[hedora]

If we ever build another house, it's going to be attic-free with exposed conduits + hvac ducts / pipes on the ceiling. Every electrical box is going to have a 2" conduit (embedded in the wall) running up to a conduit that runs on the ceiling (if there's a basement, then down to the basement ceiling).

This would let us avoid stapling electrical lines + network cables to studs inside walls. Fixing shorts, adding circuits and upgrading network lines would be trivial.

We'd have to buy what, 1000' of conduit? There's no way that's a sufficient fraction of the cost of a house.

[enobrev]

In Chicago, code requires EMT for all electrical, which can be annoying for adding a new run, but at the very least it makes it less likely for rodents to chew through or other interference.

After wiring my whole house with Ethernet and ceiling speakers, and now dealing with a couple leaky pipes and several problems from previous owners, I'm considering ways to make these things easily accessible/replaceable while keeping an eye toward aesthetics.

[epcoa]

For nearly a decade, Chicago does allow MC cable in a number of circumstances, basically up to 25 feet branches where you don’t want to open up a wall.