it takes to ensure your electrical system is fully safe and works exactly as it should. Whether you need an electrical panel inspection or any other service, contact us today and we’ll ensure everything is done correctly.
