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Fri Jul 11, 2008 11:57 am

I am about to buy a house that was built in the 60's. It has no ground. What does it usually cost to rewire a home up to todays standards? The house is a 3 bedroom, 1 bath. 1400sqft, with a detached 2 car.
Not looking for exacts, just ballparks.

Fri Jul 11, 2008 12:09 pm

Usually, your ground is a long copper spike that you pound into the ground outside your foundation. I used 2. Tie those leads from the ground stakes together at the box and run a secondary ground wire to your well pipe or city water line. You should have 2 power rails, 1 ground rail and 1 neutral rail in your breaker box.

Fri Jul 11, 2008 12:21 pm

My father is in construction... I could ask... but I know the wire sold today is vastly different than the wire of yesteryear. To bring the house "truely" up to code would involve a complete tear out. Depending if your house has plaster or drywall, basement or slab on grade, the price could vary greatly.

Are the wall sockets 3 or 2 pronged?

Fri Jul 11, 2008 12:24 pm

I am in the process of building and have most of my electrical done. This is new constructon...... I have not really keep up with cost but I would be safe to say i have about 4K in materials. Thats from pole to outlet. copper is high right know, I did all the install so you can double that at least to hire it done. My house is a little bigger than that but this should give you an idea. Just a heads up in a remodel the cost of labor will be alot cause all the tear out and reworking things . So if there is a way for you to do this part it will save you loads of $$$$

Fri Jul 11, 2008 12:46 pm

I have no idea about cost. I've been an electrican for over 20 years and don't do much side work. The 2 ground rods are correct plus the cold water ground and panel ground. Plus you would need to pretty much rewire the house to install grounded conductors to the receptacles unless the house has metal studs instead of wood studs ( I know it doesn't have metal studs). Just adding the ground rods will ground the house but will not ground you house hold stuff, TV's stereos, DVD, etc. Remove the baseboard and add crown molding to fish and install the new wires.

Fri Jul 11, 2008 12:56 pm

thebucket wrote: I am about to buy a house that was built in the 60's. It has no ground. What does it usually cost to rewire a home up to todays standards? The house is a 3 bedroom, 1 bath. 1400sqft, with a detached 2 car.
Not looking for exacts, just ballparks.

Man,

You may just want to settle on a couple of rooms being upgraded. To install the missing third wire involves possibly punching a lot of holes in the walls next to the outlets. If your walls are drywall they can be patched but then will have to be repainted. Every house is different. If the house has a crawlspace then you can run a ground wire down from every outlet and switch into the crawlspace. If not then more holes required to get the new wire horizontally through the studs in the walls.

In any scenario, this is messy work. You will definitely want this to be fully permitted and inspected. That in turn will yield specific requirements for that part of the country. You don't want to monkey with this kind of work. You will also need to upgrade your main box most likely.

How much ? Thousands........

The plus side? Better protection against shock from a defective machine/tool/gadget/lightning maybe (I'm in the S.F. area and we don't have lightning) but you should also be able to talk with your home insurance company about reducing your premium once the new electrical system is in place.

Good luck,

Chester

Fri Jul 11, 2008 1:05 pm

For that size house and depending on the number of outlets, swithes (3-way and 4 way, etc) anywhere from $10-$15k(depending on complexity/access) if you are having someone else do it.

This is the range in which we paid a little over a year ago during a remodel. Full house rewire(only kitchen and hall bath were easy access due to the demo.), upgraded breaker box, can light installs(18), 3-way and 4 way switches(super convenient), all outlets/swithes/plates replaced, etc.

It was almost a shame to cover up the work these guys did. They were perfectionists with wire spacing and layouts. The slots in the screw heads on the switch plates were even lined up parallel.

Fri Jul 11, 2008 1:08 pm

My house was built in the early 50s with metal shielded wiring, the shield is the ground.

Fri Jul 11, 2008 1:09 pm

myzamboni wrote: .... The slots in the screw heads on the switch plates were even lined up parallel....

I do that.... and charge an extra 10 percent :twisted:

.

Fri Jul 11, 2008 1:15 pm

Rick73Super wrote: My house was built in the early 50s with metal shielded wiring, the shield is the ground.

That was common and accepted practice back then. The problem is that over time, it's possible for corrosion to cause "thin" points in the metallic cable; this thinness or even outright separation causes that particular portion of the metallic cable to offer little or no grounding depending upon where it is in the system. Of course, if you have two prong outlets installed, there's nothing grounding to it in any case.

Nowadays, all metallic (armored) cable when used to supply a circuit is grounded with a third (usually green) ground wire along with the neutral and hot wires. The metallic sheathe is then grounded to the ground wire.

- Chester

Fri Jul 11, 2008 1:20 pm

I would opt for a total rewire, that way you know what you have. just doing certain outlets in certan rooms, would become annoying. In the long run, a rewire will be safer and be easier to deal with.

ALTHOUGH a total rewire would be expensive, I hope in the contract for the purchase of the home you had this amount deducted.

Fri Jul 11, 2008 1:20 pm

I recommend wiring your house with 220, 221. Whatever it takes.

Fri Jul 11, 2008 1:22 pm

thebucket wrote: I am about to buy a house that was built in the 60's. It has no ground. What does it usually cost to rewire a home up to todays standards? The house is a 3 bedroom, 1 bath. 1400sqft, with a detached 2 car.
Not looking for exacts, just ballparks.

I have no idea what they'd charge but would suspect that having multiple floors adds to the price. If you have access to the walls from the basement, it will make the job a lot less destructive (i.e. you won't have to break open as many walls).

Fri Jul 11, 2008 1:24 pm

grammarian wrote: My father is in construction... I could ask... but I know the wire sold today is vastly different than the wire of yesteryear. To bring the house "truely" up to code would involve a complete tear out. Depending if your house has plaster or drywall, basement or slab on grade, the price could vary greatly.

Are the wall sockets 3 or 2 pronged? 2 prong

Fri Jul 11, 2008 1:30 pm

How many floors does the house have? Most house have fire blocking about half the way up the wall so you need to cut the wall to get wires up to the 2nd floor. But theres always a way to get around it. Explain how the house is so we can get a better feel for it.

Fri Jul 11, 2008 1:40 pm

steven wood wrote: How many floors does the house have? Most house have fire blocking about half the way up the wall so you need to cut the wall to get wires up to the 2nd floor. But theres always a way to get around it. Explain how the house is so we can get a better feel for it. Its a single level. The home was built in 1968. I have yet to negotiate the problems. What I plan on doing is getting quotes for the work, and asking the seller to either do the repairs and pay for the re-inspection for my piece of mind. Or escrow the repair cost made payable to me at closing. I will then have my contracters do the work. If it goes the second way I will ask for an extra 10% over the quotes. Because things always end up being more than quoted.

Fri Jul 11, 2008 1:49 pm

Icy... I'm going nuts... whre the hell is that quote from?

Fri Jul 11, 2008 1:54 pm

grammarian wrote: Icy... I'm going nuts... whre the hell is that quote from?

Mr. Mom

Fri Jul 11, 2008 2:09 pm

If your house has BX cabling, you can ground the metal shielding for the third wire and install 3 prong outlets with little cost.

Fri Jul 11, 2008 3:43 pm

I had to rewire my entire house from the breaker box to the outlets. Not fun, especially in the attic - 200 degrees and blow-in insulation.

I was able to use all the old wire to pull the Romex through, though.

Seeing the old crusty cloth covered wire, it's a miracle my house didn't burn down decades before I bought it...