House Rewiring in California

Replace old branch wiring through some or all of a home.

Rewiring a Los Angeles home runs 8,000 to 30,000 dollars and depends far more on wall access than on square feet.

The short version

Plaster and lath costs more to open and close than drywall.
Most homes get rewired in stages, not all at once.
Aluminum branch wiring can be corrected instead of replaced.
The wall repair is a real line item and belongs in the quote.

Why a house gets rewired

Cloth covered wire from before the war goes brittle and the insulation crumbles when it is moved. Knob and tube has no ground. Early aluminum branch wiring loosens at every connection as it heats and cools. All three show up across Los Angeles neighborhoods with older housing stock.

A remodel forces the question too. Once walls are open, running new cable costs a fraction of what it costs later.

What drives the price

Access, not size. A single story home with an open attic and a crawl space under the floor is the cheap version, because an electrician can reach most walls from above and below. A two story home on a slab is the expensive version, because the only way into the wall is through the wall.

Plaster and lath is slower to cut and much slower to patch than drywall. Ask whether the quote includes patching, and who paints.

Doing it in stages

Whole house at once is the fastest and the most disruptive. Many families instead do the kitchen and bathrooms first, then bedrooms, then the rest, with the panel handled in the first stage so everything after it lands on a modern service.

Staging costs a little more in total because the crew sets up more than once. It lets people stay in the house, which is often worth it.