Wiring a house

[ActuariallySpeaking]

Hello... I was hoping to get some input. We purchased an investment house at auction and, surprisingly, it had knob and tube wiring. The house is almost an entire gut job and we planned to rewire. My husband is insisting that we find someone (not an electrician, probably more like a general contractor) to wire the house, then have an electrician sign off on it when they hook it up to the box. It sounded a little sketchy to me, so I wanted to put feelers out there to see- is this common? How would an electrician know it was to code? Would worse case scenario (an electric fire) be covered by insurance? I got input from one general contractor, but wanted to see what other people thought.

 

[Snoonyb]

1st. Contact your local Dept. of Building and Safety.
2nd. Contact you Ins. Carrier.

If all you are doing is elec., why pay the additional overhead of a general contractor?

When you abandon the knob and tube, which by the way, was one of the safest elec. systems of it's time, save some of the tubes, they are excellent knife sharpeners.

 

[bud16415]

If you plan to start the work DIY or hire some cheaper than electrician handy man to do the rough in of the wiring you better find the final licensed electrician first and get him to agree to hooking up someone else work and putting his reputation on the line trusting it was done correctly. I can tell you that most IMO will not work this way.



Now a days with inspections and such you may just find yourselves ripping out stuff if walls are finished over hidden work that wasn’t approved.



I will say it changes a lot based around where you live in the country. Some areas it wouldn’t fly at all where others are less critical. Maybe your husband is close friends with a pro electrician and has some agreements made in advance.



Is this house going to be your home or is it a flip? If it is a flip is it your first flip?

Good luck.

 

[oldognewtrick]

You will be hard pressed to find an electrician to sign off on someone else's work. Hire a electrician and have them wire it and have it inspected. Improper or cheaped out wiring can destroy the house and kill the inhabitants, not worth the risk. Just my 2 cents.

 

[afjes_2016]

Myself being a retired licensed/insured residential electrician who has rewired multiple (entire) houses (some all by myself) will tell you right out if you asked me to sign off on someone else's work and or make the final connections at the panel - "No Way!!" - Would be my response and has been when I have been asked in the past.

Why? - Because my liability insurance would have to cover any future incidents related to an issue of the wiring much less my reputation. Also, if there were any issues with the inspector I would have to deal with them and right there could be very costly in fixing a mess created by someone else.

As mentioned above. If you do decide to go this route be absolutely sure FIRST that you have a licensed electrician that is willing to take on this liability and I would for sure get it in writing FIRST!!
Good luck finding a qualified licensed and insured electrician willing to do this. If you do find one make sure they do have insurance and have the proper licensing.

 

[ActuariallySpeaking]

Thanks everyone! The idea didn't sit well with me, but my husband thinks I'm a bit overly cautious... So i wanted to hear other people's thoughts. The general contractor I spoke with said he had never done it that way either, but I wanted to hear other people's thoughts without swaying one way or the other.

 

[ActuariallySpeaking]

If you plan to start the work DIY or hire some cheaper than electrician handy man to do the rough in of the wiring you better find the final licensed electrician first and get him to agree to hooking up someone else work and putting his reputation on the line trusting it was done correctly. I can tell you that most IMO will not work this way.



Now a days with inspections and such you may just find yourselves ripping out stuff if walls are finished over hidden work that wasn’t approved.



I will say it changes a lot based around where you live in the country. Some areas it wouldn’t fly at all where others are less critical. Maybe your husband is close friends with a pro electrician and has some agreements made in advance.



Is this house going to be your home or is it a flip? If it is a flip is it your first flip?

Good luck.

It's our second flip. First one was a breeze compared to this one, I'm pretty sure we are going to lose money and it will take a long time because we will have to do cash for a lot of it. We plan to buy and hold though (first house we sold, which I still kick myself for), so hopefully over the long run it will make up for it. I plan on hiring an electrician... I just got a lot of greif from my husband about it and was wondering... Is having a general contractor run the wires a standard thing to do?! I guess not based on the responses on the thread!

 

[bud16415]

It's our second flip. First one was a breeze compared to this one, I'm pretty sure we are going to lose money and it will take a long time because we will have to do cash for a lot of it. We plan to buy and hold though (first house we sold, which I still kick myself for), so hopefully over the long run it will make up for it. I plan on hiring an electrician... I just got a lot of greif from my husband about it and was wondering... Is having a general contractor run the wires a standard thing to do?! I guess not based on the responses on the thread!

Most people flipping houses I would think act as their own general contractor and do the work they can and sub out what they can’t or what code says they can’t, cutting out the middleman.



Around here it wouldn’t be real hard to find a licensed electrician that would take on a job like yours and use your labor as a helper type situation. It would not be you doing most of the work but more of him telling you here is the plan you cut the drywall and drill the holes, pull the wire and even mount the boxes and then he would do all connections etc. They would do it as a side job and maybe you would do the grunt work during the day and they would come in after their normal day and work another 4 hours. Expect to pay them well if you find such a guy and make the deal well in advance of starting yourself.



I know people in the trades and that opens doors for such side dealings, and they know and trust me and my work.



Jumping into flipping is not as easy as they make it look on a 60 minute TV show and at the end they say we made 60k profit. Most of those locations are not where most of us live and when a good flip does come up where we live the realtor grabs it or channels it to his buddy the contractor.



The house I’m living in was basically a flip I did and trust me it was on the market in distressed condition for two years and likely looked at by a dozen house flippers in the area and passed on. The reason they passed wasn’t that there wasn’t money to be made, but rather there wasn’t a market to sell it for what it would be worth if 30 miles away from its location. We had the advantage there because it was where we wanted to live and we didn’t plan on selling it. Location is 90% of it. Cheap homes are in areas people are not buying in mostly. Cheap homes that need a lot of work are getting passed on by the cheap ones that are move in ready. Most people don’t want a project.

In my little town most flips become rentals and lots of flippers want a big payout to move on to the next flip and don’t want the trickle payoff and the hassle of being a landlord.