Old houses often have electrical wiring in them that is well below the current standard for electrical wiring that we use today. While the wiring does work, there are a lot of reasons to change the wiring and other electrical components in your older home.
Wiring Inspection
In order to determine if the wiring in your home needs to be updated, take a look at it and see what is there. Often, you can see the wiring in the basement or attic of older homes and it is pretty easy to determine if the wiring is older or not.
Look closely at the coating or jacket of the wiring. If the jacket is made from a cloth weave, the wiring is likely turn-of-the-century and needs replacing. Many times, the jacket is frayed and worn as well. You can also look at the electrical outlets in the walls to see if there are two or three slots in the outlet.
Older homes often only had two slots, which require an adapter to plug in modern appliances and other items. The third slot is the ground wire, and often on older homes, it is simply not there which is a problem for many things that you want to plugin that should be grounded.
Rewiring the Home
Rewiring the entire home is a big job, and you need to have an electrical contractor or electrician come in and do the work. The old wire must be pulled out of the walls and new wiring pulled in through the existing paths in the wall to keep from damaging the walls if at all possible.
An experience electrical contractor and their crew can usually pull all the new wire in and replace the switches and outlets from you in a couple of weeks time. It is better to have the work done when no one is living in the home, but if you are living in the building, most contractors can work in sections of the home so that you have power in areas they are not working in throughout the process.
Replacing the Electrical Panel
The breaker box or electrical panel should be updated if it is still using fuses, not circuit breakers. Often in older homes, the panel is only rated for 60- to 100-amps, and with all the electronics and items that use electricity in our homes today, a 200-amp service is almost a requirement. Talk to your contractor about what they recommend for your panel, but if you have a large home, don't be afraid to add more then you need so that you have room for future expansion.
For more information, contact companies like McDonald Electric.
When we purchased our first home, we realized that there was a problem with some of the electrical work. Some of the lights flickered when we turned them on, and others really seemed to have issues if they were left on long term. I thought the issues was the light bulbs themselves at first, so I replaced several of them. However, after making those changes, it seemed like things were still having trouble. I began going through and thinking carefully about how to identify and resolve the challenges, and it occurred to me that working with an electrician could be helpful. I turned to the professional for help, and it was a good thing I did. Read more about electricians on this blog.