How much to budget for whole house rewiring?

16 years ago

Dh and I are considering buying a home built in 1900. It is nearly 3000 sq ft.

Our intentions are to leave the first floor as is but will be gutting the second floor... including walls, ceilings and floors. There are 5 bedrooms and one bath upstairs but we are considering changing the smaller bedroom that is next to the master bedroom into a bathroom and laundry room.

we will need to rewiring the entire electrical system (hiring someone) but are trying to get an estimate of what it will cost. We don't own the home yet... still considering it... so can't get someone in to give us a true estimate.

We have talked to a few people and they have estimated around $10,000.

This is in northern ohio.

Is this a good number to budget?

The house has had some work done in the past but by looking at it we would like to start fresh with new wiring throughout. We would be adding quite a few outlets. There already is overhead lighting.

Are there any other sites that I can look up estimates at?

Sort by:Oldest

Comments (8)

waterfoulman
16 years ago
The cost will depend on who you hire in your area. I would get some bids .. some contractors will give bids for free and some won't. You can also have someone do it for time and material..sometimes this is cheaper then a bid. It sounds like you are doing the right thing though by taking off all the plaster or rock and gutting the areas to be worked on. Fishing walls and patching rock or plaster can get costly. I had a lady that was bent on leaving her rock up on a remodel job and by the time my guys got done getting all the wires to the outlets and lights. The rock was full of patch places. The rockers came in and took it down anyway because of all the holes. It also took my guys longer to fish the wires then if the rock was off. You have to remember that to wire an outlet or light the wires have to start and stop somewhere. lol. so many of my clients don't realize that wires are a solid not "wireless". I hope this helps a bit. In my area of IOWA The price for new house wire is at $3.50 to in some cases $4.50 and up a square. Most companies like mine have an hourly rate of 55 to 70 an hour. Hope this helps JD out.
joed
16 years ago
$10,000 seems reasonable. I could understand it going higher though.
Related Discussions
How much did your build cost over budget?
Q
Comments (9)
We did not go over budget. I picked out almost everything - with the exception of light fixtures and kitchen cabinetry - before we broke ground. I bought a ton of things on the internet (all plumbing fixtures and faucets, light fixtures, cupola for examples) and priced door hardware online and locally. Found it for less locally. For the online purchased, I shopped online and bought during sales (holiday sales were really good - Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day) Be sure to buy/order things ahead of time so they are there and ready before needed - not after! My best advice it to have your plans perfected before breaking ground so there are no changes (only minor minor ones) during construction. Our GC was awesome and did not charge for changes. We built at cost plus his fee - set before we started based on bids. If we were under, his pay went down but if we went over, his did not go up. His idea! He looked after us, was always after the best bang for our buck and wasn't afraid to ask for a better price when an invoice came in he thought was too high (scaffolding rental, for example). He was quick to remind me it would cost what I made it cost. lol Ask yourself what do you have to have and what can you live without....or how can you still have what you want but cost less. Hope that makes sense! Stick with what you can afford and don't do "well, while we're building..." additions during construction. They will add up fast. Good luck!
...See More
How much over budget are you?
Q
Comments (33)
rileysmom, the difference is I am not going to prejudice whether someone wants to build a large or small house. It's useless to pass judgement as each person has their own choices in life. Why would you want to be repulsed because someone has the financial means to spend the money on what they want ? And why is your magic number 2500 ? What about people who are at 1000sq ft who think your 2500 is wasteful and repulsive ? Like I said, its all relative. Just because YOU think its the perfect number for you doesn't mean it fits others ? You ask about how much good a person does. That same person who you find repulsive for spending 7 figures on knobs/hardware on their house gave over 2.5m in charity last year alone. How much did you do in absolute terms ? Now, that wouldn't be a very fair comparison, would it ? So, you should probably look at relative comparisons - which is/was my earlier assertion. . . I believe every person has their own choice. If they want to live in a 10m postage stamp house - thats great. If they want a 1m 10,000 sq ft house and can barely afford it, thats great as well. While I think overruns are a very common practice in the construction industry, I think a lot of that also had to do with the person building a home. You have to understand that some of that is people not sticking to what was agreed upon (both sides). You're also talking about people bidding and accepting the lowest bid which unfortunately is usually a recipe for disaster.
...See More
how to add grounding or rewire 1941 house
Q
Comments (11)
I am going to take a different point of view. Rather than saving pennies for a complete rewire along with the service panel replacement, just have the new service panel installed and reconnect the existing circuits. If you know what circuits you want/need added because you need grounded circuits, go ahead and add them at the same time. Otherwise, just have the electrician come back and add a couple more when the need arises. When the new service is installed, it might pay to have some or all existing circuits intercepted in a limited number of large junction boxes and new runs make from there to the panel. That was done in one home that I owned when new service installed where most of the cables ran through the attic and down the walls (1950ish slab home with 120/240, 3 ph originally). Part of the reason that worked well was due to consolidation of sub panel wiring to the new service panel, but there were other reasons related to access. At the same time the panel was installed, the electrician pulled a few "spares" from the new panel to those big junction boxes in the attic so it would be a snap to add additional circuits later. (No crawling over to the wall/roof junction under the hip roof, just sitting up on a piece of plywood in a relatively tall part of the attic space.) You probably have what is called "rock lath" walls. That is what I have in my 1949 home and my parents paid extra for (over drywall) in the home that they had built in 1959. There are different versions. The 1949 version has holes to key the first plaster coat. I understand that later they figured out that was not necessary due to the chemistry of the bonding between the plaster and rock lath so that might explain the lack of holes in the 1959 version. Rock lath might be the only reason to do the whole rewire at once, if you can find a reasonably-priced plasterer. We were able to get one, at surprisingly reasonable cost, to do wall and ceiling repairs in our home. Even in major metropolitan areas, I think it is becoming very difficult to find plaster pros. Even if you can find just one, they are tied up in major historic renovations. The trouble with little plaster jobs is that the work requires at least three trips letting the coats dry between visits (as little as a day). If you have a bunch of work to be done it sometimes won't cost you much more than fixing one crack or hole. On the other hand, maybe you can figure out how to do it yourself. Like a lot of finish work, it takes some practice to get a good look and will take a lot longer for a homeowner to do than a practiced pro.
...See More
How much to budget for interior design services?
Q
Comments (7)
Regarding floor outlet: The electrician for our remodel put the wiring in for the floor outlet in the crawl space for our house, but did not actually install the floor outlet yet. He said that he would come back and do it once we were completely finished and had rugs and furniture and such; that he had installed many earlier in the process and usually ended up moving them later, so this was his method to avoid that.
...See More
stine
Original Author
16 years ago
Thank you for the input! Its good to know we are somewhat in the right range for budgeting.

Thanks!!
coolvt
16 years ago
I would think that if you are leaving the first floor you might consider not touching that wiring. That is where the majority of your expense will be....kitchen, laundry (probably in basement) living room. And not touch the service and panel if it's adequate. I surely don't consider wiring new in 1990 any big problem. You might have a few GFI's to install, but I would think that 1990 wiring is good for another 20 or 30 years.
If the upstairs is open you might be able to wire that for $2,000-3,000. I would bet alomost anything that if you surveyed the people who would be doing the wiring for you that better than half of them are living in houses with wiring older than that:-)
stine
Original Author
16 years ago
LOL not 1990....1900! the house is 108 years old.
lonesparky95
16 years ago
Big job. I agree with waterfoulman re starting from scratch. Nothing like it. Seat of the pants, I'd say that if you can get this done for 10K, you've done very well.
sniffdog
16 years ago
stine

I know someone who has a house that was built in the early 1900's and is re-wiring it himself. I ageee with the poster above - 10 grand would be a great deal.

You have to consider that the house is probably not wired the way modern houses are wired. In my friends house - there were a total of 4 knob and tube circuits (yes only 4) and that is for a 2 story home (basement plus 2 living levels). The old knob and tube style does not meet today's electrical code.

Once you start re-doing the second level it may impact the first level wiring - a lot depends on how they wired it up all those years ago. You also have to think about what electrical devices you are going to put into the house - the loads of your appliances have to be carefully matched to the existing system so they won't burn the place down.

If it were me - I would rip out all the old wiring just because I would not feel safe not knowing what is behind those walls. Re-doing wiring in an old house is easier said than done - do you know if the walls are real plaster? Does your 10K estimate include demo costs?

You might try to find someone in your area who specializes in doing electrical work on old houses. They could look over the existing system and give you a better idea of how it is wired and what is needed to upgrade the system.
coolvt
16 years ago
Oops, on the 1990 verses the 1900....guess I was asleep! Ignore my stupid posting:-)

How much to budget for whole house rewiring?

Comments (8)

waterfoulman

joed

Related Discussions

stine
Original Author

coolvt

stine
Original Author

lonesparky95

sniffdog

coolvt

COMPANY

BUSINESS SERVICES

GET HELP

CONNECT WITH US

How much to budget for whole house rewiring?

Comments (8)

waterfoulman

joed

Related Discussions

stineOriginal Author

coolvt

stineOriginal Author

lonesparky95

sniffdog

coolvt

COMPANY

BUSINESS SERVICES

GET HELP

CONNECT WITH US

stine
Original Author

stine
Original Author