Knob-and-tube. Cloth insulation. Aluminum branch circuits. The wiring in your 1920s Crockett bungalow or 1940s Richmond Annex tract was code in its day — and it is decades past its life. We pull it out and rewire, room by room, without gutting the house.
A lot of the housing stock in west Contra Costa County is 70 to 100 years old. Crockett, Point Richmond, the Richmond Annex, and the older neighborhoods of Albany and El Cerrito have homes built when knob-and-tube wiring was the only option. Cloth-insulated romex from the 1940s and aluminum branch circuits from the 1960s and 70s show up in plenty of mid-century houses too. None of it is being made anymore, and most of it is no longer covered by major insurance carriers.
Rewiring an old house is part craft, part forensic work. We open as little as possible, fish new wire through existing wall and ceiling cavities, label every circuit at the panel, and patch everything we open. We do not gut. We do not demolish. We treat the original plaster, tile, and trim like it matters — because it does.
Every job we do is on a pulled permit. The inspector walks the work in stages, including the rough-in before any patching, and signs off the permit at the end. You get documentation you can hand to your insurance carrier or the next buyer.
Whole-house rewires are scheduled in phases so you are never without power to the whole house at once.
We open a few outlets and switch boxes to identify what is actually in the walls. We map the existing circuits, count outlets, and identify accessible attic and crawlspace runs.
Line-item quote with the rewire scope broken into phases. You can do the whole house at once or stage it across rooms or floors.
Electrical permit pulled with the city or county. Required for any rewire that changes circuits or adds new wiring.
We work room by room or zone by zone. Each phase pulls new wire, lands new outlets and switches, and ties into a new sub-section of the panel.
After each phase the inspector walks the open work before any patching.
We patch every wall opening, texture-match where we can, and prime for paint. (Final paint is on you or your painter.)
After all phases are complete, the inspector signs off the full permit.
A typical 1,500 sq ft west Contra Costa rewire lands between $18,000 and $25,000 once you include patching.
Price depends heavily on square footage, wall finish (lath-and-plaster is more expensive to repair than drywall), how much existing wiring stays, the number of circuits being added, and whether the panel needs upgrading at the same time.
Real quotes beat ballparks. Your house, your panel, your situation will drive the real number. We give a written quote before any work starts — no deposit to see the bid, no pressure, no surprises.
Not every old house needs a full rewire. These are the patterns where it is the right answer.
Your carrier sent a notice mentioning knob-and-tube or aluminum branch circuits. A documented rewire usually clears the policy.
You are listing the house and the buyer's inspector flagged old wiring. Pre-emptive rewire protects the sale price.
Kitchen remodel, new HVAC, EV charger, ADU — all of these add load that the old branch circuits cannot carry safely.
Old aluminum and knob-and-tube circuits develop high resistance at connection points. Tripping is a sign the wire is heating up.
Dead outlets that cannot be revived usually mean a connection failure inside the wall. Sometimes we can splice; often the whole run needs to come out.
Open a switch box and find cloth or rubber jacket. That's a strong indicator the rest of the house is similar.
We perform rewiring across all eight cities of west Contra Costa County, from Crockett at the Carquinez Strait to Albany at the Berkeley line.
In most cases, no. We fish new wire through existing wall and ceiling cavities, opening as few small access holes as possible. Lath-and-plaster houses are more delicate but usually doable without major demolition.
Yes for phased rewires — we work one zone at a time and you keep power to the rest of the house. For full whole-house single-phase rewires, expect 1–3 days of partial power loss while we cut over.
In our experience, yes — when the work is permitted and inspected. We give you the closed permit and inspection paperwork to send to your carrier.
Yes. We patch every opening we make, including taping and texturing. Final paint is on you or your painter — we do not paint.
No. Current code requires that abandoned wiring be removed or disconnected at the source. Leaving live K&T in the walls is a fire risk and a disclosure liability.
— Start with a call —
No deposit to see the bid. No pressure. Every job performed under CSLB license #1062166.
510-850-3941Mon – Fri · 8am – 5pm
