How do you know if your house needs to be fully rewired? How much would it cost? What type of work goes into it? In this blog post, we will answer all of those questions.
What to look for when considering a rewire:
-Homes over 50+ years old are more at risk of home fires if there is no attention given to it.
-Flickering lights can be a sign of faulty lighting
-Burning smells, discolored switches and outlets are serious signs of needing a rewire.
-Frequently tripped breakers
What's the big deal with aluminum wiring?
Because of the price of aluminum vs copper wire, over 2 million homes built between 1965 and 1973 are wired with aluminum. But why is aluminum a problem?
Aluminum wires expand and contract in the heat
Fires
Sparks
Overheating
Scorched wires
What Labor is Put into a Rewire?
The process of a rewire can be divided into 4 steps:
Plan & Prepare
Prep
Removal
New Wiring
Plan & Prepare:
When starting a project, it is important to plan and prepare for it. The steps for this include creating a blueprint of your old wiring, creating a new blueprint of what you want, and then finally calculating what materials you need.
Prep:
In this step, the main focus is to clear out the crawl space for the electrician to be able to work in there. This requires minimal, if any drywall cuts.
Removal:
This is by far, the most dangerous step of them all. And it's not as easy as it sounds. The technician won't be able to just unplug everything because that can pose several other issues. In most cases, the electrician takes out the complete circuitry from the crawl space.
New Wiring:
This step is pretty self-explanatory, except it gets much more complicated than you think for the electricians. It is not simply just replacing the old wires with new ones, but strategically cutting holes and pulling wire.
How Much Does a Rewire Typically Cost?
Obviously this price varies between contractors, but most price the same way: using square footage of the house. For SHEWORKS, currently it is $10.10 per sqft (price may vary). The amount of labor and planning that rewiring requires is intense, so to put it in perspective, the average total cost of a rewire ranges $20-25,000. That may be a big chunk of cash, but when your home's safety is involved, maybe a rewire might be the best option.