# Electrical wiring/outlets are on outsides of walls, want to hide them



## fiveomar (Feb 8, 2011)

Hey guys, I recently purchased a 100 year old house, my first home.

Anyway, the wiring and outlets on certain walls are on the outside of the wall instead of inside it. This is mainly on the exterior walls where there is brick and then plaster over, with no space between the brick and plaster for wiring to go.

As a newbie, I wanted to learn about the different options for hiding the wiring and outlets. I'd like this to a DIY job if possible and not too complicated.

I've attached a few pics as examples. Thanks!


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## joecaption (Feb 9, 2011)

Most often when wiring an old house where there was no wiring before someone would have used a lot wider baseboards then what they used in your house and the wiring would have been run under the floor joist and ran up to the baseboards with holes cut in the baseboards to install the shallow outlet boxes. In those paneled walls they could have came up through the bottom plates and had the wires behind the wall.
Someone was trying to cheap out or just cover up something fast if they installed paneling instead of taking the time to remove the old plaster and sheetrocking those other walls.
It's a shame how many 100 plus year old houses get "modernize" and get raped in the procces.
Just read over some of the older post on any DIY site and see just how many first time DIY's add these words to there post, "cheap, fast, easy" doing it right the first time so it never has to be done again is not fast cheap or easy. But having to only do it once still comes out costing 1/2 a much.


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## kok328 (Feb 9, 2011)

Cut a hole in the wall, drill through the sill plates from the attic or basement/crawlspace and fish a line through the wall cavity to install and old work box.


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## JoeD (Feb 9, 2011)

What you have it the best option for concrete walls. They are not hollow so there is no way to 'fish' cable.


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## fiveomar (Feb 14, 2011)

JoeD said:


> What you have it the best option for concrete walls. They are not hollow so there is no way to 'fish' cable.



By best you mean cheapest. Aesthetics are more important. 

I like the baseboard outlets idea...


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## joecaption (Feb 14, 2011)

I've never seen plaster applyed directly to a brick outside wall. Far more likly the home was framed then bricked up over the outside walls.
If it was plaster over brick then your walls would only be a thick as the width of a brick plus the plaster. It also would have 0 insulation in the walls.


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## JoeD (Feb 15, 2011)

You said you have concrete walls how are you going to fish cables into the baseboard. You will need to chisel out a hole for the box. Then you need drill from that hole down into the basement. Do you have a basement? Then you need another hole in the basement to meet the drilled hole unless you have a drill that can drill around corners and come out in the basement.

You could mount all the boxes in the floor but floor boxes are very expensive.

A third option is to build a stud wall in front of the brick plaster and insulate, install your electrical and cover with drywall.


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