> Depending on your house layout, you might basically need to gut your entire house just to rewire a single appliance.

This is simply not true. Any decent electrician will be able to fish the lines with a few strategically placed small holes.

There's no way you can say this without seeing the house, existence of a crawlspace, etc. Low gauge wires are thick, stiff and notoriously difficult to snake.

I do agree though that the average house would not require gutting to wire an appliance.

Not the op, but I recently added a 50amp circuit for an oven to my ‘50s era house (currently gas). There was a crawl space behind the kitchen, which was not insulated. The hardest part was getting the conduit measured, bent and attached to the house to go from the electrical panel to the attic. Then I drilled holes in the studs for the wire and fished it through and insulated the wall.

Worst case, you have an insulated wall that you need to tear apart. For pre ‘78 houses, do a lead and asbestos inspection before starting work. You would have to tear down drywall/rocklath, tear out insulation, cut holes in the studs for wires, put up new insulation, new drywall, and mud/paint the walls. You could do that in a weekend assuming you have the materials and tools starting Saturday morning.

Looking forward to a reply by op because I suspect their house is above 200amps because of the appliances and cars they have.

OP here - we upgraded to 400 amp service, but 200 would still be sufficient for us. I just have a hard time saying no when 'overkill' costs only 10% more.