Has anyone re-wired a house? Price?

[msmerymac]

Hi! I'm putting an offer in on a house this week, so I might be bugging you guys a lot soon. 

The house we're looking at most likely has a lot of knob-and-tube wiring. Also, there is a burn pattern around one outlet in the dining room. Additionally, there is approximately one outlet in each bedroom (and some, if not all, are two prong). We also would like to install an overhead light in the living room and switch out fixtures in the dining room and all bedrooms. The electrical panel has already been upgraded to 200 amps. So we're talking about changing out the wires and adding some additional outlets. 

I'm seeing this could be around $8k? Sound right?

Also, anyone know if we could get an estimate before closing? Since they'd probably have to cut the walls, I'm thinking this is something we'd want done ASAP after closing, before we re-paint. 

Thanks!

[kaylie]

Does the $8K involve drywall repair? If that house is that old, does it have plaster walls? Plaster would be more expensive to repair.

The real answer is going to depend on the size of the house. Wire is pretty expensive, so the cost for doing a three bedroom ranch will be very different than a five bedroom colonial. Also, are you on a slab foundation or do you have a basement?

I would suggest bringing an electrician with you when you do your inspection to get a quote then. I highly recommend investing in an Angie's List subscription. There's almost always a 40% off coupon code out there for it.

ETA: If you're at all handy, replace the overhead light fixtures yourself. It's a pretty easy thing to do.

[msmerymac]

Sweet, I just got an Angie's list subscription. There are plaster walls, it's a 3 bedroom colonial, a little over 1400 sq ft, and it has a full basement (where you can see some of the old knobs... ugh).

[msmerymac]

Thanks, that's helpful! I think I'm on the right track with an $8-$10k estimation, so I hopefully won't be surprised.

[kaylie]

When they do it, make sure they give each kitchen appliance its own circuit. In an older home there's a good chance they're sharing but that's not always good for modern appliances. I mention it because we paid to have our kitchen rewired and it didn't occur to the contractor to do it that way.

[msmerymac]

The burn pattern is not in the seller disclosure. The seller disclosure is... as complete as we can expect it to be. The person selling technically has POA for the owner. I believe it's the owner's daughter, as the owner is quite elderly (bought the house in 1942), and, I'm assuming, indisposed to deal with this. So the person with POA for the seller filled out the disclosure. It seems that she grew up in the house, but obviously doesn't know a ton about when all the things were last updated (like knows the roof has been replaced, but not what year).

Obviously, the house needs a lot of updates. Cosmetic updates, but it's not surprising that the electricity needs updating, but the house is priced fairly. The mortgage was paid off over 40 years ago, so it's not like they're underwater. Basically, we know we have to put money into the house to make it comfortable and to our liking, and we're willing to make all those updates, this one just has to come sooner rather than later. We fully expect to pay for it out of pocket, not ask the sellers for it. We're already asking for 3% back for closing costs, which is the max in my state, so they can't give us money back for electricity and I highly doubt, given the situation, they'll get any of it fixed. Also, we basically just offered $12k under asking and the asking price is pretty fair... but the house has been on the market for over 45 days.

I know current building code is a window or a fan in a bathroom and this one has a sizeable window, but I will definitely get a quote for an exhaust fan - especially because we might have to change the size of the window when we re-do the bathroom.

Good call on the kitchen appliances. We're going to re-do the kitchen in the next 3ish years, but might want to get that taken care of up front.

And we're going to have an electrician come during the inspection. If everything works out, we'll probably get more quotes, but at least we'll know a ball park of what we're dealing with.

[new2this]

Is this potentially something you could do yourself? DH and my FIL replaced all our old knob and tube wiring. I think we spent a couple hundred on the wiring, a couple hundred for a breaker box, couple hundred for breakers, all new outlets, etc. It was definitely under a grand. We added quite a few outlets since, like your potential place, we had very few outlets. Also factor in whether you'll need permits. I think we did but I'm not sure. We didn't make many holes in our plaster - maybe 1 or 2. We were able to access a lot from the attic and crawl space.

ETA: I would definitely NOT recommend this as a DIY job if you don't have advanced experience with electrical work. My FIL used to be an electrician.

[hbomdiggity]

we spent less than 2k - BUT it was only half of a small house and we did all the repair work (plaster walls) ourselves. we didn't change the breaker box or move anything around.

[lys]

After the inspection we scheduled a second date for various contractors to come and give quotes (realtor stayed in the house with us during this time.) I scheduled appointments every 1/2 hour. DH and I alternated working with contractors as some ran over their time. Anyone who was late arriving had their estimate thrown into the garbage. Knowing we only had one day for their evaluations and estimates, and that our time was scheduled for multiple people, if they did not respect our time - how were they going to treat us once they had our deposit?)

[auntie]

Aug 4, 2013 7:16:58 GMT -5 kaylie said:

When they do it, make sure they give each kitchen appliance its own circuit. In an older home there's a good chance they're sharing but that's not always good for modern appliances. I mention it because we paid to have our kitchen rewired and it didn't occur to the contractor to do it that way.

Good point. Don't forget the GFIs and consider where you'll want outdoor outlets ahead of time. You might want them on a separate GFI circuit- I tripped one outside on my deck and had to run upstairs to the master bath to re-set. 

Our very old house was originally wired with a single circuit going around the perimeter of the house- kitchen, room A/C, laundry and bath were all on a single circuit- fun times. 

Our rewiring was fairly cheap and straight forward- we had a huge unfinished attic and basement. We had fuses in the main box, knob and tube and some aluminum 220 lines. It was scary.