Do I have to gut to rewire a prewar?
Started by CyJackX
over 3 years ago
Posts: 13
Member since: Jan 2014
Discussion about
Hello all. As a leak trickled down from my 4th floor neighbor to me, two floors down, and opened up a hole in my bathroom ceiling, I inevitably have to start considering at least fixes, if not renovations. At 400 sq.ft total, it's not much, but seems like quotes for labor alone to redo the place are coming in between 50-100k. I'm fairly handy but I know there are plenty of tasks I can't and... [more]
Hello all. As a leak trickled down from my 4th floor neighbor to me, two floors down, and opened up a hole in my bathroom ceiling, I inevitably have to start considering at least fixes, if not renovations. At 400 sq.ft total, it's not much, but seems like quotes for labor alone to redo the place are coming in between 50-100k. I'm fairly handy but I know there are plenty of tasks I can't and shouldn't do myself. One of those things is rewiring. There's a non-load bearing wall I'd demo myself if it weren't for the fact that the panel is in it. And the panel is not up to code and I doubt anybody in the building is up to code at this point. I'm assuming to rewire the place would require tearing out every outlet, but I'm assuming there's no way to rewire the place without tearing up a route to each outlet. I'm assuming you can't just pull each cable because they might be secured to beams or whatnot... So it's almost making me consider abandoning taking out that wall and just patching up minor things and updating the fixtures. :-/ [less]
"There's a non-load bearing wall I'd demo myself if it weren't for the fact that the panel is in it."
If there is an electrical panel in the wall, you may have an electrical riser going vertically through the wall, which will make it very expensive to remove the wall completely including panel portion and move the panel even if you do not do any other rewiring.
Yes, that is also a consideration; I'd have to move the riser and shut off power to my two upstairs neighbors in the same column temporarily.
It is a big task. Before you plan any further, you may want to check the cost of that with an electrician and whether your coop will let you do that.