An Easy Way to Wire a House

Get all permits

• Your wiring work will require a permit from your county or city. In order to get that permit, you may need proof that a professional is doing or at least supervising the installation. Working without a permit may result in fines and being forced to remove your work. Also, any damage caused by the wiring usually will not be covered by your homeowner's insurance.

Plan your work

• Make a diagram of where your wires will go, including each kind of wire, each light sconce, each switch and every outlet. Note how many wires will go to each node. This lets you bundle wiring together and prep your walls for the wiring to move through.

Work with open walls

• The easiest wire installation is on open frames before the drywall gets hung. If you're not wiring at that stage, consider waiting until you do other work that requires you to take your drywall down. See section six for details of what to do if you can't work with open walls.

Predrill your route

• Mark the route your wires will take through the walls with a pencil or felt marker. Use a 1 inch auger bit to drill holes through your wall studs along the route. This will make passing the wires through much easier.

Bundle wires

• Bundle all the wires going in the same direction with electrical tape. That way you're dealing with a single, thick cable rather than repeating work for each thin wire. As you reach points on your route where wires branch off, unwrap your tape and peel off the wires you'll leave behind.

Working with intact walls

• If you can't open your walls, first look into running wires through your attic, basement or downstairs crawlspace. If that's not a possibility, you'll need to knock strategically located holes in your drywall in order to drill your studs and pass wire through. Punch the holes near your floor where they'll be less visible once patched. After you've drilled all the studs and taped up your wires into a bundle, attach that bundle to a long, rigid object. This will make it easier to pass your cable through parts of the wall you can't reach.