Electrical Upgrades III — Revenge of the Lath

Here’s a peek at the continuing destruction of our house. Mountain Lights Electric came back to rewire the main floor of house, including a lot of new outlets (with three prong receptacles!), isolated ground circuits for the computer stuff, cable and telephone, some new outdoor outlets, and various other tweaks in the basement. Three guys, and me, for two full days and the cost of time and materials was about $2,000. We did everything but the kitchen since that’ll be gutted later.

I did some prep work to save time, including cutting all the holes for the new outlets in the plaster walls and drilling holes to route the cables from the basement. Here’s what I learned about cutting old plaster: Don’t do it. But if you have to, be sure to take your time. You can’t really use a stud finder on plaster because the lath makes it really too thick. You can try to use a RotoZip or equivalent. It’s probably the easiest way to make clean cuts, but the amount of fine dust is ridiculous. Picture thick white clouds in every room of your home. You can try to catch most of it with a shop vac, and it’ll be easier if you have a helper. The challenge with that is that the fine dust will quickly clog the vac filter. Also, if you try that I recommend using another hose to vent the exhaust outside of the house.

I was lucky to have Mr. Cool here to help when all this prep was going on. Here’s how we did most of it. I used a RotoZip or just a drill to make holes in two diagonal corners. Then, I would take a piece of stiff wire, bend it a bit and stick it through the holes to check for studs in the way. A small hole is easy to patch if you have to move over some. Next, I used saber/scroll/jig saw by starting in the drilled holes and cutting the two sides from that corner. This worked well most of the time, but you’re lucky to get a blade to last more than one or two outlets. The first pic is what success looks like. The second is what happens when you’re tired and impatient. If the saw blade catches the lath it can push it back into the wall and cause all sorts of pain. The last pic is typical of what the house looked like while the electricians and I were working. Also, notice the utter lack of insulation in these exterior walls. Another project…