Hi,

In my opinion it appears that you are - and I mean this as a
constructive comment - in WAY over your head.

As regards the pluming your results may or may not work properly, but
at least the actual chance that your efforts will injure or kill
yourself, your daughter or some subsequent occupant of the house are
likely small.

The electrical however is another matter, it ALL has to be done right
to be safe, and if it's "unsafe", there's a good chance any
resulting "accidents" will produce fatalities.

If you are determined to proceeded with this effort one important
preliminary step is to determine from you local building department
what portions of such work may be done by a homeowner, and what portion
if any MUST be done by a licensed electricians, plumbers and members of
other trades, and how you apply for the required permits to perform
this work. The building department may also be able to provide you
with a "checklist" of common mistakes they discover when inspecting
such projects, and a list of provisions different from the national
codes which have adopted by your town or city.

Let me say though - as someone who has actually done such work
themselves and inspects such work done by homeowners and contractors -
that when an average homeowner undertakes major renovations and
expansions of electrical, plumbing, HVAC and structural components
themselves their chances of getting it "right" the first time are
close to zero. (For that matter, many contractors are still not getting
it "right" after decades in the business. If you doubt either,
spend a bit of of time poking around on the message boards at a place
like inspectionnews.com).

That it's NOT just a matter of reading the codes, buying the parts, and
hooking things up - that you really have to understand WHY the codes
specify the things they do - how their provisions ACTULLY relate to
safety and functionality.

But most of all, you have to be able to think in terms of the big
picture.

For example, have you investigated the zoning and code requirements for
adding what amounts to a "in-law" apartment to your house? In most
communities there are underlying "life-safety" issues: minimum
square footages, ventilation and light requirements, emergence egress
standards and so on which need to be considered before you even start
thinking about laying out electrical, pluming or HVAC systems.

Acquiring and retaining this knowledge - hundreds and sometimes
thousands of "minor" details are involved in a major project - is
far from straightforward even for people with extensive experience in
the "trades", for example the efforts of a skilled practitioner of
one trade attempting to duplicate the work they have observed performed
by another (for instance a plumber attempting to wire their own home,
or an electrician attempting to plumb a building) are a notorious
source of problems, and every experienced home inspector has had the
experience of looking at substandard and even overtly dangerous work
done by intelligent homeowners with construction experience proud of
their efforts and surprised (and sometimes outraged) that not only did
they fail to get it "right", but that an overworked municipal
inspector - who can usually devote only a few minutes to each
inspection - has passed it!

So for someone with limited experience in construction - especially
when performing rehab work such as you are proposing, which presents a
host of special problems - well.... it's VERY difficult to get ALL
this right.... not impossible, but IMO not likely, either.

And the possible results of doing some of this stuff in
"reasonable" looking ways that are not right can be really, really
scary.

Michael Thomas
Paragon Home Inspection, LLC
Chicago, IL
mdtATparagoninspectsDOTcom