Fishing Wires In 100 Year Old House

I am in the process of replacing the wiring in my in-laws 100 year old house. So far the work has been in the basement, with short runs up to the appliances. But now I'll need to run wires up to the attic for ceiling lights, fans, and smoke detectors.

The current knob and tube wiring actually runs along the OUTSIDE of the house between the basement and attic, and is seriously corroded with crumbling insulation. Obviously, this is not an acceptable way of routing the wires!

Normally I'd just drill a hole at the top, one at the bottom, and dangle a string down to connect the two. But as is common in these old houses, there is blocking partway up inside the wall. They have 12 foot ceilings, so I don't know yet whether there is a single block, or additional blocks.

I DO NOT want to cut into the old plaster and lath walls, so what is the best way to get a wire through the wall in this case? I remember seeing really long drill bits at Lowes, but I don't remember how long they were, and am concerned they wouldn't reach far enough into the 12 foot high walls.

If all else fails, I figured I could mount a length of conduit in the corner of one of the closets, as a chase to run wires from the basement to the attic. But I'd prefer to fish the wires in the wall if possible.

Any tips?

Anthony

Reply to
HerHusband
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You could find wind bracing in the walls, which are criss crosses, and they make snaking really tough. You don't say how many floors are involved, but if it's just one, you can easily run lines inside a closet from basement to attic. If it's two floors and you find two closets, one on top of another, you can go through both. Also you may find a cast iron stack pipe in the attic, which often has enough space around it to drop lines from attic to basement. If all else fails, run a conduit outside the house

Reply to
RBM

In article , HerHusband wrote: [snip[

I'd go with the conduit in a closet. BTDT.

Put the conduit in one of the *front* corners of the closet. Nobody will ever know it's there -- who goes into a closet and then turns around to look at the door?

Conduit is cheap. Don't skimp. Use a big one. Like three inches.You may want to run more circuits later.

If you're just really set against using conduit, you could build an actual chase with studs and drywall... but conduit's a *lot* cheaper, and faster to install.

Reply to
Doug Miller

Greenlee makes those 6 foot long bits that fit in a standard electric drill, plus they sell extensions for greater length. The bit has a hole in the business end, drill thru, attach wire and pull bit back retrieving wire too.

I once went thru about 12 feet into a closed space above cabinets.

they work great

Reply to
hallerb

Doug,

That's kind of what I was thinking. Easy to install, and basically out of sight.

Inside the wall is my first choice, the conduit my second, and building a chase in the closet was my third backup plan.

Unless the first two options don't work out for some reason, I'd rather avoid having to do any sheetrock, taping, painting, etc. I have enough work to do already. :)

By the way, my in-laws currently have one or two electrical outlets per room mounted in the 8" high baseboard. I'm planning on adding a few more. Are there any codes that would prevent me from locating additional outlets in the baseboard? I'm concerned that trying to cut holes for outlets in the plaster/lath would turn into a big mess of crumbling plaster. Cutting holes in the wood baseboard would be a lot less destructive, and simplify access from the basement.

Anthony

Reply to
HerHusband

Thanks! I was wondering if they had extensions or not. A bit and an extension would probably let me reach from the attic down to the basement. I'll have to see what is available on my next trip to the store.

Anthony

Reply to
HerHusband

Edwin Pawlowski:

Can you back that up?

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Reply to
Doug Miller

I have done this twice. The first one was knob-n-tube. I will never fish thru an exterior wall again. So I run the conduit up the interior walls and all outlets and switches are on the interior walls.

As for runnig conduit to the attic, the closet is the I would do it. I ran the conduit thru the corner of the closet nearest the door and inside a PVC pipe that went through both floors (first floor and attic floor.

Also where I have seen knob-n-tube, the meter has been inside the house. Almost everywhere code is going to call for the meter to be outside. And as soon as you do that, you will an electrician to pull a permit and to inspect and approve your wiring. I learned that after-the-fact when the meter reader saw the changes. Fortunately I found a cooperative contractor (35 years ago). He liked my work.

Dick

Reply to
Dick Adams

As another poster mentioned, this is compliant with the NEC, so the only issue would be some additional local code. I did this in my house with 1x10 baseboards. It gives you an extra 3/4" of depth, so the really deep boxes will fit in a 2x3 interior wall. It is also easier to cut the wood neatly than to cut the plaster neatly.

My method was to use a rotary cutter (rotozip) set to the proper depth to cut out the baseboard. I made a template that I could just nail in place and run the rotary cutter around the inside. After cutting out the plaster, I mounted an old work box to the baseboard with screws--if you want to use plaster ears, you need an old work box with extra long screws on the plaster ears because of the baseboard thickness. Then I had to use "midsize" faceplates to provide proper coverage of the box and screws.

Cheers, Wayne

Reply to
Wayne Whitney

There's no insulation in my in-law's house, so fishing wires to the outlets from the basement should be no problem. As long as there's no blocking in the wall, the switches won't be too bad either.

It's the full run from top to bottom where blocking is involved that it'll be an issue. I'm "hoping" the interior walls don't have the blocking, but haven't had the chance to check that out yet.

Seems to be the overall favorite... :)

I already have a permit, and the new panel and meter have already been inspected and approved. It's just a matter of updating all the individual circuits now.

The current knob and tube wiring has everything on ONE circuit. :)

Anthony

Reply to
HerHusband

The extensions are the same 1 foot extensions that work with spade bits, etc.

Not only are they six feet long, they are flexible. there is also a tool that goes into the wall to help you point the bit the way you want it to go. It has never been useful to me. The times I've tried it, I've found it not very good.

There might be long drill bits that are stiff. I haven't seen them. It would have helped me in a situation something like yours. I was in the attic lying on my belly, with my arm into the stack around the heating ducts (new house) and with my arm and an extension I could reach the middle of the stack where there was a sheet of plywood, a fire stop I guess. Because the bit was flexible, and dull from use, it was hard to drill the hole, but eventually I got it through.

But flexibility has other advantages, like the ability to start through a hole in the sheetrock and drill down to the basement.

Or the ability to start in the basement, and go in a bit above the foundation, then up the wall.

I did this once, aiming for just to the left of the hall and front door light switches. Unforunately it's very hard to control direction from there, so I drilled into the bottom of the platic box, and ripped the wire out of one of the toggle switches. Heh, double insulated drills are great to have. The whole basement went dark when I blew the breaker in the hall. But the second time I tried, I hit the right spot, for my burlgar alarm touch-pad to panel wires.

(I couldn't have drilled this hole down from a hole in the sheerock, because the new hole for the touchpad was going to be right above the lightswitches, and I didn't want to take the lightswitches and their box out.) If it had been someone else's house, maybe I would have done things differently, but I don't know how.)

Reply to
mm

They are fire stops.

Don (e-mail link at home page bottom).

Reply to
Don Wiss

I went up into the attic, and dropped a plumbing snake down along the waste vent pipe. This, with a little work, went through all the way to the basement. I then pulled wire, and additional pulling cord through. I probably ended up with 6 or 7 12/2 wires with no big problem.

Then it's just a problem of running wires from rooms to the attic.

Bob

Reply to
Bob

My 120 plus year old house, with remodeling about 85 years ago has the same kind of challenges. Although there indeed may be no blocking as mentioned by an earlier poster, there is just as likely a chance to find flocking in odd places/spaces/spacing.

When they installed the heating system in the 20"s, they made a square channel to run some pipes up. If I didn't look carefully I could have missed this "channel" in a little hallway. In addition, I created my own "channel" in an upstairs bathrood by putting in an angled wall behind the toilet (the vend pipe had been boxed in, just on that floor). This gave me a shot down and up (I'm 3 stories, not sure what you are dealing with). I rand a plastic onduit up this for future purposes, and left a pull string in.

I was not able to find a place where I could run a 3 foot drill bit. Before I got carried away with trying stuff, I would drill a small pilot hole large enough for a 4 guage ground wire and use that to determine how far I could go before hitting an obstacle.

IMHO adding the channel in the closet may be your fastest alternative.

You can always consider doing what they had to at I believe it was Sears tower where they realized they had left out floor to floor chases, and had to add and external chase! You could probably hide that along side a chimney.

Reply to
nospamgoingjag

In NYC at the Waterside apartnment complex they did not prewire for phones when it was built in 1974. So those wires run all around on the outside of moldings. The buildings were in the news recently, as the architect for it died a week or so ago.

Don (e-mail link at home page bottom).

Reply to
Don Wiss

Okay, so now that I've heard enough suggestions that pipe dope is the way to go, what good is teflon tape? Where it is used that pipe dope isn't?

Reply to
klaatu

As has been said there should be vent pipes or water pipes or hot water pipe of heating ducts you may be able to get next to. I would also look for closets you could use.

wayne

klaatu wrote:

Reply to
wayne

My in-laws house is a single story. From what I can tell, it was originally built without electricity, and only minimal plumbing. The only heat was an oil stove, and the stove and chimney were removed many years ago. There's no ductwork of any type, all plumbing is in the basement except for a single 2" vent that runs on the outside of the house.

I plan on drilling a couple of small holes top and bottom to see if an interior wall is free from blocking. If not, I'll go with conduit in one of the closets.

Anthony

Reply to
HerHusband

Ah, the single story does add a twist since nothing needs to penetrate too far. Oh well.

A note regarding "fishing" through the probe holes. As I mentioned earlier I used a heavy guage ground wire that I measured and marked with tape at certain legths so I knew how far I was getting before hitting an obstruction. I had tried to use a string with various weighted objects attached including a plumb bob, but they are very clumsy to move around. There may be a path for what you want to do, it just might not be in an exact straight path, so using a wire or real fish tape helps.

Good luck!

Reply to
nospamgoingjag

you can also by small cameras or rent them to look into cavities, useful for lots of stuff like wonder whats leaking.

sometimes a picture is wort a 1000 words or plumb bob drops

Reply to
hallerb

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