That's what I was thinking.
Even at best with only spending say $1500 in materials and so forth that only leaves $3500 for labor ( that may be a real stretch ).
So $3500 in labor for a job that could easily be 160 man hours or more. You end up with about $20 an hour and that's if you are lucky.
thank you one and all for your input, both here, and in private messages.
yep.. looks a quart low on my initial swag.
to address some of the points:
house is about 1975. lead paint is an issue.
i have a hepa vac certified for the level of activity i'm going to
be doing.
plan was to use my spiffy doodle ideal circuit tracer to map the
walls, so i could mark them with pencil where the horizontal runs
are drilled. i open up a 6" hole everywhere i need to, above each box,
where the romex turns... you can get in with dykes and yank the
staples
fireblocks get a 6" cutout over each one, and the fein tool notches
them nicely. after the thing is lassoed, the cookie goes right back over
the top. for closing the cookies not over wood, i cut surveyors stakes
in half, and use two 1' long pieces to lath in the cookies over open air.
this house was wired by baum electric, and is stapled to within an
inch of it's life. count on it.
where i have to get thru the plate, there is a hole cut in the wall, and one
in the ceiling. i'll use a right angle drill on a festool drill, with a short bit.
i've already got the short three fluke bits. whole bunch of them, sharp.
there's gonna be a ton of holes cut. i use one of those adjustable cutters,
with a dust catcher, and a hepa vac.
i'll have to look at the association definitions, but what was typical in this
area at that time, was that you owned all the house subsystems, and
the right to access them.
if ownership stops at the paint, then i'll craft a nice letter for the property
owners representative to use to get the homeowners association to pay
for replacing the wiring, 'cause someone owns it, and if it isn't the homeowner.....
it's the association.
and, this was a preliminary over the phone approximation, with the caveat
that we'd have to walk the house together and define the scope of work.
the customer is an excellent and straightforward guy to work with, and i'm
going to print out some of your replies and bring them with me.
then we will decide what we are gonna do.....
thanks again for your input.