Is there an electrician in the house?

[Montanya]

Looking to buy a new house and from the home inspection they guy said that most of the outlets upstairs are not grounded and I need a couple GFI's installed. No idea how much something like that would cost to correct so trying to get some ideas from any electricians in the house.

[fingers80002]

Looking to buy a new house and from the home inspection they guy said that most of the outlets upstairs are not grounded and I need a couple GFI's installed. No idea how much something like that would cost to correct so trying to get some ideas from any electricians in the house.

That mikey guy makes sparks once in awhile...........

He might be able help.............

[dc dalton]

Looking to buy a new house and from the home inspection they guy said that most of the outlets upstairs are not grounded and I need a couple GFI's installed. No idea how much something like that would cost to correct so trying to get some ideas from any electricians in the house.

Not an electrician (paging Mikey, paging Mikey) but if the upstairs outlets don't have grounds it more than likely means new wire will have to be run up to them. Running the wire up can be easy or one giant PITA, depends on how old the house is and what the walls are made of (try it through a 100+ year old house with plaster and lath some time)

The GFI's are probably for the bathroom, I think it's code now to have GFI's anywhere near where water is.

[Montanya]

Yeah the GFI's would be bathroom and garage. The one outside outlet they said has the polarity reversed as well. Just want to try and get an idea on how much the total of this nonsense would cost to remediate as the seller and I have an agreement that they will pay anything above 500$ to fix (total cost) so if it's gonna be just a couple hundred to fix all this stuff, no huge deal. If it's gonna be a couple grand, then I would like to find out beforehand so I can get them to fix it or comp me the price it's gonna take to fix it.

[ehidle]

Electrical Engineer here... I am not intimately familiar with the code, but generally:

GFCIs will go into Kitchens and Bathrooms near grounded metal objects and water lines and such.

Ungrounded (2-prong) outlets may or may not have grounded wire running to them. If they don't, you may be in for a larger bill. I don't know if the NEC will allow you to run supplemental ground wires to outlets outside of conduit. I know conduit is required for single-conductor hot runs.

If they have to fish new wire to the outlets, you're talking about opening up drywall, fishing, redoing drywall, painting, and so on. Figure on a couple or three hundred bucks per outlet when all is said and done.

[Searcher67]

I can say this, we had the ground issues in our house as well. It cost me 380.00 for 2 rooms to be repaired! But this was 5 years ago.

[Bravo Whiskey]

I am a renovation contractor here on the other side of the state. I good/legit Electrician (must have his PAHIC # from the AG office & hold a local Lic.) runs ,NW phila Burbs, about $85 hr plus material. as posted before it could be a couple hours of work or a solid day w/ repairs to the walls ceilings.
I would budget $1500 knowing it could be $500 or $2500.
I am not an electrician but I deal w/ my sub every other week on Kitchen & bath projects so please post back if you have any questions.
Make sure who ever you use is Good because the leading cause of home fires is faulty /bad wiring.

[RJT]

Not that hard to fix, I ended up rewiring my parents upstairs when I was 18/19 by myself (dad had just had ankle surgery and was in a cast) the biggest PITA was running from the basement to the attic constantly...

IF the wires aren't secured within the walls then you just disconnect them from the power (turn the breakers off!!!) and then disconnect your plugs in the room, tape/secure the hell outta your new wire to the old one, go back to basement and pull through...connect new wire on both ends and done, another way is to use a "fish tape" and attach it to the old wire and pull through, then attach new wire to the tape and pull back through

If the wires aren't loose in the walls then prepare for fun...and when in doubt, consult a professional

[mrjam2jab]

I'm not an electrician either however...

Looking to buy a new house and from the home inspection they guy said that most of the outlets upstairs are not grounded

The ones that are not grounded, are they only 2 hole outlets? If so, good chance the wire inside that wall does not have a ground wire...meaning that setup has been there for quite some time. And unless you change the outlet, you should not need to fix this situation. If you want it done, the easiest fix is to just install gfci outlets here.

Yeah the GFI's would be bathroom and garage.

Is just a matter of removing the existing outlet and installing a GFCI outlet in its place.

The one outside outlet they said has the polarity reversed as well.

Open up the outlet and switch the black wire with the white wire. The black wire SHOULD be connected to brass screw and white wire to silver screw. Reversed polarity just means the black is connected to silver and white to brass.

fixing Reversed polarity

Only tool needed is a regular screw driver.

The GFCI and the polarity fix should be completely on the seller to repair as they are required to be done. If the ungrounded outlets are only 2 prong outlets, they are not required to fix that as its not "wrong".

[Montanya]

Yeah I am certain for some folks it would be an easy fix. Truly, I would rather NOT fix it if I can. But the issue being the cost. If I am over a 500$ fee to fix it, I can drop 500$ on the situation and have the current homeowners fix before closing. If it's all under $500 then it's on me to fix. (per the homebuying contract) So before I get into the house and realize it's 500$ per outlet to fix I just wanted to get an idea. BTW this will likely be an electrician fix, as this is my first home ever, I have never done electrical work an I would had to burn the place down after my first home improvement project