Whole-home rewiring in the Phoenix Valley

Old wiring rarely fails all at once. It wears out a little at a time, and the signs show up as small annoyances that are easy to live with.

Age alone is not the reason to rewire. A 1950s house with sound wiring and a few updated circuits may not need it. A house where the insulation is cracking off the wire, or where three owners have added circuits their own way, probably does. We open boxes, look in the attic and at the panel, and tell you which one you have.

The historic districts in central Phoenix, like Willo, Encanto-Palmcroft, Coronado, F.Q. Story and Roosevelt, are full of homes built from the 1920s through the 1950s. Inside the walls you can find cloth-insulated wire, two-prong ungrounded outlets, rewiring done one room at a time over decades, and occasionally knob-and-tube.

Knob-and-tube was a reasonable system when it went in, but it has no ground, its insulation gets brittle with age and heat, and it was never meant to sit buried under modern attic insulation or carry the loads a house has today. Cloth-insulated wire has many of the same problems.

Rewiring these homes takes patience. We plan wire routes to save as much of the original plaster and trim as we can, and we walk you through where the openings will be before work starts.

Some Valley homes built roughly 1965 to 1973 were wired with aluminum branch circuits instead of copper. The main concern is the connections. The CPSC has documented a fire risk where aluminum wire connects to outlets, switches and splices, and warm or discolored outlets are a common warning sign.

There are two ways to deal with it. One is rewiring the affected circuits with copper. The other is an approved repair, such as COPALUM crimps or AlumiConn connectors, that joins a short copper lead to the aluminum at every connection point. The repair can cost less and disturb fewer walls. Rewiring is the more complete fix.

We price both options, so you can choose what fits your house and your budget.

Not every house needs to be rewired top to bottom in one job, so we give you options.

A full rewire replaces every branch circuit and often goes with a new panel. It is the most disruptive option, but you finish with one consistent system and a clean set of labels.

A partial rewire targets the circuits that need it most. Kitchens, bathrooms, bedrooms and any circuit with failing insulation usually go first. The rest of the house stays as it is until it makes sense to do more.

A staged rewire spreads the full job over several phases. That can help with budget, or let you live in the house while we work one area at a time. We write out the stages in order so each phase leaves the house safe and working.

With no crawlspace under a slab home, new wire comes down from the attic into the walls. We fish wire through existing wall cavities where we can and cut small, planned openings where we cannot. Exterior walls and long horizontal runs take the most work.

Valley attics get dangerously hot in summer, so from late spring through early fall we schedule attic work for early in the day. It is safer for the crew and keeps the job moving.

A full rewire often goes with a panel replacement and grounding updates. Many slab homes in Arizona use a concrete-encased electrode, often called a Ufer ground, and we check that connection while we are there. We pull the permit under our ROC license and schedule every inspection the job requires.

Before you move in is the easiest time. An empty house means faster work, fewer belongings to protect, and no one living without power to a room. If you are buying an older home, have the wiring looked at during your inspection period so you can plan for it.

If you already live there, fall through spring is the most comfortable time for attic work. If you have warm outlets, burning smells or wire with crumbling insulation, do not wait for cooler weather. Call us and we will make the worst circuits safe first.