-
ODT Gun Show & Swap Meet - May 4, 2024! - Click here for info
House rewire.
- Thread starter tjkane1
- Start date
Biggest issue with an old house is gonna be the labor .
And repairing the plaster walls
Usually houses that age have plaster instead of Sheetrock .don’t use a sawzall on plaster walls
Use the vibrating multi cutter instead
What I did when I rewired a 1946 house with plaster walls was :
We had a crawl space and attic access
So for the outlets , we removed the baseboard at the bottom of the wall , then drilled a hole or used the origional hole to fish the wire up from the crawl space / basement up to the outlet
Tried to keep any holes behind the baseboard so we didn’t have to do wall repair
But a couple of places we had to cut a small hole , I just used a black plate to cover the hole instead of trying to patch the plaster .
Did the same for the light switches from the attic .
Easiest way for me was to remove the old boxes inside the wall for the outlets and switches so I could reach in and grab the new wire
Easiest way to remove the old metal box was I found a metal pipe that just fit inside the box , cut the pipe to about 12 inches long , I’d remove the outlet or switch and slip the end of the pipe into the box and whack it with a 3 pound hammer .
Usually three or four licks would snap off the metal ears holding the box to the stud and the box would fall down inside the wall cavity ,
Then you can fish the new wire in the wall and grab it with a coat hanger , pull it out and slide the new plastic box with the flipper ears over the wire and secure it in the wall .
And repairing the plaster walls
Usually houses that age have plaster instead of Sheetrock .don’t use a sawzall on plaster walls
Use the vibrating multi cutter instead
What I did when I rewired a 1946 house with plaster walls was :
We had a crawl space and attic access
So for the outlets , we removed the baseboard at the bottom of the wall , then drilled a hole or used the origional hole to fish the wire up from the crawl space / basement up to the outlet
Tried to keep any holes behind the baseboard so we didn’t have to do wall repair
But a couple of places we had to cut a small hole , I just used a black plate to cover the hole instead of trying to patch the plaster .
Did the same for the light switches from the attic .
Easiest way for me was to remove the old boxes inside the wall for the outlets and switches so I could reach in and grab the new wire
Easiest way to remove the old metal box was I found a metal pipe that just fit inside the box , cut the pipe to about 12 inches long , I’d remove the outlet or switch and slip the end of the pipe into the box and whack it with a 3 pound hammer .
Usually three or four licks would snap off the metal ears holding the box to the stud and the box would fall down inside the wall cavity ,
Then you can fish the new wire in the wall and grab it with a coat hanger , pull it out and slide the new plastic box with the flipper ears over the wire and secure it in the wall .
