There’s a good reason that a home’s electrical infrastructure gets installed during the building process before the sheetrock goes in. It’s because moving wiring around inside finished walls is often difficult and costly. However, as your home ages, your electrical needs can change so much that rewiring your whole house could become a necessity. Many believe that they’ll need to tear out most, if not all, of their home’s drywall to do it. The good news is that, in most cases, that’s not necessary. Here is the process we’d follow to rewire your home without removing all of its drywall.
Developing a Wiring Map
Before doing anything to your home’s electrical system, the first thing our electricians would do is make a map of all of your existing outlets and wiring. Then, they’d map out all of the new wiring that your home requires, including any changes to existing outlets and fixtures. This will make it possible for them to develop a rewiring plan that requires the least disruption to your home.
Preparation and Wire Removal
With the planning completed, the next thing our electrician would do is prepare your home for the work to come. This would include making space in the parts of your home where the new wiring needs to go. In many cases, rewiring your home means relocating the bulk of your home’s electrical infrastructure into an attic or crawlspace. This eliminates the need to remove the bulk of the sheetrock in your home’s finished walls.
Then, our electrician will turn off your home’s power so they can start removing the existing wiring. Most of the time, they’ll disconnect your existing wiring from your electrical service panel and cut back as much of the exposed wiring as possible. The remainder of the wire that’s inside your finished walls will stay where it is since it doesn’t pose any danger to your home and won’t interfere with the new wiring.
Installation of New Wiring
The next step in the process is to run all of the new electrical wire through your home’s crawlspace or attic. The new wires will begin at your home’s electrical service panel and run to the part of the crawlspace or attic that’s closest to where the wire needs to terminate. Once there, our electrician will drill holes through the top or bottom plates of your walls as necessary. Then, they’ll fish the new cables through your walls to the outlets or fixtures where they terminate.
Before moving on to connecting everything, our electrician will secure all of the new cabling. They’ll do this by tightening the wire clamps in each electrical box the new wires pass through or terminate at. Then, they’ll secure the wires using wire staples to the joists or rafters in your attic or crawlspace. This is an important step because it’s impossible to secure the wiring inside the walls themselves without removing the sheetrock. So, securing the wiring wherever it’s exposed will keep it from moving inside the walls once it is in use.
Once all of the new wiring is installed and secured, our electrician will connect each wire to its intended outlet or fixture. Then, they’ll connect each wire at the other end to the appropriate circuit in your electrical service panel. Once all of the necessary connections are complete, they’ll turn the power back on in your home.
Testing and Cleanup
After making all of the necessary connections, our electrician will then get to work testing all of the new wiring. They’ll check all of your home’s outlets and fixtures to make sure they’re working as intended. They’ll also replace all of your home’s outlet covers once they’re sure everything is working correctly. If all goes well, they’ll then clean up their workspaces and leave your home as clean as they found it.
Your Whole-House Rewiring Specialists
If your electrical needs have outgrown your home’s wiring, Putnam Mechanical is the place to call. Our master electricians are trained, licensed, and insured and specialize in whole-house rewiring jobs. That’s not all we do, however. We also offer comprehensive HVAC installation, repair, and maintenance, along with commercial refrigeration services throughout the greater Charlotte, NC, and Sarasota, FL, areas.
So, if you need your home rewired, contact the expert electricians at Putnam Mechanical today!
