So I started wiring the house last week, and after a few days of the easy part, getting the individual boxes and circuits installed and figured out, I started running the home runs. Holy crap. Talk about a 10 hour stair master excercise marathon.

Up the ladder, onto the scaffolding, down the other ladder, up the stairs, up the ladder, down the ladder, move the ladder, up the ladder, down the ladder, move the ladder, up the ladder, down the ladder, move the ladder. Then you get top move back to where you brought the power in, stapling wire every 40" or so. Hammer type staples, not swingline, so that means a lot more up the ladder, down the ladder, move the ladder BS. That was one of the short runs. You also get to go back up on the scaffoldinfg to finish the run, and so you can start the next one.

Got 14 done today, plus a lot of other stuff. I'll try to take some photos tomorrow and post up a pic or two. Only another 16-20 left, and then I get to run cable, phone & data!

You only got 14 HR's done in a day. Sheesh, you really need to pick up the pace. HR's are to be done the first day of pulling and shouldn't take a full day unless the house is an unusually large one.

I also unsheathed the wires and built boxes, stripping, crimping, wire nuts, etc. I don't know, maybe 40 boxes in all, recepticales, three ways, switches, light boxes, and I hung 18 cans. Good enough for a rookie.

Damn it Jim, I'm a banker, not an electrician.

BTW, it is a 3200 SF two story house.

Face it, you're getting old Dogfish.

As a carpenter I worked for a guy that used to say that ladders were for getting on scaffolding not for working on.

Unfortunately that does not apply here.Climbing ladders all day sucks no way around it.

Buns of steel baby..buns of steel

my advice to you would be to learn how to build rods, and trade rods for labor.....that is the only way i roll.

I think you're doing pretty well Andy. It took the electrician 8 days to wire my house. That filled up a 3' long 200 amp panel, so he tied in a sub-panel for me to do the garage. I spent most of Sunday doing two runs in the garage, but that included using the hole-saw for the 4 light fixtures that go on the front of the garage. I want to start the outlet runs tonight, but I realize I have all this lumber stacked against 3 garage walls that I'll have to move into the center so I can nail switch boxes to studs and drill holes. I'll be lucky just to get the lumber moved.

Sg

I just realized I forgot to call you back. I'm a tard. Sorry, we were in the middle of setting up the DU event.

Jerry, I do take a small bit of solace in knowing I'm not as old as many of you.

Finished running the last of the home runs, I know, I did it backwards. Pulling 6-3 wire 75 feet through little holes on your knees is more of a chore than you think.

Took a little break and played on the backhoe filling in the pot holes. That was fun. I love playing on the backhoe.

6/3 wire? What's that for? Electric furnace and heat pump? I know I've got some heavy gage stuff in my place, but there's hunerds of feet of 12/2 and 14/2.

No prob on the call back. I got my answer when I bought boxes at Home Depot.

I think I have to hate you tho. I left work early and still only ran wire to the two garage outside lights I didn't get done Sunday, installed a box for one of the ceiling lights that I ran out of boxes for Sunday, and move a bunch of lumber, and then drilled less than half the holes in the studs for the outlet runs, and then broke the bulb in my trouble light and it was dark outside. That seemed like a good place to stop.

I guess I'm real slow, but also I find that each of my outside garage lights is on a shear wall with a stud right behind where I have to drill and holesaw thru for the box installation. Major pain, and it takes three hands and nimbler fingers than I have to get that damn NM cable to run around the cut out stud, thru the wall, and into the dinky hole in the box that is at exactly the wrong angle. Obviously the electrician didn't have to deal with this kind of crap in the house or he would still be there trying to thread cable thru some impossible place. My rule of thumb is that every task takes 3 times longer than it should. That way I'm surprised and happy when it doesn't.

Reminder: take new light bulb with me tomorrow unless I go to the Monty WDFW meeting.

Sg

6-3 is for the range, heat pump, and air handler (part of the HVAC system).

10-3 is for the dryer

I'm just bustin your chops. Not too bad for a guy who doesn't do it for a living.

There is one question I will ask though. Why 6/3 for the heat pump and furnace? Usually 8/3 copper is enough for ranges unless it's an unusually large range.

I know just how much fun pulling wires through little holes can be. Try some 4/0 SER. Just hauling that around can be a good time.

Andy if you need a hand this wknd call me. I've got the boy. One day boarding and one day minibiking and doing whatever you need done???

I know you were giving me a bad time, hence the "Damn it Jim, I'm a doctor not a....." Star Trek quote. All's good. High end heat pump and range. By doing a lot of this ourselves we are able to get higher quality equipment and overbuild the systems. Do it once, do it right. No 14-2 in the house, all 12-2 & 12-3.

I was surprised by the 14/2, but the electrician said that's standard for 15 amp lighting runs. So I bought a coil of 14/2 for my garage lights; they really won't draw that much juice. You can put more lights and longer runs on a 20 amp circuit with 12/2 tho. I'm following the electrician's lead and running 12/2 off 20 amp breakers for the outlets and for the 220 outlets for my table saw.

I noticed last night that the outside outlet on one of the garage shear walls is positioned even worse than the light fixtures are. The hole for the box not only has a stud behind it, there are 2x6 horizonatal nailers there as well. It's gonna' be fun chewing through enough wood to install that box and gain access to run the cable into it. I swear, my parents should have named me Hard Way Harry or something. If it were only Murphy's Law that applied, I could still finish these tasks in a reasonable time. It will probably take an entire evening just to install this one damn outlet box. Things like that make me think I'll have to postpone the move-in date by one year.

Sg

I would feel bad for you guys, but the wiring portion of my project, which starts in about 2 weeks, is going to be performed on a 100 year old existing house. I am going to be working in the attic with a full on face mask, because it is full of that gnarly gray blow in insulation, or in the crawl space which is nothing like crawl spaces on new houses. I get about 8" of clearance for my jug ass to shimmy underneath the floor girders.

I already finished the sanitary drains though, and honestly I cannot see it being any worse than that. That was a freakin' chore. Added 2 bathrooms where there was no bathrooms in the upstairs without removing the ceiling below.

Spiders are your friend.

Ahhh, that nasty 100 year old wiring. Looks like creosote covered wire, and the covering crumbles at the slightest touch. Worked on the wife's gramma's place in McCleary replacing just the light fixtures and that made me much more nervous than anything I'm doing now.

RR,

I'll be done with my wiring by then and may have some odds & ends like boxes, maybe a partial spool of wire. 2500 feet in the house now and counting so far. If you need something, I might have it.

Let me know.

Asbestos sheathed solid-wiring inside of lath and plaster walls, glad my parents sold that house! Keep kicking ass Dogfish!

RR,

I remodeled, renovated, and added on to an old house from 1980 - 1986. Guess why I'm building new from the ground up?

I've crawled in crawl spaces where there was no room to crawl, on my back, and slid natural gas pipe with a 90* elbow pre-installed over my body and into position, with my contractor friend in the kitchen shining a flashlight through the tiny hole in the floor, and guiding me to line up that damn pipe and tilt it up and through the hole to feed the new kitchen stove. Oh, and cut out some dry rot in the floor where the old kitchen sink had been, dropped five concrete blocks down, and crawled and shoved them into place and jacked up and leveled the floor of the house.

Yeah, if I never work on an old house again, it will be too soon. What I'm doing now is actually fun, except for having studs behind these damn electrical boxes.

Sg

Dogfish,

You might want to run some "spares" for future. When I did my house I ran a spare (2) 12/3 up into my attic. A 12/5 yes, 12/5 into the crawl space as both spaces would be impossible in the future. I also ran 2 coax and 2 cat 5e's to every room.

I'm an electrician by trade and I even feel sorry for ya.......Its different when you do it day and day out, but I remember what it was like my first month before i knew what i was getting into.......wait till ya have a hole hawg bind on ya and try to break your wrists for ya........

I have two spares in the attic and two spares in the 4' tall crawl space (that the HVAC guys loved). Thanks for mentioning that though. As far as phone, cable, and data is concerned, it will be pretty wired up.

Got all my basic boxes finished last night, wire unsheathed, grounds and commons connected as needed, switches squared away. Just have the 3-way switches and a few other circuits to finish, then I get to work on the power distribution panel.

After that is done I'll rig a few "On-Q" boxes for the phone, cable, and data. Getting there, and the hard part is done.

Floatinghat,

What's the purpose of running 12/3 and 12/5?

I like the idea of spare runs, but my main panel is full (redundant heating systems). I could run a wire from my sub-panel to the storage room in the basement, altho I cannot imagine what electrical run I could want in the future. I need to get back over to the audio store; they sign out the spool of speaker wire and charge for how much you use. I need to pull runs in the living room, deck soffit, and basement rec room. Man, there's a lota' wire in a house.

Andy,

I'm sure I hate you now. You work faster than a demon. I'm still putzing around my garage.

Sg

Andy,

I will let you know when we are going to start wiring. If you want to sell me stuff to get rid of it I will come buy it, my list is pretty long.

Salmo G., the scary thing is we just built a new home in 2006, out on the river and I am selling it to move into town and work on an old house. The house in town is pretty cool though, so it seems like a good trade off.

The HVAC system is going in right now.

12-3 and 12-5 means one common, one ground and 3 or 5 power/black/hot wires. Running a 12-3 to the attic would essentially gain you two spare home runs for the future. You never know what you might want/need to add in the future, like a 220 line for one of those handy stair chair/elevator thingies.

Also known as the Seastrike Lift System

Dave! Don't fall for it -

Since we can't always anticipate future needs, running a little wire seems like good insurance. I like the stair elevator idea, but I wired and plumbed the master bedroom closet (it's kinda' big) for a stackable washer and dryer, so we don't have to go to the downstairs laundary room when we get old.