To remove plaster and redo electrical

[Garrath Robinson]

Hey everyone. I am working in my first b+h rental and its a house that has been in the family for 50 years and is in the fastest growing part of indianapolis. I would say the plaster is in about 60-70% good condition but in the bedrooms the ceiling need replaced as wel as the dining room. Along with that the electrical is pretty out of date. Over the winter i had plugged in two very small space heaters and it tripped the electrical box twice. It is a 15 amp electrical system. The bedrooms only have one outlet each as well. My plan is to hold for at least 10 years on this particular house and my thought is with that in mind i should go ahead and gut the house and start over. I should also mention that the house is debt free so the only money i will have in it is the money invested in the remodel. The home has a considerable amount of equity to work with and is again, in a quickly growing area population wise and home values are going up about 3-6% y/y for the past 6 years. The house is also three miles from downtown indianapolis. I would really just like to hear your thoughts and ideas from those of you that have been in a similar situation. Thank you!!

[Matt R.]

Originally posted by @Garrath Robinson:

Over the winter i had plugged in two very small space heaters and it tripped the electrical box twice.

Disclaimers: I am not a professional electrician. I am not affiliated with any companies mentioned.

That's not that weird, even for a house with a relatively modern electrical system.  A lot of space heaters are about 700 or 800 watts on "low", and about 1500 watts on "high".  A single 15 amp circuit has a capacity of 1800 watts.  In a lot of houses with 3 or fewer bedrooms, at least a couple of the bedrooms will probably have their outlets on the same circuit.  If you have that situation, and you put a space heater in each of two bedrooms, and put one or both of them on "high", you will trip a breaker or blow a fuse.  If both heaters are on "low", you'll probably get away with it... as long as there isn't too much other stuff on that circuit.

As a comparison, one space heater on "low" is equal to about 53 compact fluorescent "60 watt equivalent" lamps, or 77 LED "60 watt equivalent" lamps.

> It is a 15 amp electrical system.

This is highly unlikely, unless the house was first wired for electricity before maybe the 1920s.  Even back then, a lot of houses would have had a 30 amp service.  The next step up was 60 amps, then 100 amps.  (Picture a standard 1950s-1980s tract house, 2 to 3 bedrooms, roughly 1000-1500 square feet, and a gas furnace... that house would have probably been born with a 100 amp service.)  Beyond that, there are 200 amp and even 400 amp services... 400 amps is mostly for houses that are either huge (5+ bedrooms), or that have an electric furnace in North Dakota.  :)

If you mean that the fuse or circuit breaker for most of the circuits is rated 15 amps, that's fine.  Houses are being built brand new today with that.  All the "normal" lights and receptacles in the house will be on 15 amp circuits - some special cases, like the bathroom outlet and the outlets for the kitchen counter, will have 20 amp circuits.  Some cities mandate that everything gets a 20 amp circuit minimum, but many (most?) don't mandate this.

> The bedrooms only have one outlet each as well.

This is a little more of an issue, if only because you don't want people running extension cords all over the room.  I have seen a 1950s house where one of the smaller bedrooms only had two, but that's better than one.  Modern code would be probably mean three or four outlets in most reasonably-sized bedrooms.

You said the house has been in the family for 50 years, but not how old it is.  If it was new in 1968, the circuit breaker panel and the cable in the walls might actually be in pretty OK shape, and some relatively minor upgrades will get you going.  However, since you mentioned only one outlet in the bedrooms, I suspect it might be older - like pre-WWII.  In that case, it may need more work.

Here's a rough checklist that I would use to make this decision.  There are other variables here, such as local code requirements, what electricians cost in your area, your budget, and other things.

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1.  If you still have any knob-and-tube wiring, it needs to go away.

This is where they didn't use cables containing several wires each, but individual wires, and strung each wire around the house on ceramic insulators - kind of like a power line you see on poles alongside a road, but inside the house.  Any of this you still have is probably not newer than the 1950s, and probably has cloth or rubber insulation that is past its design lifetime.

Also note that the main electrical box doesn't tell you much about what kind of wiring you have.  You can have fuses with knob-and-tube, circuit breakers with knob-and-tube, or both.  You have to snoop around in the attic and basement to figure out if you have knob-and-tube.

2.  If the main electrical panel still has fuses, think real hard about at least upgrading to a new panel with circuit breakers.

Most of the time, when a fuse blows, you can replace it, and everything is fine.  However, in older fuse panels, it was possible to install too big of a fuse for the circuit, like a 30 amp fuse on a 15 amp circuit, which would lead to overheating the wires in the walls and possible fire.

In this case, you may be able to re-use some of the existing wiring in the walls, but you will probably have to run some new wires in the walls too.

3.  If the main electrical panel has circuit breakers, but it was manufactured by Federal Pacific Electric (FPE) or Zinsco, think real hard about upgrading to a new panel.

FPE probably faked the UL listings for their breakers, and some Zinsco breakers are probably more likely to fail.  (One simple metric: if you can still buy circuit breakers, from the original manufacturer, at Home Depot, Lowe's, etc, then you probably have a decent-quality panel.)

If the panel is made by GE, Square D, or Cutler-Hammer, you probably don't need to replace it just because it's old.  You might have to replace it if you need a lot more new circuits than it has spaces for.

4.  If you have a lot of two-prong-only outlets in the house (no ground), think about rewiring to install grounded outlets everywhere.

Grounded outlets were phased in starting in roughly the early 1960s.  You don't have to have them on some circuits; some people feel it is enough to install a GFCI on a circuit to protect ungrounded outlets.  For some circuits, like the kitchen and bathroom, I would plan on rewiring those specific circuits to have grounded outlets - the extra safety is worth it, to me.

5.  If you have aluminum wiring on the regular receptacle and light circuits, think hard about rewiring to eliminate it.

This is mostly a 1970s thing - the price of copper went up and aluminum wire became popular for a while.  However, it turned out to behave a little differently than copper did when connected to terminal screws, with the effect that the connection would loosen over time, and then start to overheat.  Even if the house was built before the 1970s, any renovations done in that time frame might have used aluminum wire.

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I would further suggest that you talk to at least your city building code people, and a couple of local electricians.  The code person can tell you if you need a permit, and how far you have to go to bring the house up to code.  Often the answer is, approximately: if you're just doing things like replacing switches or receptacles or light fixtures, then it only has to meet the code from the year the house was built, BUT if you do something big like replacing the fuse panel or breaker panel, then you have to bring the whole house up to current code.  Also ask if any of the answers change if you rent out the house, because they might.  Ask the building codes people to be sure.

An electrician will know the tricks for fishing cable through existing walls.  He or she will probably have to make a few holes to run new wires, but they will be smaller and in more strategic places than tearing out a whole wall.

You can also get some stuff called "Wiremold", which is conduit that can be run on the outside of the wall.  It was originally developed in the 1910s (!) to solve the problem of wiring houses that weren't built with wiring at all.  It's kind of expensive compared to normal conduit, but sometimes using a few feet of it in strategic spots will save you a lot of tearing into the wall.  There are both plastic and metal kinds; I'd use the metal kind in a rental.  It comes painted in either a white or cream color, but you can paint over it with regular interior paint to help it blend in.  An electrician will know about this, too.

Disclaimers: I am not a professional electrician. I am not affiliated with any companies mentioned.

I hope this helps!