We've since decided after another phone conversation we're gonna just rewire as much of the house as we can. This includes moving the breaker board OUT OF THE BATHROOM.
Downstairs will be easier, we're gonna just run everything through the crawlspace and come up through the floor, slight snaking needed but not much. This means we'll be able to reuse the existing outlet boxes, nothing wrong with the existing boxes. I'm going to recommend we do a separate lighting circuit with the #14 he bought already, 15a should cover all the lighting or shold we do two circuits for lighting?
Upstairs may be somewhat more difficult, but much of it comes up through one shared wall with the kitchen so snaking could be relatively easy there, tape the new wire to the old and pull the old stuff out pulling new in. For my bedroom the one wall should be easy but the other and some of the ceiling lights in the house may involve tearing up some sheetrock.
You say I can (by code) legally use #14 for the fridge and the stove? I'd like to go 20a for all the other room circuits to allow overhead for electric space heaters to be used if need be.
Washer and dryer are on another circuit hooked directly to the generator, not part of the main house panel, so that probably won't get replaced.
Doing the lighting circuit separate may mean more cost but I'd prefer it that way for the reason you described. Overloading an outlet won't plunge a whole room or two rooms into darkness, and even if the lighting circuit develops a fault there's some table lamps that still work so you're kept out of the dark.
Might also finally make the two screwed up 3-way switch installs in the house actually work as intended!
Ideas for pulling wire behind drywall without tearing up walls/ceilings if at all possible? My dad is a 70 year old retired carpenter so he knows his stuff too but any other ideas are welcome.
LOL, if you could afford to pay for your plane ticket there and back and to feed yourself for however long, you should come visit and help me pull wire all summer long in the evenings after work and on weekends. (My dad will be working much of the summer too, out of town, so with a larger magnitude project I'd LOVE the help). I would LOVE to have someone who really knows their codes and construction stuff inside out come help, but you might just go insane seeing my house and all its issues.
One friend of ours who will be visiting us this summer actually grew up in our house from like '94-'02. (We know his mom, the person we bought it from). He's a fully licensed/bonded electrician who did lots of marine electrical for my dad on a previous project. Perhaps if he's in town for a week I can get him to come visit and make him a couple meals in exchange for someone to help me pull Romex and make sure I'm doing it right. Or at least look at what's there and offer other ideas on what to do to fix what isn't feasible to replace that's buried in walls/ceilings. We decided we're redoing everything because we don't know exactly where the problem lies and there's numerous marginal/sketchy/overloaded/just plain OLD areas using materials long since outlawed by modern codes. (tiny metal boxes, '50s era "Loomex", etc).
That said all the existing fixtures with '70s-'80s Universal and Advance ballasts will stay, just connected to new wiring. If this goes as planned the ONE good thing about my house that will meet code is the wiring; the rest of the house will still have its fare share of issues.