How to know if electric needs updating?

[Anonymous]

Some 45 year old homes near us the owners have said they have recently had the electrical wiring “updated” to the tune of 15k or so.

My house was built in 1987. My lights and power seems fine. No issues with electrical performance. We have a mix of old lighting it came with and some recessed lighting we had installed to existing unused switches.

How does one know if there home wiring needs electrical modernization/updating? Is it just age based? Do I need to be budgeting for this? Do they tear open all the walls? Is my home at safety risk for fire for not having the wiring redone yet?

Please help me understand this I’m really lost on the whole concept!

[Anonymous]

Lights flicker.

LED lights stay on (dimly) even when switch is turned off.

[Anonymous]

Wiring doesn't wear out. At least the stuff used in the past 60 years or so doesn't.

You may need more capacity if your usage has grown over time. If you do you'll know because you're experiencing breakers tripping.

The cord changes continuously. If you do a renovation, depending on where you are and what is done you may have to bring your existing system to current codes. There's no reason to worry otherwise.

[Anonymous]

They upgrade the service probably. Common if you have a Tesla or want to add a pool or a hot tub. I rewired because I had knob and tube. Some people want to remove 1960s aluminum wiring. This is for safety and insurance purposes but most people don’t.

[Anonymous]

People on DCUM will vocally vocally disagree, but I would rewire the whole house (or not buy a house which is for sale) if the house either had (a) knob & tube electric wiring or (b) aluminum wiring [briefly popular in 1960s]. Both of those are safety issues and both have been disallowed by the building code for many decades.

[Anonymous]

By 1987, code disallowed knob-and-tube and also disallowed aluminum wiring. By then, 3-prong (i.e., grounded) electrical outlets were required. So properly installed 1987 house wiring probably is fine.

If you have an electrical panel with fuses, which is very unlikely, then I would replace it with a new electrical panel containing circuit breakers, but that is more about convenience rather than safety.

Avoid “Federal Pacific” electrical panels if replacing, although I think those no longer are even sold, for safety reasons.

[Anonymous]

Hire a local licensed electrician to do a safety inspection of your home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:By 1987, code disallowed knob-and-tube and also disallowed aluminum wiring. By then, 3-prong (i.e., grounded) electrical outlets were required. So properly installed 1987 house wiring probably is fine.

If you have an electrical panel with fuses, which is very unlikely, then I would replace it with a new electrical panel containing circuit breakers, but that is more about convenience rather than safety.

Avoid “Federal Pacific” electrical panels if replacing, although I think those no longer are even sold, for safety reasons.

They disallowed installing these but allowed you to keep it if you already had it. I just spend $28k removing knob and tube, aluminum wiring, BX wiring and a whole lot of bs wiring. How a house after over 100 years never got properly updated I’ll never know.

[Anonymous]

We "updated" the wiring on our 1950s when we found some really sketchy DIY stuff the previous owners had done, definitely not to any code then or current.

A 1987 house done properly at the time should still be OK now, but if you can find someone knowledgeable you trust I'd have them check the panel, wiring type, grounding, and where you have separate circuits. For example, our prior owners had used an extension cord to hook the electric stove into the same circuit as the kitchen outlets, completed with twisted wires wrapped in electrical tape - no good. We fixed that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some 45 year old homes near us the owners have said they have recently had the electrical wiring “updated” to the tune of 15k or so.

My house was built in 1987. My lights and power seems fine. No issues with electrical performance. We have a mix of old lighting it came with and some recessed lighting we had installed to existing unused switches.

How does one know if there home wiring needs electrical modernization/updating? Is it just age based? Do I need to be budgeting for this? Do they tear open all the walls? Is my home at safety risk for fire for not having the wiring redone yet?

Please help me understand this I’m really lost on the whole concept!

If you haven’t seen sparks or spontaneous fires you should be okay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:By 1987, code disallowed knob-and-tube and also disallowed aluminum wiring. By then, 3-prong (i.e., grounded) electrical outlets were required. So properly installed 1987 house wiring probably is fine.

If you have an electrical panel with fuses, which is very unlikely, then I would replace it with a new electrical panel containing circuit breakers, but that is more about convenience rather than safety.

Avoid “Federal Pacific” electrical panels if replacing, although I think those no longer are even sold, for safety reasons.

They disallowed installing these but allowed you to keep it if you already had it. I just spend $28k removing knob and tube, aluminum wiring, BX wiring and a whole lot of bs wiring. How a house after over 100 years never got properly updated I’ll never know.

The $28K bill to do the work is how it was never done previously.