Electrical Upgrade- All at once or in phases
Hi all, For various reasons it may be necessary to do the renovation we are planning in stages vs. original plan of doing all at once (original plan was for all new electrical, plumbing, finish work, etc). So the question is, in a single family home, is it possible and/or advisable to do upgraded electrical on one floor at a time vs. the entire home all at once? We will be getting an entire new service now as well as, but the hope is to then upgrade the actual wiring 1 floor at a time. Any advice from people who have tried this? Thanks in advance.
sjh50
in Electricians 9 years and 5 months ago
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5 replies
randolph | 9 years and 5 months ago
Cate- you had a plumber to your electric? And how many points did you have wired? 12k sounds very cheap to rewire an entire 3 floor house! Can you post the contact info for the person you used?
cate | 9 years and 5 months ago
I had the whole house rewired, three floors plus cellar, by a licensed plumber for $12,000 in 2009\. Took them three weeks. The amount of dust swirling around was massive. It was like it was snowing inside. You want to close up the walls with more plastering before you refinish the floors and before you move in. My two cents — not only will it be more expensive to do piece meal but it’s virtually impossible. You can’t live like this with the walls open and dust everywhere. When people talk about doing things in “stages,” I think typically they mean all the structure and mechanical stuff would be done in advance. Bathrooms and kitchens can be done one at a time, later.
thetinkerswagon | 9 years and 5 months ago
we piece meal it here. I am not doing a new box though. if you are doing a new box do that first. now my house is smaller than the brownstones, so I don’t have to run all of the cable you would have to – but that does not mean you would have to run more pulls either if you think about this. what I do is similar to what arkady says – she (he?) says she put a sub panel on each floor which is a good idea. get that there in the bigger house. then as you rework an area on each floor, pull new circuits off of it in stead of a home run to the main. I have done something similar – I run 12-3 bx wire everywhere I need one circuit. and if I needed two circuits I would run 12-4 (though maybe we would need a second neutral as only two circuits can share a neutral – so 12-5). doing it this way gives me capacity for two circuits. I may only use one initially, but I leave one coiled in the junction box and at the main box it is coiled in the gutter at the main. if you suspect you would add a laundry on the top floor of a b-stone later- definitely run a 60 amp sub panel up as that and two circuit for the top floor will need all of that. at this point half my house is done and I still have wires all over, unused for the rest. may never get to them; when we had to pull a wire for the bathroom, I pulled a 12-3 along with it and left the entire cable coiled in the ceiling above the b-room closet; it is ready to go when I need a circuit in the bedrooms. maybe put a larger sub on the top floor and use it for the top floor and the floor below. you can do all of this with ease without doing the entire place at once. it takes a little learning about circuits, and the load each circuit can carry, and thinking about placing junction boxes or sub panels someplace central where later circuits can be pulled from. if you wish to discuss this with a real electrician (license, insurance, the entire gig), call Tom Munetz. he is a patient guy and if you were to use him, I bet he could lay out a plan to do several smaller jobs. 718-416-2686. For some reason I have spent a lot of time thinking about the future of my household electrical needs as I am stuck in traffic on the Kosciusko Bridge. I don’t know why though. steve
GreenThinker | 9 years and 5 months ago
I see it being problematic in a one family house. Since there will only one main panel for all the circuits to go to. Most likely this panel will be in the cellar/basement. From that panel you’ll have to run about 7 circuits to the kitchen, 2 circuits to the bathroom, and 2 circuit to each other room (there needs to be a dedicated A/C circuit in rooms) There also needs to be an outdoor outlet by the front and rear doors. Doing it now would be most cost effective, more so if you already have walls and ceilings open.
Arkady | 9 years and 5 months ago
I did something sort of similar but had basic conduit run from bottom to top all at once since it meant digging into brick party wall. Installed breaker boxes on each floor for eventual distribution.