I live in a timber frame and needed to fur out some timbers to get a flush surface, taking out the existing drywall (in other areas), made an easier, more even drywall surface for finishing both the drywall and installing the cabinets.

We took out a wall and had dry rot in the sill. So we were down to the studs.

Our last house we were not planning to go down to the studs but when the electricians came in they said all the wiring needed to be re-done. It was cheaper to pay the carpenter to rip out and replace drywall than it would have been to pay the electricians extra time to fish all that wiring and then have the carpenter do a bunch of patching.

We went past the studs. Our house, built in 1923, is structural stone with plaster walls. With this type of construction gutting to the stone and re-framing was our only option.

Down to studs here since we have plaster walls (which were sadly replaced with drywall in the kitchen) and we were doing some recessed lighting and closing off a doorway and tiling the floor so the GC wanted to make sure the underlayment was sufficient. New electrical had to be run for appliances and the plumbing needed to be checked out. So now we have at least one room in the house up to code. But it's a 1920's house so there was no question about rewiring to support the new appliances (and the previous owners did not do a great job remodeling so I didn't trust any of those upgrades).

Did find out that the house was built with actual 2x4s and not the current mill size so shimming that was fun for the GC to make the new wall and ceiling line up with the dining room wall and ceiling.

If your house is in great repair and well-built you may not need to go down to the studs. It also depends upon where you really need the changes. It could be that it's of great benefit to take one wall down to the studs and to only open up and patch other areas of wall.

I'm in Ca so regs on Title 24 made me update my electrical to LED. We went down to the studs because of flood. They cut out drywall 36" inches up.

When I had to increase the gas pipe because of my 48" BS range, we went down to studs to make it easier.

We went down to the studs in our other home because it was older and not insulated well, and we live in New England. We did not in our current home because it was newer, insulated, and up to current code.

Yup! Everything, plumbing, electrical, appliances were getting moved around, plus, structural changes involving windows & doors. (wow: memories!)

I'm in Maine, and went to the studs to improve insulation and make it easier for the electrician, and to move some plumbing. I am happy knowing the insulation is much improved, and our electrical work was very reasonable.

If you are going to be moving and or adding plumbing and electrical, or doing any structural alterations, I would say yes. Drywall removal and replacement is one of the lowest cost per sq. ft. of residential construction.

As others have said, it also gives you chance to inspect and mitigate any unsafe conditions.

Also, in my experience, of all the homes I've re-modeled, those built in the '70s (tract homes in particular) were of the lowest standards with regard to both materials and workmanship.

Yes - down to the studs - walls & ceiling! We were taking out soffits, putting in recessed lights, changing a window (to be shorter), taking down one wall, reducing the depth of another, etc.

Plus, I hate those textured ceilings we have - so now our Kitchen and DR have smooth drywall ceilings - love them!

If your Kitchen is not up to Code, then most likely you will be required to bring it up to Code if you do any electrical or plumbing work. I would question the other contractors about how they handle that. Maybe they come back later and ask for more $$$ instead of knowing what will be required and planning for it.

Down to the studs is NOT that much of a difference since you'll end up replacing a lot of drywall anyway. My last kitchen went down to the studs almost everywhere simply because it was required to put everything in where it needed to go.

I'd want to know what the other guys are NOT including in the bid to make a direct comparison because it's not all that clear. Does "down to the studs" mean new pipes? Or just expose and inspect them? Does it include new insulation (it turns out insulation is kind of awesome)? Is it necessary anyway to get your electrical in place?

Yes - we needed to reinforce the wall on one side with steel studs (won't get into why we had to do that) and lots of changes to electrical, gas line, etc. Plus I had no confidence in the 70's insulation in the house based on problems I'd noticed in other areas.

Yes, we went to studs but also took down two walls and raised the ceiling. It makes things so much easier plus the confidence of knowing everything is correct in the walls and ceiling.

Did your people actually come out and look at your existing plumbing, electrical? A contractor needs to see what's in a wall to know what's going on. I'm doing a new reno and the first thing we did is break through the soffit and parts of the wall to determine the depth of the project. We found rotten wood from a plumbing leak on the second floor. You don't know what prior problems are lurking unless you look. Don't know if you've already posted your project in another thread, so it's hard to state whether yours requires down to studs.

We went down to the studs because everything was original 1920s, including the dire lack of electrical. if you don't need to redo all of your electric I probably wouldn't bother. We opened up our kitchen to our breakfast nook and left the nook as plaster since it didn't need anything done and I really didn't want them to mess up all the original moulding. Amazingly everything matches up great even the ceiling being different thicknesses.

We went down to studs. The GC who did our reno always includes in his quote the cost of re-insulating, rewiring and replumbing. His belief is that by doing that the owner knows the full-extent of the potential cost of the renovations rather than surprising the homeowner with a big bill mid-reno because a problem was discovered once the walls were opened up.

We were doing a whole-house reno and did replumb and added insulation to the house. We also had to add a second electrical box and have some rewiring done. We had no budget surprises.

Our house is a 1972 and our GC always pulls permits - in our district when the inspections are done, work had better be up to code.

We wouldn't have gone with anyone who wasn't going to pull permits and do everything to code - it wasn't worth it to us. But that's just us.

First time we did our kitchen 10 years ago we didn't, but this time we did. If you can afford it (or even close) I would. We replaced knob and tube wiring (for code) and our electrician said he would rather have knob and tube any day over what was put in the 70s. We also insulated and our dishes are no longer frozen when we take them out of the cabinet.

Not the kitchen, but we were replacing a massive bedroom window a few years ago and decided to replace the whole thing rather than just put a new box in. They discovered a roof leak had caused the main timbers on the front of the house to rot and the whole thing could have come down. If we hadn't removed the whole shebang, we wouldn't have known about the rot.

It's always interesting to see what you find when you open up walls/floor/ceilings.

No. We did not move/remove walls. It is an interior kitchen, so no additional insulation needed. We only added one can light and moved the location of 3 pendants, so a total gut wasn't necessary. All the drywall between the upper cabinets to the counter was pulled out and replaced with cement boards as it was tiled and removing the tile pulled a lot of it out and we put cement board behind the new gas range - we also had to move outlets and some wiring. So - we were lucky we could save a bit there, not to mention avoiding that additional mess.

No, but there are lots of chunks missing and a whole section that had old plumbing in it (we moved the sink and that wall will be exposed) so lots of patch work to do. The also had to cut runs for moving electric and a strip out of the ceiling between studs to run the range vent to the new location. Most of it will be behind the new cabinets, except for the large area removed for the newly-exposed wall and of course the ceiling.

brdrl -- That is exactly what found when we removed the lathe & plaster on a interior wall of our 1838 brick on brick home. For the OP, yes we went down to the "studs", but ours was more of a whole-house renovation.

We pretty much did, and it was worth it. We learned some things and it gave me an opportunity to photograph the locations of all the pipes are wiring, etc.. And we improved some things. In the end, I was glad we did.