How to Price a Whole House Rewire | Reddit & LinkedIn

A rewire is priced per opening, and the trap is undercounting. Every outlet, switch, fixture, and dedicated circuit is labor, and in an occupied home each one also means fishing wire through finished walls and patching afterward. Count the openings first and the rest of the estimate falls into place.

The second cost driver is the service. Older homes being rewired usually need a panel or service upgrade, which brings utility coordination, a permit, and an inspection. Price that as its own block so the client sees it clearly and you can adjust it without touching the rest of the quote.

Set a labor time per device type and multiply by your counts. A standard receptacle in an accessible wall is quick, while the same device behind finished drywall on a plaster-and-lath wall is several times the time. Separate accessible runs from fished runs in your estimate, because mixing them hides the real labor.

Then add the panel work, the service tie-in, and the inspection day. On a rewire, drywall repair and access often rival the electrical labor itself, so never fold it into a vague allowance.

Three things: drywall repair, temporary power and downtime for an occupied home, and the service upgrade. A quote that lists only devices and wire will lose money on the patching and the access alone. Spell out who repairs the drywall and to what finish level, because that single line prevents most rewire disputes.

Also include the permit and inspection explicitly. A rewire is almost always inspected, and the inspection day is billable time plus the coordination to schedule it.

Per-opening math is exactly where hand estimates go wrong under time pressure. ContractShield lets you set device counts and your own labor rates, and the AI assembles the line items in under a minute, then you adjust. A full rewire estimate comes together in about 25 minutes with the math checked, instead of a long night with a calculator.

The prices are your own saved rates, so the AI never invents a labor number, and every line shows where it came from.

A whole house rewire in an occupied home is as much a logistics problem as an electrical one. Stage the work room by room so the family keeps power where they live while you work, and price the temporary power and the extra mobilization that staging requires. A rewire quoted as if the house were empty will run over on labor the moment you account for working around occupants.

Put the staging plan in the quote. When the client sees that you have thought through downtime, inspections, and the drywall sequence, the bid reads as professional, and the schedule you promised is the schedule you can actually hold.