Electrical System Options

In My Humble Opinion
1

Hello Everyone

We re about to move to a house built in the 40s. The main panel has been upgraded to 200A service, and in general the electrical system appears to be in good shape. That’s not just my opinion, but also the opinion of the inspector.

However, the house is 2-wire throughout. Also, none of the bathrooms have any outlets. There are probably enough outlets in the rooms to get by, but certainly not an abundance (many rooms have just one outlet per wall). All the outlets are 3 prong, but all the grounds are open (I am aware this is not OK)

The house is a fixer-upper, so we’re going in with a war chest to make some improvements. I need to decide how to prioritize the electrical, and what the best course of action is.

I am aware that the two-wire is not considered terrible, and that a “no equipment ground” GFI option is available.

I’m looking for advice/suggestions from the teeming millions, especially (but not exclusively) the electrical experts.

Should I have the outlets GFI protected and leave it at that?
Should I have the whole thing upgraded, using the excuse that I need to add outlets anyway?
Should I leave mostly alone, but just add some 3-wire circuits to the bathroom?
Is there a way to do it in stages, one part of the house at a time?
Ideas I haven’t thought of?
Do added grounds have to all run back to the panel, or is there a way to share ground, use water pipes, etc?

Please note that the whole damn thing is finished, from basement to attic. There will be lots of holes. So part of me says just do it, and then as I rehab rooms I’ll clean up the mess. But then another part says that this will unnecessarily eat into my war chest.

I know that more and more tools/appliances etc use double insulation and no ground prong, but I also note that all the modern electronics DO seem to have a ground- will I be constantly ruining my stuff if I go the GFI route?

For the record, while I am proud of my DIY merit badge, for a job of this nature I will be hiring an electrician. I just want the thoughts and advice of the folks here so I can be fully equipped to make a decision.

Thanks!

2

Use three-wire outlets in the bathroom and kitchen (I’m guessing you’ll tear up the kitchen at some point.) A simple two-wire circuit with a GFI is fine for living areas.

Of course, you’ll need a three-wire outlet for any place you plan to regularly use heavy duty tools (a workshop, maybe the garage, etc.)

3

Touch ANYTHING electrical and it has to be brought up to code. And code is a minimum thing–going past that might be advisable.

Corners have already been cut–the 200A service should have been three wire from the start.

GFI circuits will be needed where water is involved, ARC fault in other areas.

Hopefully you have friends in construction to point you to a good electrician, they know how to run the wires with minimal holes in the wall.

At least it’s not knob-and-tube!

[from someone who helped his electrician dad bring a 1928 house into the 20th century. 15A service to 200A]

4

You can absolutely do it in stages, though this might cause some headaches during inspections. Regardless of what your State and local codes say, many inspectors will simply expect all the outlets and wiring to be brought into compliance with current Codes/practices at the same time. This happens to me all the time.

Personally, I would simply go ahead and run grounding conductors to all locations and devices IF this is possible with a reasonable budget. In some houses of your era, it is. In some, it is not. It depends on the construction and how the electrician wired it.

No, you cannot have separate grounding points (e.g., run your bedroom outlet grounding conductors to a water pipe) without jumping through some very small hoops. Regardless of the wiring that is grandfathered, any new work will have to meet current Codes and these will require all grounding points to be bonded together. It IS possible to use a remote grounding electrode and bond it back to the building grounding electrode with a single bonding jumper that is appropriately sized.

I’m a bit surprised that the main panel was upgraded to 200A and that the outlets were (I’m guessing) upgraded to grounded devices without having any grounding conductors to them. As you say, that’s not right, but it is what it is.

5

I’ll add that The Vorlon is correct about work meeting current Codes, but you should be able to add outlets (in the bathroom, for example) and only be required to have those outlets comply with Code. The inspector may, however, take exception to the existing 200A panel, which is his/her right, if it has any issues that could affect the proper operation of the new outlets.

6

Basically you should prioritize grounded outlets in the bathroom, kitchen, workshop (although power tools are increasingly becoming double insulated with two prong cords), outdoors, and computer room. Other locations where you just want to plug in a lamp or a phone charger I would put back the proper ungrounded outlets.

You used to be able to use water pipes as a ground, but I believe that was removed in a recent code revision.

I’m not a fan of the “GFCI / no equipment ground” option. If you’re using a 3 prong power tool that shorts to ground you’re not going to die but it’s not going to be any fun before the GFCI trips. If possible either proved a grounded three-prong outlet or only use two prong equipment."

7

I just went through something similar less than a year ago, so…
Should I have the whole thing upgraded, using the excuse that I need to add outlets anyway?
…is my suggestion.

The new house I’m in was built in the early 1960’s and had 3prong outlets everywhere inside and 3prong GFI outlets around the back yard deck and gazebo. The inspector noticed the 3prong outlets had no ground – the previous owner just replaced the outlets without connecting a grounding wire.

I asked the seller’s agent for credit on the sale so I could upgrade the outlets with properly grounded lines.

A week later, the seller’s agent said he had gotten an electrician* to replace all the wall outlets with GFCI’s. Something didn’t feel right in the back of my mind, so I did some research. Apparently if you connect some Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) units and/or some Surge-Suppressing (SS) multi-outlet units to a GFCI outlet, the GFCI receives a false signal that tells it there’s a ground fault occuring. Since a GFCI outlet is designed to kill power when a ground fault occurs, it will do that when a UPS or SS unit is plugged in and turned on.

Well, that just doesn’t work for me and my wife because we both use our computers to work from home, and we also have a moderate home entertainment system. Each of those sets of high-tech electronics is connected to a UPS unit which is then connected to the wall outlet and, therefore, protecting our equipment would kill power to the GFCI outlets and either ruin the equipment or simply make it pointless to connect them to the wall.

We insisted, again, that the seller provide credit in the sale so that we could have the outlets properly wired with real grounded outlets and real grounded wiring.

If you’re going to have outlets installed in the bathrooms anyway, they’ll need to be properly grounded GFCI’s because they’ll be within 15 feet (I think that’s the standard) of water. If you’re going to have grounded wiring put in anyway, you might as well have the rest of the outlets/wall-wiring/panel upgraded to modern standards at the same time. Get it done from the start and get the task behind you. Your high-tech electronics will be protect-able (via a UPS) and you won’t have to worry at all about the wiring ever again#.

Epilogue: When my electrician came to run grounded wire and replace the GFCI’s, he discovered the GFCI’s were rigged to connect the ground terminal to the neutral terminal. Such a bypass would pass an inspector’s test (because all he does is stick a detector tool into the holes) but my electrician noted that wiring an outlet that way was a violation of modern Electrical Code (largely because there is no actual grounding in place). Most city/county/state laws simply defer to the Electrician Union’s standard code for building regulations, therefore that bypass was thoroughly illegal. Quite fortunately, we didn’t have to discuss such details with the seller’s agent. Otherwise things were going to get very ugly and litigious.

–G!
Feel free to keep the extra 48 cents :slight_smile:

  • Since his bio includes a former career as an electrician, we thought there was no coincidence that he had no receipt for the work that was done.
    $ better to risk a $40 UPS/SS unit frying during a surge than to risk having the $400 high tech equipment frying during a surge

Well, okay. “Ever again” is probably an exaggeration.

8

Are the walls plaster and is it a full basement?

If you plan to remove the wall coverings as you rehab then that would be a perfect time to add or rewire outlets. If you dont it will likely be quite a labor intensive undertaking to add a bunch of stuff, especially if plaster. I suppose you could add ground wires but if you’re already drilling holes and fishing wire then why not three wires? If your using an electrician the material cost difference will be small vs labor for this type of work.

If it’s a full basement I might consider removing the ceiling finish and routing the wiring down through from the walls above, to the panel, then refinish the ceiling once it’s all done, this might have the added benefit of exposing plumbing for your inspection.

9

I am in much the same situation as the OP. House built in 1942 much of the wiring original, except all the kitchen and bathroom circuits have been brought up to three wire grounded circuits as well as the ones our computers are attached (although modern laptops seems to have reverted to 2 wire outlets). An electrician was installing a new electric stove (the old one had been wired in; the new one had a socket) and I asked him what it would cost to rewire the whole house. He estimated $20,000. I was shocked. Is this out of line? We also have 200A service although not all the spaces in the box are used.

10

Yes, this is a good first step. Consider the possibility of saving money by installing one GFCI breaker rather than several GFCI outlets.

You will probably do that eventually, but it can be done in stages over the years.

Yes, add the bathroom 3-wire outlets. Do the rest as you work on remodeling the rooms.

Yes, it’s easy to do this in stages.
Just add new, up-to-code wiring room-by-room, leaving the old wiring there & usable as you work. Once the new wiring is working, you can replace the old stuff, or just remove it entirely.

Doing the electrical part in stages is easy. The refinishing is tougher. Simplest (and cheapest) is to just leave drywall holes & exposed wall sections until the whole house is re-wired & re-plumbed, then re-do all the drywall & paint everything. That depends on if you (& your family) can live with that for weeks or months.

11

Rewiring an entire house is labor intensive to the max. Probably about right depending on labor rates and house size. The few I’ve priced came near that. Also no-one really wants to rewire an entire house with the walls on anyways.

12

My home was built in 1892, so the knob-and-tube was retrofitted … then abandoned in the 1990’s (12-guage romex is white) by an actual electrician … then extensively modified by some rank amateur … [sigh] … pretty much a top-to-bottom re-wiring job … ah, the good news is that all the wall coverings are shit and need to be replaced anyway (lathe-and-plaster underneath 1/2" plywood underneath 3/8" drywall) …

Once finished, my homeowner insurance premium will get lowered and should pay for the re-wiring in about 15 years …

13

Thanks all for the input- I’ve been following along but haven’t had much to add- so don’t think I’m unappreciative.

I’m leaning towards having the 3-wire into the 2nd floor bathroom and doing the living room and master bedroom at the same time, since they are in proximity- as a start. The first floor is a 1/2 bath and on the other side of the house, so maybe leave that for later (there’s currently NO outlet in there, so at least it’s not dangerous). The kitchen needs a full remodel, so I’ll do the wiring there when I tackle that.

Closing is supposed to be first week in June, so let’s hope this doesn’t bankrupt me.