Additional wall outlets ??

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DwellingRepairs

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A early 1900s home, with plaster and wood lath, has one electrical outlet in each bedroom. The outlet is embedded in the wooden baseboard (about 3" above the floor). I am currently stripping the wallpaper (only one layer) to bare plaster. The walls and ceiling are in good shape except for a few long cracks.

I need to decide now if it worth moving the outlet up (8 " above floor) into the plaster wall and adding additional outlets on each wall or put in track wiring after the walls are finished. I would appreciate pros and cons from anyone who did this kind of work.

Thank you
 
First off welcome to House Repair Talk, I'm pretty sure your house will have knob and tube style wiring if your house hasn't had any electrical upgrades. I'd check and see what your electrical wiring looks like, then check with your local codes dept and see what they require if you make any modification to your service. We have some electric guys on here who I'm sure will chime in. Don't try to scimp on your house wiring, you don't want to be a headline in the morning paper.
 
DwellingRepairs said:
A early 1900s home,

one electrical outlet in each bedroom.

decide now if it worth moving the outlet up (8 " above floor) into the plaster wall and adding additional outlets on each wall or
put in track wiring after the walls are finished.
Click to expand...

An outlet survey:
A coarse test of residential wiring and connection integrity can be done by just plugging a hair dryer into each outlet in turn.
If it doesn't run at full speed there is a problem.
If it runs and then stops and the breaker hasn't tripped you have just caused a flaky conductor or connection to fail to an open circuit [which is safer].

Running this test will give you an idea of the overall health & safety of your wiring system.
If you also have a voltmeter, much more precise wiring tests can be run with this same hair dryer.
 
Last edited:
Assuming all's well with you electrical wiring, I do not see a problem. I have in the past added outlets and switches in older houses. Hopefully, you'll mount the boxes securely into any existing joists. In some cases, I added a piece or two of support lumber. You need not mount boxes in baseboards, which would be unnecessarily laborious.
 
moving receptacles up creates a couple of issues.
1. You have hole in the baseboard to repair or replace.
2. The cable is probably not long enough. You need to run all new cables.
 
Obviously, the best course of action is to rewire the house (we are assuming that you have old wiring). Either way, why not add the new outlets into the baseboard? That is generally what we do.
 
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