Converting an Old House to Modern Electricity

[RainMaker]

My Grandma recently passed away and my Mom who lived with her is now looking at fixing up the house. My brothers and I have been doing a lot of stuff like new carpet, painting, floors, etc but we're completely lost on one area, electricity.

It's a house from the 1950's. It still has the 2-prong outlets everywhere. I'm wondering if anyone has experience converting a house over like this or knows anything about it. I'm basically looking at what this would cost to do. Whether this is a few grand or $20,000 money pit. I'm guessing the box should be swapped out too.

Does anyone know the best path for this or where to even start?

[Coffee Warlord]

Ask friends/coworkers/neighbors/yaks for a reputable contractor to take a look and provide an estimate. I'm guessing it'd take more than an electrician, but that also might be a good source for an estimate.

Really no other way to go about it.

And to edit again. I don't know if you were tempted on doing this yourself, but..don't. Electricity is a bad bad DIY idea. Pay a pro.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

Does anyone know the best path for this or where to even start?

Call an electrician.

That's actually not as flip a reply as it seems either. Our previous house (the 100ish year old monster) had already been re-fitted when we bought it so I haven't been through the process in full but having seen issues even after a major overhaul, I wouldn't think anything short of a professional should tackle something like you seem to be describing. (Our attic still had the old ceramic insulators fastened to the beams, hopefully yours is at least more modern than that)

Of course involving a licensed pro also brings into play one of the biggest PITA I suspect you'll encounter: issues with being able to get everything up to modern code standards. Depending upon your exact situation, that can become a significant expense & significant headache.

One small example of what I mean is that the master bath in our old house only two outlets ... one over the right over the bathtub which is a major no-no these days and the other was somehow too close to the sink or something. IIRC, the former had to be killed, the latter had to be rewired to a grounded plug, and to get outlets into the adjoining dressing area turned into a fair bit of carpentry & such. Point being, ain't neccesarily simple.

[stevew]

Converting the outlets isn't super hard. You can maybe get 10 outlets done for $100-200(a common deal I see) You could probably do it yourself (watch a tutorial) . Box is professional work

[stevew]

Dola-
Depends on wiring too.

[stevew]

If you only have like 65amp service, the drop, et al is gonna cost a ton.

[cougarfreak]

I had my previous house converted from fuses in the main box to circuits. I had a guy do it on the side for about $1500. He was my brother's brother in law, so I know I got a deal. This was about 7-8 years ago as well. I'd guess if you have to upgrade the main box, and outlets, etc. you're looking at at least 4-5K. After it's done you probably have to have it inspected too.

[JPhillips]

You need to PM CUTiger. This was his line of business.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Call an electrician.

This is definitely the route I'd take. Don't trust myself with any of this stuff. I guess I'm kind of looking for what the potential damage my be money wise and any kind of things I should look out for from an electrician. Don't want to have them do unnecessary stuff.

My temporary option was to just put in some GFCI outlets in certain areas. I know it's not perfect, but better than the current situation.

[kcchief19]

We had an old family farmhouse done about 15 years ago, upgrading form old knob-and-tube wiring. Very little construction work was required since the electrical contractor was able to pull the wiring through. We had to upgrade all the wire, all the outlets (light switches, appliances, etc.) and the box. I seem to recall it was in the $5k range.

Was supposed to be about three days and took two weeks. Old houses can have lots of surprises.

[cartman]

Get 4 or 5 quotes from different places. They should all have a base level of work in common, and you'll get an idea of what will need to be done. We did this around 20 years ago for my grandparents house as one of their 50th anniversary presents. One of my uncles was a contractor, so that made it much easier for us to do it ourselves. But it did take quite a bit of time to bring everything up to current code.

[M GO BLUE!!!]

When I was young I used to play Electrician. First, I need to know if you have boobs. And if your parents are home.

[corbes]

The advice I recently got from an electrician is that it really depends on the house. Actual wiring is not that big of deal; it's the access to the wires that is the pickle. For example, it sounds like kcchief's farmhouse wasn't too bad, but I've got a brick house that's nearly 200 years old with plaster walls and ungrounded two-prong wire throughout. My electrician's advice was basically not to update the electricity until I'm ready to tear down the walls and renovate a particular room.

[RainMaker]

I've got plaster walls too there. Does having a crawlspace help at all?

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

I've got plaster walls too there. Does having a crawlspace help at all?

Depends upon the location & routing of the wiring ... but maybe that answer is kinda in the realm of "well duh". Just trying to say that it might help or it might not I guess.

One thing that bears mentioning I think is that your area is probably going to influence the eventual costs quite a bit. My experience has been that "the going rate" varies pretty wildly from one place to the next, and I'm talking double (or half, depending on how you look at it) from one place to another 50 miles away.

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

My brothers and I have been doing a lot of stuff like new carpet, painting, floors, etc

I would wait / have waited on this. Get an electrician in and get the electrical upgraded BEFORE all this stuff, since you'll be potentially opening holes in the walls IF they have to upgrade wiring (some older wiring can be a fire hazard if not rated to carry the current actually expected for that circuit). Might also be a good time to think about running ethernet or coax for modern conveniences.

THEN do all your painting, THEN do carpet / floors, or go room-by-room painting and floors. That way you are cleaning up from the earlier job while doing the later one.

[Blackadar]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

I would wait / have waited on this. Get an electrician in and get the electrical upgraded BEFORE all this stuff, since you'll be potentially opening holes in the walls IF they have to upgrade wiring (some older wiring can be a fire hazard if not rated to carry the current actually expected for that circuit). Might also be a good time to think about running ethernet or coax for modern conveniences.

THEN do all your painting, THEN do carpet / floors, or go room-by-room painting and floors. That way you are cleaning up from the earlier job while doing the later one.

Yep.

There's another reason to call an electrician. If you don't get a licensed guy to do this, the house may be uninsurable. Most insurance companies won't pay for a fire created by or contributed to faulty electrical wiring/circuits if the wiring wasn't done by a licensed guy. And gst is right - if for whatever reason they have to pull new wire, then pull CAT 5 along with it.

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by Blackadar

then pull CAT 5 along with it.

Well, to be specific, CAT 5e or CAT 6, not plain old CAT 5.

[Desnudo]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

My Grandma recently passed away and my Mom who lived with her is now looking at fixing up the house. My brothers and I have been doing a lot of stuff like new carpet, painting, floors, etc but we're completely lost on one area, electricity.

It's a house from the 1950's. It still has the 2-prong outlets everywhere. I'm wondering if anyone has experience converting a house over like this or knows anything about it. I'm basically looking at what this would cost to do. Whether this is a few grand or $20,000 money pit. I'm guessing the box should be swapped out too.

Does anyone know the best path for this or where to even start?

If you are looking at a ballpark, I had an estimate of 15-20K to entirely replace the wiring in a 2700 SQFT house. It cost me about 4-5K to rewire all the outlets in the house [using professionals]. This was related to an aluminum wire issue, but I imagine the process is probably about the same.