Residential upgrade

I want to replace ALL of my wiring, and as a commercial electrician I understand the code, what I don't know is if there is a way to get to the receptacles fed near the eaves without destroying the walls. The old romex appears to be stapled within the walls, so I can't use that to pull the new romex. And I am not small enough to reach the eaves.

 

Get a kid a bump hat and send him into the attic. Ha. Some can be fed from underneath. At the risk of saying something you have already made a decision on, I have found its not always necessary to replace it all. Is it old enough to be a hazzard? My Fathers house was built before grounding and I just replace where it needed grounded recepts. The covering on the old wire was good and the insulation plastic so I leave it go. If you can see the top of wall plate and there are obvious holes you can use fish rods too. Sometimes you can cut a small hole in wall near ceiling to drill the plate and feed the wire. Then its only a patch.

 

One way to get at those is by removing the freezeboard on the outside and drilling the plate with a right angle drill. Or you can also use this handy method on the inside: drill a plug of drywall out with a 3" holesaw right at the top plate(s). Save the plug then change to a one and one half inch holesaw. Drill into the plates about a half inch then pop out the plugs with a screwdriver. Fish your cable thru, put on a couple of nail plates and glue your drywall plug back in. I often use a fiberfish with a hook on the end then I can grab it in the attic with another fiberfish section so I don't have to crawl into the corners.

 

Ya, thats the ticket,,, thats what I meant to imply, just too lazy to write it.

 

Thanks, very helpful info. And yes, I do plan to replace every bit of the wiring due to the fact that I plan to put all commercial grade receptacles so I need to go with 12/2 instead of the 14/2 now in use. Plus the fact that I've noticed a lot of problems with the insulation.... mostly due to whomever installed it 30 years ago. Thanks again, I'll let you know how it turns out!

 

You can access the top of the wall by cutting a hole in the eave. Drill, fish, pull, whatever and then close up the hole in the eave with a new eave vent.