Wire Routing Basics

I would highly recommend that you do not bundle electrical wires and communication / networking wires (telephone / computer networking / cablevision / satellite) together, all electrical cables can create a magnetic flux / field around current carrying wires which can cause issues. Just as transformers cause an induced current in the secondary winding, to a lesser extend regular electrical cables can have an affect on nearby tightly run cables.

Running cables before the drywall on an unfinished wall is the best but that is something that is not available when running new circuits in an existing home or rewiring an older home.

Fishing tape can be your best friend when trying to feed wires through hard to reach wall or floor cavities.

For an old home rewire you must expect to have some repairs to walls and ceiling will have to be made after the rewire is complete, you can expect to come across almost anything in these old walls and they may be anything but completely hollow. Outside walls even though may not be perfectly insulated to today’s standards could have wood boards in back of drywall which will make the job harder to feed wire cables into.

I have not much in the way of rewiring an existing home so I do not consider myself an expert on that topic. Being able to follow certain code rules may be more difficult to achieve when it is an old home being rewired as to be able to secure the wire cable within 6 inches of the electrical outlet box may mean tearing more of the wall out to achieve that.

Unfortunately I have not been able to find a good instructional video on the internet that I could show you in regards to an old home rewire.

Please refer your questions to our experts in the field that answer questions on our FORUMS..

WHILE EXTREME CARE HAS BEEN IMPLEMENTED IN THE PREPARATION OF THIS SELF-HELP DOCUMENT, THE AUTHOR AND/OR PROVIDERS OF THIS DOCUMENT ASSUMES NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR ERRORS OR OMISSIONS, NOR IS ANY LIABILITY ASSUMED FROM THE USE OF THE INFORMATION, CONTAINED IN THIS DOCUMENT, BY THE AUTHOR and / OR PROVIDER.

By: Donald Kerr