The cost to re-wire my house is going to be a lot more than I am able to spend so I am looking at re-wiring it myself eventually. The house, which was built in the early 60's, has the early Romex wiring that is silver in color but largely without a third ground wire. The old wiring was stapled to hell and gone, and from what I can tell it was done a little too tight. The real problem is what is inside the walls. Unless I rip out all the walls there is no way to remove the old wiring. I did re-wire the power for the wall AC unit because it also has Heating and need larger gauge wiring. That in itself was a pain because of the way it was routed, but it seems like there really wasn't a choice since they mounted the AC directly in the corner.
If I decide to do it myself I will get a licensed electrician to at least install a new service panel, but I am looking at doing the rest myself. My concern is the recommendation to staple the Romex every so far and about 8 inches from the electrical box. I am just wondering, is that a hard and fast rule or just a guidline? If it is a rule then that would mean ripping up the walls which I really don't want to do.
Kind of a separate issue, but certainly related, is that our attic is very small. At the highest point, if I sit on the joist my head will hit the ridge beam, so it only gets worse as you move out. There really isn't much room to crawl around so I don't know if I will need to open the wall up anyways to run it. Of course if I did have to open it then the stapling wouldn't be an issue.