u/DependentSky1637

Hello, everyone, hope y’all are doing well. I hope this is the right sub for a homeowner to post a question, apologies if not.

I’ve got a stupid question that I don’t trust AI to answer. Part of our 1931 house is still K&T, with the kitchen and bathrooms rewired “to code” with GFCIs in the mid ’90s (permit work).

We’ve had three electricians here for other jobs (upgrading to 200A service for a rewired basement office, new HVAC sub panel, etc.), and they’ve all told me the existing K&T is fine, that it’s wired correctly to the panel through a junction box, and there is no need to rewire everything as long as I don’t mess with it or blow in insulation or whatever.

About five years ago, I noticed that one of the original, two-prong ceramic receptacles was cracked, so decided to replace them all. I planned to use GFCIs with no equipment ground labels. But, I found out that our old outlet boxes have “bevelled” back corners and standard GFCIs are too deep to fit. So I ordered a bunch of Leviton 15A two-wire outlets and replaced the old ones.

I’d like to do it right but avoid having to replace all the boxes to fit GFCIs (new boxes would mean drywall work).

So my tl:dr stupid question is this:

Can I just replace the regular main panel breakers with GFCIs (or AFCIs)? Will that have the same result as having separate GFCIs at each K&T outlet?

I would have an electrician do this (I’m okay with an outlet or two but I know my limitations!).

As long as our insurance is okay with it (so far so good), I’m really, really trying to not spend $20K or more rewiring the rest of the house (and dealing with the chaos) since we’re not planning to be here for more than a couple of years, especially since I’ve been told the K&T is “fine”.

Thanks in advance, I’d really appreciate your advice!

[BTW, the reason I'm asking here is that we had a sales guy from a large electrical company out last fall and all they wanted to do was rewire the whole house for $35K (it's an 1800 sq ft house). He wouldn't discuss any options. So I just want to know if I'm delusional about this.]

Hello, All! I've been reviewing our insurance coverage and it occurred to me that I really have no idea what it would cost to "replace" our 1931 brick colonial if the worst ever happened. I'm wondering if our current value is too low. And no, I promise this isn't an insurance fire scheme!

We're using what the insurance company came up with, which might be a decent number, but I'd like to do my own estimate. They used comps from an automated system that really aren't good comps. So, are there any good online estimation tools that work well for old houses? Everything I've found is geared toward newer construction. Should I just find an old-house appraiser to do a replacement estimate?

We've had two old houses (1848 and now 1931) but I've never really thought too hard about this before. Now that we're retired I've been trying to get a better handle on issues like this.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated-- TIA!