Whole-home rewiring in New Orleans
Rewiring a New Orleans house is not the same job as rewiring a house in a subdivision. Plaster on wood lath, no attic access over the shotgun, balloon framing, and a hundred years of other people's improvements between you and the wall.
- Phased option
- Room by room, spread over time
- On-site time
- 1–3 weeks depending on size
- Estimate
- Free, on site
What we find in New Orleans houses
- Knob and tube. Pre-1950s. Not automatically an emergency where it is undisturbed, but it has no ground, its insulation embrittles with age, and it becomes genuinely dangerous the moment someone buries it in blown-in insulation or ties a modern circuit into it. Most insurers will not write a policy on an actively knob-and-tube house.
- Cloth-wrapped rubber wiring. 1950s through the 60s. The rubber goes hard and cracks off the conductor, usually first at the panel and at the fixtures where it has been heated the most.
- Aluminum branch circuits. Late 1960s to mid 1970s. Aluminum expands, contracts and creeps at the terminations, connections loosen, and loose connections make heat. Sometimes this is a full rewire and sometimes it is properly rated connectors at every device, which is a much smaller job. We will tell you which.
- Two-prong outlets with no ground, and the very common situation where someone has replaced them with three-prong outlets that are not actually grounded. That looks fixed and is not.
- Layers of undocumented work. The kitchen circuit that runs through the attic to the back bedroom for no reason anyone alive can explain.
Getting wire through a plaster house without wrecking it
This is the part that separates a rewire done by someone who works on historic housing stock from one done by someone who does not. In a shotgun or a raised-center-hall with plaster on wood lath, there is no drywall to cut and patch cheaply. Every hole is in plaster, and plaster does not patch invisibly.
What that means in practice: we fish walls from above and below wherever the framing allows, we come in through closets, baseboards and behind trim, and we plan the routes before anyone cuts anything. Balloon framing, common in older New Orleans homes, actually helps here — the wall cavity often runs uninterrupted from the sill to the attic, which is a straight fish where a modern platform-framed wall would be blocked at every floor.
We tell you where the access holes will be before we make them, and we do not promise zero holes, because nobody can do this job without some. The promise is that they are planned, they are minimal, and they are in the places easiest to close.
Historic district work
If your house is in an HDLC district, exterior changes — a relocated meter, a new mast, exterior conduit — can require review. That is worth knowing at the estimate rather than discovering after the permit is filed. We flag it up front when the address falls in a district.
Phasing it, if that is what the budget allows
A whole-home rewire is a real number. If it is not this year's number, the work can be staged sensibly rather than not done at all. The usual order is the panel and service first, because everything else lands there, then kitchen and bath circuits where the water and the load both are, then bedrooms and living space, then the outbuilding or garage.
Staged this way, each phase is complete and safe on its own. What we will not do is leave a house half on new wire and half on knob and tube with no plan for the rest, because that is the configuration where people forget what is behind which wall.
What it costs
What a rewire costs is driven by square footage, how many stories, whether there is usable attic and crawl access, whether the plaster is original, and whether the panel and service are being replaced at the same time — which they usually should be, since the savings from doing both in one mobilization are substantial.
Nobody can quote this over the phone. The estimate is free and it happens at the house, with the panel open.
Recent work
Every photo below is a TK Electric job in the New Orleans area, not stock photography.
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Common questions
How much does it cost to rewire a house in New Orleans?
The main variables are square footage, number of stories, attic and crawlspace access, whether the walls are original plaster, and whether the panel and service entrance are being replaced at the same time.
Is knob and tube wiring dangerous?
Undisturbed knob and tube in good condition is not an immediate emergency, but it has no ground, its insulation gets brittle with age, and it becomes genuinely hazardous when covered with insulation or spliced into modern circuits. Most insurance carriers will not write a policy on a home actively using it.
Do you have to tear out the plaster to rewire?
No, but there will be access holes. We fish walls from above and below, work through closets and behind baseboards and trim, and plan every route before cutting. Balloon framing in older New Orleans homes often allows a clean run from sill to attic. We show you where the holes will go before we make them.
Can a rewire be done in stages?
Yes. The usual order is the panel and service first, then kitchen and bath circuits, then living space and bedrooms, then any outbuilding. Each phase is complete and safe on its own, so the house is never left in a half-finished state.
Is aluminum wiring always a full rewire?
Not always. Aluminum branch wiring from the late 1960s and early 1970s can sometimes be made safe with properly rated connectors at every device and termination, which is a much smaller job than a rewire. Which applies depends on the condition of the terminations, and that requires looking.
How long does a whole-home rewire take?
Usually one to three weeks on site, depending on the size of the house and how much access there is. Most people stay in the house during the work, with power off in one area at a time rather than the whole building.