Whole House Rewire Cost Calculator

About $13,485 for a 1965–1989 ungrounded home at 12 circuits with the breaker package, drywall patching and permit included — ranging $10,114–$19,553 with access. HomeGuide's 2026 guide puts whole-house rewiring at $5–$17 per sq ft depending on age, size, circuit count and accessibility, and this job lands at about $8.99 per sq ft.

Building codes don't force a replacement on an existing home, but insurers increasingly refuse to write or renew policies on live knob-and-tube, and lenders can flag it during a sale. Budget $23,040 for the 1,500 sq ft example above — HomeGuide's February 2026 guide prices knob-and-tube replacement at $12,000–$35,000, and Integra Electrical's national average is $12,000–$36,600 at $10–$20 per sq ft.

Often, yes. Homes built roughly 1965–1973 with aluminum branch wiring can be remediated by pigtailing copper to every device with AlumiConn connectors or COPALUM crimps — a licensed electrician prices that per device, and it typically costs a fraction of a full rewire. Choose full replacement when you're renovating anyway, devices are failing, or an insurer insists on it; the calculator's aluminum era prices that full-replacement path.

Usually not — crews work room by room, but plan around the sequence. Each room gets cut, fished and roughed in while power is off in the active zones (often the whole house overnight), the city inspects the rough-in while the walls are still open, patching and texture follow, and a final inspection closes the job. A 1,000–2,000 sq ft rewire runs about 5–10 working days end to end; knob-and-tube plaster jobs take longer because every access hole is cut, cleared and patched by hand. Keep the fridge and Wi-Fi on a temporary extension from an unaffected circuit, and expect dust — patching is the messiest phase, which is exactly why it's a separate line on the form.

Partly — the code has a middle path. NEC 406.4(D)(2) lets an electrician replace a two-slot ungrounded receptacle with a three-prong GFCI receptacle (or protect the circuit with a GFCI breaker), marked "No equipment ground," without pulling a new grounding conductor. That fixes shock protection — the failure mode that actually hurts people — at a per-device price that's a small fraction of a rewire. What it does not fix is a true equipment ground: sensitive electronics, surge protectors and some appliance warranties expect one, which is why the "No equipment ground" marking is required — the third pin is still cosmetic. A full rewire is the only complete fix, but if your motivation is safety rather than grounding, GFCI retrofits are the legitimate low-cost step, and a fair contractor will price one before recommending this calculator's whole answer.

Not automatically — that's a separate decision on the form. If your panel has breaker space and capacity, the job only adds an AFCI/GFCI breaker package for the new circuits. If you're on a fuse box or a full 60–100 A service, plan on a 200 A swap: the calculator prices it at the same $3,250 midpoint as our electrical-panel calculator, and it's the single biggest rider on the quote.

Access is the whole game. In a modern drywall home a crew fishes cable through basements, crawlspaces and attics with small, few holes; in plaster-and-lath every route is cut, cleaned and patched by hand, and lath crumbles beyond the hole. On the 1,800 sq ft example the modern-era job runs $13,640 versus $15,890 for the same house with 1960s ungrounded wiring, and knob-and-tube adds patching at 2.5 holes per circuit instead of 1.5.

Light fixtures and appliances (existing ones are reconnected, not replaced), smart-home or low-voltage wiring, the utility-side service mast or transformer upgrade, subpanels and detached-garage circuits, insulation top-up behind new-access walls, and whole-house surge protection — see our electrical-panel calculator for that add-on.