Welcome to Ask Wirecutter, where deputy editor Annemarie Conte helps you figure out how to make the most of your stuff. If you have a shopping conundrum for our advice columnist, submit it using this form or via Annemarie’s Instagram, where she posts question prompts for you.Dear Wirecutter, I live in an older home and there just aren’t enough electrical outlets. We can’t add more right now for several reasons. I’m wondering what I should do to power all the modern-day things that need to be plugged in. What else can I do to keep all of my plugged-in stuff running without overloading the system?B.B.Dear B.B.,Older homes are so charming. They’re also a giant pain in the butt. (I say that as someone whose house was built in 1909.)When you own an old home, as we do, sure, you enjoy the period details, high-quality construction, and deep sense of being part of something with history. But you’re also dealing with a century’s worth of quirks.With an older home, outlet access isn’t the only electrical challenge. You may also have some weak or weirdly routed wiring that makes it hard to stay connected in the 21st century.“When my family and I moved into our last house,” which was built around 1910, “the electrical panel had a single label: ‘Breaker #3: most of the house,’” said home-improvement writer Doug Mahoney.The good news, notes Liam McCabe, who is also a home-improvement writer here at Wirecutter, is that most modern products draw less power than their older counterparts, so you have a lower (but not zero) chance of overloading the system, even if too many outlets are connected to a single breaker.As you can tell, I had very illuminating (sorry!) discussions with our powering and home-improvement experts about your issue. As long as your wiring is safe — powering writer Sarah Witman wrote an excellent article about electrical-safety red flags — we have some solutions for you to keep your older home running smoothly in today’s electricity-demanding environment.