House Rewire job

If you will put a GFI plug in the first plug location (ie--closest to the braker) and run a short wire between the ground and neutral positions on the plug (connect them together) you have the effect of GFI on all plugs on the entire breaker for that set of wiring.

I am sure this doesn"t meet code, but it does make a safer wiring set up than the old two wire plugs ever offered.

That way, any of the plug-ins on the circuit will trip the GFI and cut all of them off. This actually works. Tested it out to be sure since my kids lived in the house for a while.

The only payback you will get on an electrical upgrade is converting a fuse box to a breaker box at the main service - poeple like those, the rest they don't much pay attention to. And, changing out a breaker box is not the best for do-it-yourself, as you can easily get it wrong & create liability issues.

I'd let sleeping dogs lie.

--->Paul

Unless there is some real reason that you could not sell the house with the wiring as-is, I doubt that you could ever recoup your investment to have it rewired. And I would consult a lawyer for an opinion about doing a rewire yourself and then selling the house. You might be increasing your potential liability if something somehow went bad and there was a fire..... I think I would leave it alone. Good luck!

I've done lots of wiring, lots of difficult wiring, and lots of creative wiring, but I always wire to code whether an inspection is involved or not. I can't agree with what john d says about how he ran some of his circuits; if you have to be careful that you don't nail through some of your wiring it isn't right. It has to be where a knowledgeable person will expect it, or protected with metal conduit and nail plates. Working as a remodeling contractor I was never amused to run into any systems where they oughtn't have been. I wouldn't even do it if it was just for myself---and I'm willing to put up with a lot---but you're selling the house. You can't do anything that will create a dangerous situation for someone in the future.

The best advice you've gotten so far was from Davie-OR. His advice is always good, and he knows a lot. You don't have to do anything about the wiring unless you've created some situation that makes it legally necessary.

It took me a long time to get it through my head, but I finally figured out that upgrading your electrical system is one of the poorest payback jobs you can do to sell a house. You'll get twice the money for a twentieth the work with fresh paint. The simple truth is that most people don't know anything about electrical systems, and don't want to. If you really want to do some wiring that matters to most buyers, put phone jacks and cable tv outlets in every room.

I used to love to put in good, sound electrical service upgrades with a few vanity type frills: split kitchen outlets on separate circuits, switched outlets in bedrooms and living rooms, dedicated computer circuits, outlets no more than six feet apart in any room, three-way switches where they were hardly justified. What a colossal waste of time. As far as I can tell, visibly terrible wiring can kill a sale, but great wiring doesn't matter to one person in a thousand.

Post again if there's some reason that you absolutely have to ground your system to sell the house. I suspect that isn't the case because your last line was that maybe you should just sell the house as is. But if you have to, plenty of people on this forum besides me can advise you on how to best go about it.

All the best, Stan

You are not required to upgrade the wiring to current new construction practice unless you are doing such an extensive remodel that the studs are exposed and it is thus feasible to pull new wires. (Different localities have different standards on how extensive a remodel triggers such rewiring. But "old wiring" does not, by itself, call for replacement.) It is still legal to continue to use the really old "knob and tube" stuff. Your 1950's era two wire Romex is positively futuristic compared to that.

If the issue is that you can't find a place to plug in three prong cords, or that you feel the bathrooms or kitchens are unsafe without the grounding, there is an exception in the NEC that allows you to retrofit a 3-prong receptacle without providing a ground. The trick is that you must provide a GFI (ground fault interrupter) upstream of any receptacles so converted. There are also certain labeling requirements, since the grounding prong doesn't actually work.

The GFI provides superior safety to a plain, ordinary grounding receptacle without a GFI, and you do not have to pull new wires to the box.

I fixed a few basement outlets so the ground worked properly and had the inspector come in. He said all I had to do was put a GFI braker in the pannel and I'd be in compliance. A lot easer.

Charles

One of the problems was the new panel could not go where the old panel (directly below the meter) was- code needed 3' of unobstructed space in front of the meter, and it had to be between 4'6" and 5'6" to the center of the meter face.

Unfortunately this left me having to put the meter and panel right on the face of my chimmney, sure, I could have gone with an inside panel (meant ripping into walls, more $$) or moved the meter to the other side of the house (meant cutting down a Magnolia tree to re-run the powerlines, and days without power waiting on the electrical co op to come out and move it)

I live in a small enough suburb I could still go down to city hall and pull a "homeowner builder' permit, something you won't be able to do in a lot of areas. I hired two boatyard electricians on the side who charged me $600 labor, and I bought $500 in materials.

To have hired this to a contractor would have cost thousands, and they would not have just run new sub feeds to my still existing fuze box panels inside.

The good thing about this is I now have a 100 amp feed to my detatched garage and running a welder, and a window unit air conditioner in the attatched mother in law apartment does not trip breakers anymore.

But unless you are doing this wiring because some insurance company or FHA is requiring it, it's a waste of your money as far as a return on the investment.