A good way is to go on the roof and pull your shingle up and drill your hole
from here. Also use a piece of furnace chain to attach to the wire it will
hang straight down. Two tips I have used many times over the years as well
as using a coat for a drill bit next to a baseboard to locate a receptacle
box from the basement for TV wires
"Bob F" wrote in message
. ..

"Eigenvector" wrote in message
. ..
One question, when re-wiring an outlet, for instance to replace the old
useless Romex with clipped grounds, with fresh new 12/2 - how do you tell
where the wire goes? I mean how do you tell without hacking chunks out
of
the wall?

In my house it looks reasonable that the Romex goes from the attic and
drops
down to the outlets, so in this case it would be stapled to the studs
going
up - but what's the easiest way to determine that without major
destruction
of the wall? For all I know it could be threaded through the studs (or
worse in front of the studs as was done in a few spots). I guess you
could
use a stud finder or the like, but old Romex is pretty heavily shielded
and
it'd be easy to lose the run among the studs.

If I'm looking at demolishing the wall, I might as well remove the entire
wall in one sheet - at least then I can put up insulation while I'm there
and clean out the buggies.

If the wire comes from the attic, go up there and determine where
it drops into the walls. If that cooresponds to the same stud space
as the outlet, you can drill a new hole near the old one, and run a
wire puller down to the box, and pull a new wire. Or, you can use
a flex drill to drill from a box hole in the wall up into the attic or
down into the basement. One way or another, it probably can be
done without trashing walls. Things like insulation can make it more
difficult.

Bob