Pulling wire in the walls

Eigenvector · 2007-02-14T04:06:38+00:00

One question, when re-wiring an outlet, for instance to replace the old useless Romex with clipped grounds, with fresh new 12/2 - how do you tell where the wire goes? I mean how do you tell without hacking chunks out of the wall?In my house it looks reasonable that the Romex goes from the attic and drops down to the outlets, so in this case it would be stapled to the studs going up - but what's the easiest way to determine that without major destruction of the wall? For all I know it could be threaded through the studs (or worse in front of the studs as was done in a few spots). I guess you could use a stud finder or the like, but old Romex is pretty heavily shielded and it'd be easy to lose the run among the studs.If I'm looking at demolishing the wall, I might as well remove the entire wall in one sheet - at least then I can put up insulation while I'm there and clean out the buggies.