Got a call from my electrician today, asked if I would be interested in doing a renovation on a house where he will be doing the electrical. Yeah, I know, that’s backwards, but it’s a small town. Gotta tell the background first, b4 I ask the question. I have not seen the house yet, this is all from the initial phone conversdation.
Little town had it’s hundred year flood about 2 yrs ago, and this house was damaged. Just finished repairs about 6-8 mos ago. They installed an instant water heater in place of the tank-type, and it was fed by three 60A breakers. Evertime the heater came on, the lights dimmed excessively. Sparky investigated and convinced the electric company that the house was on the end of a feeder, and was getting too much voltage drop. Electric company agreed, and installed a new transformer at the property line. Somehow they installed the transformer wrong and sent high voltage into the house and fried a lot of stuff…Sparky said it was about 6000 volts, but I’m not sure I believe that. Anyway, he has a contract to fix the electrical, but he told them he will only do the work if he can remove 100% of the wiring and devices and replace with new, and they agreed. So now he needs someone to do the non-electrical work, and that’s where I come in.
So, the question is, would it make sense to cut the rock just above the base to avoid having to remove & replace the base? I would pull the door and window trim anyway. If there were a sheetrock joint an inch above the base, would that be acceptable, or a waste of time?
Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell’em “Certainly, I can!” Then get busy and find out how to do it. T. Roosevelt
Replies
i'm not sure it wouldn't be easier to go ahead and remove the base, unless it is some expensive profile .i would guess it's not old since it was a flood house and been repaired. if you make the decision to leave the base ,i'd come up 12 inches or so to the bottom of the electrical boxes so that i would have room to mud. any chace you could cut right along base and then put some type of mldg. to finish off? good luck larry
Good point. Maybe measure 8 ft down from the ceiling and cut there. Otherwise I'm thinking 2-3 inches above the existing base. maybe chuck a drywall bit in the rotozip and run the tool base along the top of the wood base...that would make for an even offset.
Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell'em "Certainly, I can!" Then get busy and find out how to do it. T. Roosevelt
Have you or the electrician decided how much of the sheetrock is coming down? It may be worth just patching the sections where there are fixtures, if the wires are going to a crawlspace or attic, instead of stripping all the wall. I am betting that the extra seam is more work than baseboard removal, but I am not a trimmer by trade. Have fun!!
Dan
It's about a 1,500 sf house, so we think that the time necessary to cut access for all the outlets and switches and wiring, and then patch them back, will be offset by the cost of complete removal. There would have to be vertical slots cut for feeds from the attic down the wall, and horizontal slots cut for feeds between outlets, etc. We're a l;ittle concerned that that many patches in a relatively new wall would look tacky, in addition to being time consuming. And it could be tough to try to follow the wiring and cut access slots everywhere they are needed.
Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell'em "Certainly, I can!" Then get busy and find out how to do it. T. Roosevelt
No way I'd want to mud a seam 2 inches above existing base. Make your slit cut higher. Your idea of 8 ft from the ceiling sounds ideal.
And you can just put an old blade in a circ saw to cut it, except for the last few inches next to interseting walls. Just finish it with a deep utility knife score. It'll break there when you pull it off, especially if you screw down the rock that's staying right below the cut line. Much neater and easier to control than a rotozip for this. Make a base plate and attach to your saw to guide you along the top of the base. See if you can locate screw/nail locations before you start to avoid them. And remember to adjust the depth of cut so you don't cut the studs <G>
I agree that it is easier to rip off than trying to cut holes, drill studs, fish wires and patch.
He can probably do all or at least most of the interior walls without touching a bit of drywall.
Just drop the cable down from the attic and back up again. Uses more wire, but saves a lot of the other work.
And come up from the crawl space or basement on exterior walls. Sounds like a plan.
Dave
Tried to post an answer about 15 min ago and got a message that the site was down.
Went and saw the house today...the damages weren't as visible as I had imagined. Most of the applioances are shot...all about a year old...as are the tv's and stereos etc, and the a/c doesn't work right. Young couple...early 30's...feel sorry for them...first the flood, then this about a year after the house is put back together. Saw a section of exterior brick wall that looked different...about 5 ft off the ground...hubby says that's where a railroad tie was poked through the wall into the bedroom.
Here's a pic of a gfi in the bathroom...all the gfi's in the house are similar. Obvious black on the wall, and the plastic is bubbled. Some serious arcing the the two panels.
Concrete slab, so we can't do any work from below. 8 ft ceiling with very low slope roof, so Sparky says the ceiling rock has to come down cuz he won't fit in the attic. Counter backsplash in the kitchen has to be replaced cuz it's on an outside wall. Counter tile matches the splash...no chance of matching the repair cuz HO says they got a really good deal on the discontinued tile...so all the counters have to be replaced...and she want the splash and counters to match when the work is complete.
Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell'em "Certainly, I can!" Then get busy and find out how to do it. T. Roosevelt
just curious, the electric company picking up the tab for this since they screwed up?
at least I got the impression it was an error on the electric companies part...
Yep, the city (which owns the utility) has accepted all responsibility. There was no discussion.Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell'em "Certainly, I can!" Then get busy and find out how to do it. T. Roosevelt
Ed,
We are doing exactly the same repair in a brand new home that got a 6600 volt shock for 15 minutes. Quite the fire in the basement. Plow truck lost control and knocked out the pole's guide wire which broke the pole and dropped the primary onto the neutral.
We are pulling the bottom sheet of drywall in all rooms and leaving most ceilings. This leaves us with the factory tapered edge and gives the electrician room to get in and do his thing. The walls that have switches get torn off up to the ceilings. We are pulling and salvaging trim.
We do the drywall cutoff 24" up from the floor for water damage jobs. Rotozip with vac works well. The added cutting both on and off didn't pay on this job. Besides, the home is custom and brand new. I could never have sold a butt joint.
carpenter in transition
>>So, the question is, would it make sense to cut the rock just above the base to avoid having to remove & replace the base? I would pull the door and window trim anyway. If there were a sheetrock joint an inch above the base, would that be acceptable, or a waste of time?
>>Yep, the city (which owns the utility) has accepted all responsibility. There was no discussion.
So why are you worried about cost?
Get it done and done right.
The time and money saved (your profit) will be real close to the time and money it will take to fight all those little access holes you're thinking of.
All new DW, you want to inspect all voids for any unseen damage, for sure. Remove all old wires to prevent any odor. Already insulated? May have to replace some for odor. DW may have soaked up some odor too.
SamT
Sam, the deeper I get into this, the more convinced I am that I'm wasting my time trying to save a nickle. I'll probably rip everything out and put it all back like new.
Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell'em "Certainly, I can!" Then get busy and find out how to do it. T. Roosevelt
Bill and Dave have it right. My entire house was rewired with no sheetrock damage. All the wire was fished in from above or below. With two guys (one inside, one above or below) you can do it in a couple of days.
Ed,
Why not just drop the ceiling and fish the wires top down? Once the electrician has the access to the top of the wall that should be really easy to do even on the outside walls. We do a fair amount of electrical retro fit as most of the true electricians in our area only like new construction. Jobs like this are simple as long as we can get to the top of the wall or the bottom.
Man, must have hooked that house to the 480 side or something. Bet it sounded like an arc welder in there a couple of times. Let us know what you did. DanT
My first choice would be to remove the ceiling only. This should leave plenty of room for the electricians and avoid too much patching
My second choice would be to remove all of the drywall and base. This would keep the electrician happy and avoid too much patching.
My third choice would be to cut the drywall even with the top of the base (assuming this is painted base). Then caulk the top of the base to the drywall. This would keep the electrician happy and avoid replacing the base.
The thought of leaving the sheetrock on the walls and fishing the new wires in place has some merit, but raises some questions in my electrically-challenged mind. Ignore the ceiling issue for now. What do you do about the old wires? Do you abandon them in place? If you choose to remove them, and they are stapled to the studs, do you just pull hard and break loose the staples? And what about stapling the new wires to the studs? Aren't tey supposed to be stapled within 12" of the box? I can see 1 or 2 new wires not stapled, but a whole house?
BTW, the electricain who I am working with on this and other projects...he talked around and found out who the city employee was who wired it backwards. The guy used to work for my electrician, and apparentl he was just ok, not the sharpest knife in the drawer. And Bill says the guy had very little distribution experience, mostly residential wiring. Probably has even less experience now.
Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell'em "Certainly, I can!" Then get busy and find out how to do it. T. Roosevelt
The code has provision in it for "old work" wiring where it does not have to be attached next to the box.
As a "skilled DIY" electrican here is how I have handled re-wiring, but on a much, much smaller scale.
Used a sawzall to cut the nails holding the old box. Then pulled it out from the wall and cut off the old wire as far as I could read through the hold.
Then pulled the new wire and put it through the box holes. Then used piffins screw to screw through the side of the box into the stud.
Boy. Miles and miles of butt joints. Sounds fun. Not. I'd leave yourself plenty of room to feather out the new joint, and considering the time and hassle, heck, give 'em new baseboards and be done with it. You'll have perpetual swale in the walls if you leave a butt joint around a room running horizontal like that.
"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man." - Mark Twain
In a lot of cases, assuming an attic, crawl space or conveniently located closets rewiring can be done without disturbing the finished surfaces. Sometimes it pays to remove the baseboard and trip around doors, one side of the wall only, as this can greatly decrease the time time and money involved. Part of this saving is from the job being done mostly from within the building shell and kneeling or standing as opposed having to stuff a helper into a cramped, dirty and miserably difficult attic or crawl space.
Idea being that once the trim is removed and the drywall or plaster cut away, with a bit of care the trim will go back up without even having to patch, the wall spaces are open. The short runs from the boxes to the opened area is trivial compared to the blind shots otherwise required. The trim around doors gives easy access to switches near the door and up into the attic or down to the crawl space speeding these runs.
If the trim is nothing special removing it and replacing, this would be a good time to upgrade is fairly easy and can cut in half the time needed for such a rewire. Another option, possibly used in conjunction with the baseboard route, is to cut out a horizontal slit in the drywall at the height of a chair rail. Once the wiring is done the carpenter installs a chair rail. Done well it can beautify a room.
The key to this is to find a contractor that is heavily experienced in repairs, renovations and other 'old' work. Some contractor seem to do mostly new construction and sending one of these out on one of these jobs is fine training for the company but your going to pay more for their learning curve.
The key to this is to find a contractor... The contractor is me :)Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell'em "Certainly, I can!" Then get busy and find out how to do it. T. Roosevelt
RE: "The contractor is me :)"
Find someone with experience in this to show you the ropes if your not familiar. Nothing too complicated about fishing cables but there are a whole lot of tricks and a considerable amount of 'feel' to it. Of course if you have some background in the field it can go well. Depends on how you handle new methods and your tolerance for frustration.
I will say that if you are not experienced fishing between a space made available by removing the baseboards, or door trim, and a device box is a lot easier than drilling from a crawl space and fishing a cable in with a helper. The former can often be done without assistance as it is only a 2' run and you can reach both sides to guide the cable in.
The chair rail method is even easier on the back as you needn't stay bent over as long.
Ed, good advice as always from 4Lorn1. I think it really boils down to the accessibility of your attic and crawl space. Do you have an 18" crawl space full of spiders, raccoons, and large rocks, or a 42" crawl space with a smooth floor? My crawl space is more like the latter, and I can get in there, drill up into a wall, and thread a new wire in a very short time. There's no reason to start busting out sheetrock if you can do that--the repairs, sanding, repainting, and general mess are totally not worth it. The one caveat is the possibility of horizontal or diagonal blocking--if there's blocking in the wall, forget it.
Appreciate your advice, but you missed one of my earlier comments...the house sits on a concrete slab, so the crawl space is really, really limited.
Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell'em "Certainly, I can!" Then get busy and find out how to do it. T. Roosevelt
Ed,
I have done this both ways. 4Lorn has some great ideas. I would remove the ceiling and the base board. I would abandon the old wire in the walls. Simply shove the old out of the box and fish the new in from above.
With the base removed if you need to travel horizontly across the wall you can notch the studs and cap the wires with metal protector plates. But most can be fished down quickly and easily and then rocking the ceilings should be pretty simple. This method takes out the issue of working in the attic space.
You should be able to reuse most boxes and if not old work boxes are readily available in a variety of shapes, depths and sizes. Attic wiring can be clipped and disposed of. DanT
You might want to check this out for some ideas.
http://www.taunton.com/finehomebuilding/pages/h00070.asp
Ed,
Everyone has discussed removing the drywall above the baseboard.
When I've done electrical for family, I've found that pulling the baseboard and cutting the drywall or plaster horizontally, up 5" or so from the floor, gives great access.
If you prefer to not notch the studs to run wire, with that much access you can drill through the studs high enough, about 4" off the floor, to avoid the ends of the 16d's that attach the studs to the sole plate.
When done, use horizontal run of half-inch (to match drywall thickness) furring as a filler on the bottom of the studs, then cover the gap with a taller base, 6", or as required. By adding a cap or shoe profile to add height to the orignal base, and adding a filler piece the same thickness as the drywall to the face of each stud, and maybe even a horizontal filler strip on the face of the sole plate, you might even be able to reuse the original base.
Just an alternative idea.