Home maintenance is such an important part of homeownership. It’s the best way to ensure that your home is safe and comfortable to live in for as long as possible. And when you’re selling a house, it ensures that you can get the best value for your home possible.
But where do you start when it’s time to rewire your house? How do you know when your house needs rewiring? And how much does it cost to rewire a house?
Old and faulty home wiring is one of the leading causes of electrical fires, so it’s important to update it regularly. Read on to learn how much it costs to get your home rewired.
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Signs your house needs rewiring
If your home is over forty years old, then you might want to think about getting it rewired. This will reduce the chances of an electrical fire and improve the energy efficiency of your home. Plus you may find that many of your electronic devices simply work better after you replace the wiring.
There are a few signs to look for if you aren’t sure if it’s time to rewire your home. You should always be looking for any of these issues so you know when and if your home has a wiring issue.
The first thing you should watch out for is flickering lights or lights that burn out quickly. This could be a sign that the circuits in the room are overloaded. You’ll usually notice this flickering when running a large appliance such as a dryer.
If you notice breakers tripping a lot, then this could also be a sign that your wiring is going bad. The breakers prevent electrical fires from happening. They do this by shutting off the power to different parts of your house if the circuit starts to overload.
Other issues to look for include sparks from the outlet, hot switch plates, and loose outlets. All of these indicate that the wiring isn’t able to handle the amount of electricity your home needs or that the wiring is warping from age.
How much does it cost to rewire a house?
Most people pay an average of around $1,500, while a whole-house project could exceed $10,000.
The most simple eclectic wiring project can cost about $500, but for large homes, the cost could go up to $30,000, with $8,500 as a reasonable average.
Size of the home
You need to consider the size of your house. This affects both material and labor costs.
First of all, wiring costs money. Manufacturers usually charge per square foot. Usually, the cost is about $5 – $17 cost per square foot.
Think about how big your house is. Do you need the whole house rewired or will fixing a few circuits be enough?
The bigger the project, the more wire your contractors need for it. This adds up when you want to rewire an entire 1,300 square foot home.
The other side of this coin is labor costs. Contractors will take longer to install the wiring in a larger project. It creates more work for those contractors.
If there’s more work for the contractors to do, then they need to charge more for their services.
This is why a single circuit in the house is cheaper to rewire than the entire house. This requires a lot less wire and a lot less time to complete this project than rewiring a whole house.
How much work is there?
You might also be thinking of adding some new wiring while you’re getting this home maintenance done. Maybe you want some new light fixtures in your house. You might want some new electrical outlets around your house as well.
Some people might even want to move or even remove outlets completely from their homes. And if you want to move any appliances, then this can also require some extra work.
It’s not a bad idea to get this done while you’re already having work done on your house. But it will affect the price of your project.
Adding new wires and outlets means you need even more materials to complete the project. It also creates more work for the contractors working on your house. This will once again raise the cost of both materials and labor.
Adding new wiring is also often more complicated than replacing the old wiring in the house. In some cases, you might even need to install a second circuit breaker to ensure that you’re not overloading any of the current circuits. Otherwise, you might end up dealing with power failures regularly because your breakers keep getting tripped.
And most of these issues require someone else to complete some work afterward. If you’re having outlets moved or removed, then holes in your walls need to be patched up. Moving appliances sometimes requires a professional if you aren’t able to move them yourself.
Accessibility
The way that your house is wired is also going to contribute to the total cost of rewiring. There are generally two ways that a contractor can rewire your house. They either can go through an attic or a crawlspace, or they need to open up the walls completely.
If your contractors can access the wiring from an attic or crawlspace, then this saves them a little effort. This means that they have easy access and can rewire your home without too much difficulty at all. That means that they can get done faster, so you won’t need to pay as much for labor.
On the other hand, if they can’t access the wiring from the crawlspace or attic, then they’ll need to open up the walls to get to the wires. This adds more work to the project and means that you’ll need to pay to patch the holes again once they’re done. This often increases the price of your rewiring project significantly.
And you won’t get much choice in the matter. There isn’t much else that can be done when the contractors can’t access the wires easily.
Many houses are going to have a combination of these two methods too. In many cases, some parts of the house are much more easily accessed than others. This means that they don’t necessarily have to open all of the walls in the house to complete your project.
However, the more walls that need cutting open, the more the project will cost.
Permits
Inspections and permits are pretty common practices for rewiring jobs in the United States. The requirements for these, however, are going to vary based on where you live. The cost of these inspections and permits is also going to vary based on location and requirements.
These permits and inspections are important because they ensure that the wiring will be safe to use once the project is complete. This protects your home and your family from electrical fires. That’s the main reason you want to keep your wiring updated in the first place.
Permits provide your local government with the knowledge that your home’s wiring project is being handled safely and legally. It tells the government exactly what work is being done at the house so that if anything goes wrong, the government can easily discover who should be held responsible. The rules and regulations that determine which permits get approved are determined by said local government.
An inspection before the project is started tells your contractors exactly what work needs to be done. This helps them fill out any paperwork necessary to get a permit approved. Then an inspection after the project’s completion lets the contractors know that the project was completed the way that it should be.
It might be harder in some places to get permits and inspections, however. And contractors and the government workers who handle permits all need to be paid for their work. That means that the more effort this part takes to complete, the more your project will cost.
This part of the job usually costs between $100 to $300.
Increase your home value by rewiring your house
So how much does it cost to rewire a house? Again, most people pay around $2,000 for their rewiring jobs, but the cost can go up and down depending on the above conditions.
But this type of home maintenance is extremely valuable when you’re selling a home. And the good news is that iBuyer.com is willing to give you a free no-obligation cash offer on your home right now.
Get your free estimate and see how much you can get for your home today.
