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Older Pierce County homes are full of character — and often full of knob-and-tube, cloth, or aluminum wiring that was never meant to run a modern household. We replace it safely, to code, and with the permits to prove it.
Much of Tacoma's housing stock predates 1950 — the North End, the Stadium District, Hilltop, and older neighborhoods in Puyallup and Lakewood are full of homes built when knob-and-tube was standard. That wiring served its era, but it has no ground, its insulation grows brittle after seventy or eighty years, and it was designed for a few lightbulbs and a radio, not a home with a heat pump, an EV charger, and a dozen devices charging at once. A whole-house rewire replaces that aging system with modern grounded copper wiring, brings your outlets and circuits up to current code, and removes one of the most common reasons an older Pierce County home is hard to insure or hard to sell.
Some homes announce the problem, and some hide it behind the walls. It's worth having a licensed electrician look if you notice any of these:
A warm outlet or a burning smell is not a "watch it" problem. If you smell burning, see smoke, or feel heat at an outlet or panel, kill the breaker and call us — or if there's active smoke or fire, call 911 first. Our emergency electricians respond countywide.
Knob-and-tube isn't certain to fail, but it stacks the odds against you. There's no ground wire, so there's no safe path for a fault — that's what protects you from shock and protects the home from arcing. The rubberized insulation hardens and cracks with age, and once the copper is exposed, a nick or a nail or a curious rodent turns into an arc. The worst offender in the Northwest is insulation: when homeowners blow modern insulation into an attic or wall cavity that still carries active knob-and-tube, the wiring loses its ability to shed heat and can overheat inside the insulation. That combination is exactly why most home insurers now decline, surcharge, or require replacement of active knob-and-tube before they'll write a policy — and why buyers' lenders often flag it during a sale.
Every rewire starts with an assessment. A licensed electrician walks the home, maps the existing circuits, checks the attic, basement, and crawlspace, and looks at how the walls are finished, because access is the single biggest factor in cost and timeline. From there we pull an electrical permit, then run new grounded copper wiring to every circuit, replace outlets and switches, and install modern devices like GFCI and AFCI protection where code requires them. In an unfinished or accessible home we can often fish wire cleanly; in a finished home we open small, strategic sections of drywall or plaster and patch access is planned in advance so you know what to expect.
A rewire can be done all at once or in phases — some homeowners rewire the highest-risk circuits first and stage the rest around a budget or a remodel. And because so much of the load runs back to the electrical panel, a rewire is frequently paired with a panel upgrade to 200 amps; an old 60- or 100-amp fuse panel often can't safely support a fully rewired modern home, so it makes sense to handle both together while the walls are already open.
A whole-house rewire is the largest single electrical ticket most homeowners will face, and the honest range is wide because no two homes are alike.
Typical range: $8,000–$25,000+
In practice, a smaller home around 1,500 square feet with reasonable access tends to fall in the $8,000–$12,000 range, while a larger home of 2,500 square feet or more with finished walls can run $18,000–$25,000 or more. The drivers are straightforward: square footage and circuit count, how accessible the walls and attic are (finished plaster costs more to work in than open framing), the number of outlets and fixtures, and whether the panel needs replacing too. We give you an itemized, upfront quote after we've actually seen the home — never a number over the phone.
Most homeowners stay in the house during a rewire. Expect a few days to about two weeks of active work for a typical single-family home, with individual rooms losing power while we're working in them and dust and access holes as part of the process. We restore power to occupied areas at the end of each day wherever it's safe to do so, work in a planned sequence so the disruption is predictable, and clean up as we go. A larger or fully-finished home takes longer; we'll give you a realistic schedule before we start.
Rewiring is not a corner to cut. In Washington a whole-house rewire requires an electrical permit and a state inspection, and for good reason — this is the wiring your family lives inside of. A permitted, inspected rewire done by a licensed electrician is what protects the home, satisfies your insurer, and shows up clean when you sell. Unpermitted work is the opposite: it's a liability, it can void coverage, and it becomes an expensive problem at closing. We pull the permit, do the work to National Electrical Code and Washington standards, and see it through inspection every time.
Most whole-house rewires here run $8,000–$25,000 or more. A smaller 1,500 sq ft home with good access is typically $8,000–$12,000; a larger 2,500+ sq ft home with finished walls can reach $18,000–$25,000. Size, wall access, and whether the panel also needs replacing are the biggest factors.
Usually not. Most homeowners stay put. We work room by room and restore power to occupied areas at the end of each day where it's safe. Expect some rooms without power during active work and a few days of dust — typically several days to about two weeks for an average home.
It's not always on the verge of failing, but it has no ground, its insulation gets brittle with age, and it overheats when buried in modern insulation. Combined with the fact that most insurers now decline or surcharge homes with active knob-and-tube, it's usually worth replacing.
Rewiring a finished home means opening some drywall or plaster to fish wire, and we keep those access holes as small as possible. We handle the electrical and the permit; drywall patch, texture, and paint are usually handled separately, and we'll tell you exactly what to expect up front.
Yes. A whole-house rewire in Washington requires an electrical permit and a state inspection. We pull the permit, do the work to code, and schedule the inspection — that's what protects your home, your insurance, and your future sale.
Ready When You Are
Get a licensed electrician out for an honest assessment and an upfront quote. We serve all of Pierce County, WA.
