Day 481: Make Way For The Beam! (Part I: Electrical)

It may not look like it at first glance but things are finally happening in the kitchen.

A few weeks ago

Today!

Spot the difference? If you guessed "those tangles of wires surrounding the doorway" or if you read the title of this post, here is a virtual high five.

Going back 441 days, the whole house was being re-wired before we moved in. Unlike many insurance companies, ours doesn't require knob and tube wiring replacement. That said, it's an outdated method of wiring, it's bad for resale and it's not appropriate for anything requiring a grounded plug (like most new appliances and electronic equipment). It can also be a fire hazard, particularly if mixed incorrectly with insulation.

A joist charred next to old knob and tube wiring was revealed when the kitchen ceiling was gutted... kind of scary.

There was no question that we would re-wire the whole house. It was a big job but we lucked out with the best contractor we've had the pleasure of working with yet. (For anyone in Kitchener, Waterloo or Cambridge looking for an electrician who specializes in older homes and knob and tube replacement, do yourself a favour and call Mark Schmidt at M.S. Wireworks.) He was able to re-wire the house by fishing the lines through only a few holes in existing walls. As mentioned last week, some critical electrical lines (what electrical lines aren't critical, really?) were sent up the wall between the kitchen and dining room. Our beam is designed to span the roughly 11' opening without any posts in the middle so those wires had to move.

Before investigating in detail where the lines came from and what they were feeding, we assumed we would need to use junction boxes to get wire up a chase to be built for plumbing and ductwork. Here's a rough diagram of the "assumed" plan:

What we thought would happen before investigating the electrical lines.

The chase is going up beside the trimmer stud supporting the beam at the back wall of the kitchen. The junction boxes would have been a fine (and easy) option but a much better solution became obvious when we figured out what most of the lines were feeding: the upstairs bathroom. Let's throw in another diagram to make this even more confusing easier to understand.

Upstairs bathroom layout and light switch/outlet location

You may recall our very early plans to get the upstairs bathroom redone with outside help before moving in. The idea was to keep the same basic layout but turn the bathtub into a shower using a glass panel. The former light switch would have ended up in prime splash territory so the electrician moved it beside the vanity. Since that plan was kaiboshed and the future bathroom layout sees the shower in a different spot, it makes sense to move the light switch back to where it was - which is the most intuitive spot since that's where the door opens. In addition to the bathroom light and outlet, there were also lines feeding the upstairs smoke alarm, other lights (bedrooms and attic) and the (future) in-floor heat for the upstairs bathroom traversing the kitchen. So instead of cutting these lines and adding junction boxes and even more wire as the assumed plan would have had us do, we were able to bring the wires up from the basement through another kitchen wall and over into the former/new switch location in the bathroom. This not only eliminated the need for junction boxes, it also saved us from needing to buy extra 12-2 or 14-3 wire, both of which are pricier than standard 14-2 wire. Here's the bathroom midway through:

Hole saws and old wire hangars... not much you can't do with those tools.

Besides the bunch of wires travelling upstairs through the wall, there were the kitchen and dining room light switches and the thermostat that needed moving. The kitchen switch is now in its new home on the fridge wall beside a large bundle of wires (including the ones we moved) with the dining room switch as its temporary neighbour - to be moved after the beam is in place.

A mix of newly moved and waiting to be moved wires, including extra long lines for future kitchen and dining room light installation.

As much as future me would love it, I'll spare you the details of how we kept the dining room light on the same circuit but used a totally new route by tapping into a neighbouring light switch or how one of those 14-3 gauge wires is actually feeding two circuits (called a "multi wire branch circuit," I've just learned). In the end, we spent about three afternoons and evenings in total both working on this project. Sure, a professional electrician could have done it in less time - certainly less of our time - but we saved a chunk of change by doing it ourselves, learned a ton in the process, and live with the satisfaction of having found a clean and elegant solution to a messy tangle of wires. We have a contractor booked to come in on Thursday and begin the wall-to-beam process. Now it's just that pesky plumbing we need to move out of the way...

PS I took down a bunch of the disconnected knob and tube wiring so that we could re-use the holes. Check out the remnants waiting to be turned into something neat.

Disconnected wiring about to be taken down.

A box full of knobs and tubes.