[adthern]

I own a 70 year old house and the previous owners did some really shoddy DIY stuff, which now I need to repair. Being an old house it has various stages of wiring. It has a basement, first and second floors. The basement has mostly 3 prong grounded outlets with a couple of 2 pron ungrounded. The first floor is a mix as well. The second floor is mostly old wiring and a couple of 3 prong grounded.

Here is what I am thinking, I have a bathroom project on going on the second floor and while I have the floor ripped up I was thinking this might be a good time to run some newer wire to the basement without actually connecting it to anything. Then later I can run the new outlet circuit on the 2nd floor.

If that seems to make sense--would it make sense to conncet the wiring from the 2nd floor to a subpanel then hire an electrician to connect the sub panel to the main panel. Another tricky part is there is already a 200 amp panel, which appears pretty well filled up (central AC x 2, pool, etc... ). I am kind flying by the seat of my pants with this plan so any help would be greatly appreciated!

My goals are (obviously) to DIY as much as possible and then have an electrician finish up to save on costs.

Thanks

[ballengerb1]

Then your best bet is to call 3 electricians for their bids and directions. They can tell you how many cables and what gauge to run. They will also tell you the best location to terminate. A sub panel will likely not be necessary since the elctrician can tie the new cable into the panel where he disconnects the old lines, they run there too, right?

[tkrussell]

A professional electrician that is concerned about his license and liabilty will not finish a job started by someone else.

You may work out a deal as part of a contract that you do the bullwork, at his direction, and allow the electrician to layout the work and inspect the work before he does final connections, etc.

[Stratmando]

I just finished a House that was Owner/Builder. They did all(most) of the Electrical work. I was hired to make it Code and pass Inspection. They did do a major amount of the work.
This is what I had to do/fix:
Pull and additional Neutral for bedroom circuits to be ARC fault protected. Change attic switch to switch/recepticle. Made up the panels(even though this is rough in inspection).
Install 3 ways for entry(to be done later would be costly and or unsightly). Ceiling Fans had 2X4's instead of 4X4's. Receptacle at Compressors.
Made up All Grounds. For the 20 amp circuits, they used green solid for grounds and stranded for the hots and neutrals? Which is OK, you can't use stranded under a ground screw.
The travellers are 2 different colors, instead of the pair being the same. Wasn't worth it to correct, but do anticipate tracing and fixing switching when powered up. Overall, it wasn't too bad. I like trouble shooting and fixing things, so it worked out.
Besides getting paid, I get use of a Segway? It passed inspection.

[adthern]

Then your best bet is to call 3 electricians for their bids and directions. They can tell you how many cables and what gauge to run. They will also tell you the best location to terminate. A sub panel will likely not be necessary since the elctrician can tie the new cable into the panel where he disconnects the old lines, they run there too, right?

Yes all the lines run to the same main panel. I was thinking of a subpanel for a couple of reasons, first I wanted to put a box closer if possible the main panel is at the farthest point in the basement (I thought at the top of the stairs would be easier--though I don't know if there is a code issue on length of subpanels from main panels). Second, eh... Im not sure I really had a second other than that I wanted the experience of setting up a box.

So I call the 3 of them and have them bid the job of finishing the work I start--explaining all I want to do right?

[adthern]

A professional electrician that is concerned about his license and liabilty will not finish a job started by someone else.

You may work out a deal as part of a contract that you do the bullwork, at his direction, and allow the electrician to layout the work and inspect the work before he does final connections, etc.

If he can inspect the work and see that it was done correctly, somehow that would create license/liability issues?

[ballengerb1]

Yes but let the lectricians direct you as to what to do. Basically your are just stringing the cable through a chase. All 3 will know the applicable codes and should give you pretty much the same directions. I think your savinga will not be all that great, maybe ask them to bid it both ways. See what they want for the total job and what they want to just do the finish.

[adthern]

Ok, then maybe it makes sense to just do the whole thing myself?