I purchased a recently renovated home about six months ago (in Illinois). Prior to the sale, I had a home inspection done. I'll admit, I did not actually crawl around the tiny attic space with the inspector, but I was told 'Everything looked good'.
More recently my wife has decided we need to add some overhead lighting. We had an electrician come out, but he's identified a whole laundry list of problems and quoted us a very high (in my mind) total to fix them.
The home was built in the 50s. I don't know the history of the house, beyond the previous owners renovated it.
I tried to take some pictures, but my cellphone was not up to the task. This was about the only clear image I managed.
Some examples from his To-Do list include:
- All of the 'flexible' metal cabling (there is a fair bit) needs to be 100% replaced with rigid metal conduit.
- All of the existing wiring is 'above' the ceiling joists. They all need to redone so they are protected by running through the joists or retrofitted with some sort of protection.
- Basically every lighting fixture that we do have needs to be ripped out and re-positioned because they aren't 'flush' with the drywall. Some of them are just slightly setback, the worst offender is just over 1/4th of an inch in (it's actually slanted a bit, so one end is much closer, but the other end is further back).
I'll admit, seeing a twist-tie thing holding the cabling together is a little concerning. But I'm also surprised that none of this came up during the home inspection.
Needless to say, money is tight. I was looking to spend ~$500 installing a light in the master-bedroom. Now we're talking several thousands of dollars. Do I really need to do all of this?