My wife wants us to redo the kitchen. My job is to keep the expenses from going way out of hand. I am quoted cost to just redo the kitchen and dining room wiring at $16k. Way too much than what I expected. I thought that rewiring the whole house would be $20K, so that much for just the kitchen was a shocker even for NJ cost of living.
I have a new 200A panel already. Most of the existing wiring is old BX from the 50ties plus some new Romex from about 20-25 years ago. What that means is that the gas stove and the microwave are on the same circuit. The fridge and the lights are also together. I already have the required two GFCI circuits at the counters. My questions are:
1. If an outlet gets removed from an old circuit, does that circuit need to be brought up to code now? The old BX wiring is such that one breaker feeds one outlet in the dining room, one in each of the two bedrooms above and the lights in one of the bedrooms. Can the old outlet just be removed from the circuit (wires properly capped, etc.) and leave the rest of the circuit alone? A new circuit will provide for the required outlets in the dining room.
2. House is plaster with a lot of wood paneling and moldings and I would like to keep the necessary repairs to minimum. The runs from the panel to the kitchen are the longest possible (opposite corners of the house). I am interested in offering the electrician to pull the MC cables (my preference over Romex) through the cavities for him in order to minimize the damage to the walls and the wood. I would not install the boxes or connect any wires or do anything that inspectors check during the rough inspection -- that is the electrician's job to do. I realize this varies from person to person, but is this something a reasonable tradesman would agree to? Is this absolute no no?
The reason why I want to pull the wires myself is bad prior experience with electricians, who know their trade well, but not the rest. The guy that installed the new panel drilled through concrete then patched it with insulating foam (I did not watch him and he concealed it well enough that I did not notice). A few years later I had a leak on my electrical panel through his patch (top of slab is exposed to the elements) and had to tear up the whole slab and have it poured again just because of the horrible hole and patchup he did. While I have not done plaster, I have skimcoated walls and done finishing decorative carpentry, so I expect to have better handle on those than the average electrician and a better idea what is easy and what is hard to repair after the cables are in.
I have a new 200A panel already. Most of the existing wiring is old BX from the 50ties plus some new Romex from about 20-25 years ago. What that means is that the gas stove and the microwave are on the same circuit. The fridge and the lights are also together. I already have the required two GFCI circuits at the counters. My questions are:
1. If an outlet gets removed from an old circuit, does that circuit need to be brought up to code now? The old BX wiring is such that one breaker feeds one outlet in the dining room, one in each of the two bedrooms above and the lights in one of the bedrooms. Can the old outlet just be removed from the circuit (wires properly capped, etc.) and leave the rest of the circuit alone? A new circuit will provide for the required outlets in the dining room.
2. House is plaster with a lot of wood paneling and moldings and I would like to keep the necessary repairs to minimum. The runs from the panel to the kitchen are the longest possible (opposite corners of the house). I am interested in offering the electrician to pull the MC cables (my preference over Romex) through the cavities for him in order to minimize the damage to the walls and the wood. I would not install the boxes or connect any wires or do anything that inspectors check during the rough inspection -- that is the electrician's job to do. I realize this varies from person to person, but is this something a reasonable tradesman would agree to? Is this absolute no no?
The reason why I want to pull the wires myself is bad prior experience with electricians, who know their trade well, but not the rest. The guy that installed the new panel drilled through concrete then patched it with insulating foam (I did not watch him and he concealed it well enough that I did not notice). A few years later I had a leak on my electrical panel through his patch (top of slab is exposed to the elements) and had to tear up the whole slab and have it poured again just because of the horrible hole and patchup he did. While I have not done plaster, I have skimcoated walls and done finishing decorative carpentry, so I expect to have better handle on those than the average electrician and a better idea what is easy and what is hard to repair after the cables are in.
we just got sucked with AFCIs throughout the home on this one.
