Adding a wire to a wall-mounted breaker box.

[topwoodrock]

I need to add a breaker and wire to an in-wall breaker box. I am struggling, however, with how to make this happen. The wires all run through a hole drilled into the top plate in the attic and down from there, behind the sheetrock/insulation, to the breaker box. Any advice?

 

[Doghouse Riley]

Difficult to advise without seeing it.

Presumably you mean two wires?

I'm reminded of when I installed some wall lights in a bedroom I drilled a hole where I wanted the light to go, then dropped a cord with a weight on the end down the cavity from the loft immediately above the hole and fished out the cord with a wire hook, attached a pair of wires to the cord and dragged them up from the loft.

Depends on how tight is the insulation and how many bends the wires take. If there's plenty of room, then you could turn it off at the mains and disconnect a wire and secure some cord or another wire to it and drag it up to the loft from the top then attach a pair of wires as well as the disconnected one to the cord and drag all three wires back down. But there's the danger of them becoming disconnected.

Alternatively, can you drop a pair of wires down from the consumer unit to the floor then across under the floorboards and up to the loft from somewhere else?

 

[topwoodrock]

Thanks for the reply. Also, I have thought about tapping into my existing lines going to my house. I'm needing to wire up a bonus room I am finishing. The circuits I would tap into are nowhere near capacity. Any reason this wouldn't work. It would certainly be easier.

 

[He who knows]

Difficult to advise without seeing it.

And, TBH, without knowing what the electrical and construction rules & regs say about it in the OP's state.

Dropping cables down a cavity is one thing - inside a stud wall where there will be noggins is quite another.