Whole-House Rewiring Services

Why Older Home Wiring Is a Safety Hazard

California has an abundance of historic homes built between 1900 and 1980. While charming, their electrical systems are often ticking time bombs. Outdated wiring materials fail under the electrical loads demanded by modern households, generating dangerous resistive heat behind finished walls.

• Knob-and-Tube (Pre-1950): This wiring type uses porcelain knobs and tubes to run single insulated wires. It lacks a grounding wire (putting electronics at risk of surge damage) and the rubberized insulation decomposes over time, exposing bare, live copper. In addition, knob-and-tube must dissipate heat into open air; covering it with home insulation causes it to overheat.
• Aluminum Wiring (1960s-1970s): Installed during a copper shortage. Aluminum expands and contracts much more than copper when carrying currents. This leads to loose connections at outlets and switches, creating arcs that ignite house fires.
• Ungrounded Cloth Wiring (1950s-1960s): Lacks a third grounding prong, making shock hazards far more likely in wet areas like kitchens and bathrooms.

Our Minimal-Intrusion Rewiring Process

Rewiring a house sounds like a nightmare that involves tearing down all your drywall. We use advanced mapping and specialized tools to rewire homes with minimal wall damage:

• Wall Fishing: We use flexible fiberglass rods and borescope inspection cameras to feed new Romex copper wire through existing crawlspaces, attics, and wall cavities, avoiding drywall removal. We feed lines cleanly between floors.
• Sectional Plan: We work room-by-room, ensuring that your home remains functional during the project. We clean and vacuum at the end of every workday.
• Wall Patching & Finishing: In the rare instances where we must cut drywall access points, our team patches, textures, and primes the walls so they look flawless.

The Benefits of a Rewired Home

1. Safety Compliance: Fully grounded circuits, GFCI outlets, and AFCI (Arc-Fault Circuit Interrupter) breakers protect against fire and shock.
2. Insurance Savings: Many California insurers will not issue policies or charge extreme premiums for homes with active knob-and-tube or aluminum wiring.
3. Increased Property Value: A fully rewired home with permits is a major selling point that easily recovers its cost at resale.

Step-by-Step Home Rewiring Workflow

Replacing your entire electrical grid involves a structured sequence of engineering steps:

1. System Audit & Mapping: We map every outlet, switch, and appliance load center in your home, creating a blueprint for the new circuit layouts.
2. Attic & Crawlspace Runs: We establish main horizontal pathways in the attic or basement crawlspaces, running new insulated copper cables.
3. Fishing Wall Drops: We feed vertical lines down wall cavities to each outlet and switch box location, replacing old ungrounded metal boxes with modern plastic boxes.
4. Panel Integration: The new copper runs are brought back to your main electrical panel and wired into code-compliant AFCI/GFCI breakers.
5. Inspection Card Sign-off: We host the city electrical inspector to sign off your permit, ensuring everything meets NEC codes.

Home Rewiring FAQ