Old house upgrades do's and dont's

[Ryan Keenan]

Hello bp,

Have a question about older homes. I just recently purchased a two family home built around the 1900's. My concern is the plumbing and electrical. The plumbing has old copper lines with some old shut off valves in which there are no apparent leaks.  The electrical looks like it aswell needs upgrading.

Do I save myself the hassle and upgrade the plumbing and electrical now? And is the only way to do an upgrade is  by ripping out all the old plumbing and electrical and starting over with new material?

Thanks!

[Adam Abdel-Hafez]

I work a lot on older homes including 100 yr old homes. If you have copper water lines your house is probably not 100 yrs old or you have it confused for galvanized. Typically I always replace all supply lines and shut off valves throughout any house I do. I assess plumbing and see what needs to be done. Typically you have to replace a few sections here or there on the water and/or sewer line. If you have galvanized pipe you need to replace it, if it is copper and no leaks then I would leave it. For electrical, I would not just upgrade the service just because it is old. In 100 yr old homes you will probably have knob and tube wiring which needs to be rewired and you also need to check the condition of the wiring. If the panel is 100amp service, but the wiring has been derated to 80amp, then it won't be able to handle the AC, fridge, stove, water heater, etc all running at the same time. So it's more of a case by case basis and assessing the condition of each component rather than a general rule of thumb of always replacing no matter what.