Electrical Inspections and ESA Certificates

When people book one

Before buying a house. The most valuable time and the most common. Older housing in Belleville and the surrounding towns can carry electrical liabilities that do not show up in a general home inspection and are not visible at a showing.

Because an insurer asked. Underwriters ask about service size, panel type, knob and tube and aluminum wiring, and they usually want something in writing from a licensed contractor.

Before selling. Knowing what a buyer’s inspector is going to find, before they find it, means you set the price rather than negotiate against a surprise.

After buying an older home. A baseline of what you have, so you can plan work over five years instead of reacting to it.

Because something feels wrong. Warm plates, a smell, breakers that keep going. Often the honest answer here is a repair call rather than a full inspection, and we will say so on the phone.

What we check

• The service and the panel — size, condition, brand, breaker condition, how the connections are made, whether it is grounded and bonded correctly
• What the wiring actually is — copper, aluminum, knob and tube, or a mixture, and which parts of the house have which
• Circuit testing — polarity, grounding, voltage drop under load, and GFCI and AFCI operation where they exist
• Devices — outlets and switches tested and looked at, with attention to anything discoloured or warm
• Where protection is missing — kitchens, bathrooms, outdoors, garages and unfinished basements have requirements that older houses will not meet
• Smoke and carbon monoxide alarms — presence, placement and age, because they have an expiry date most people do not know about
• Exterior — the mast, the drip loop, the meter base, outdoor receptacles and their covers
• Signs of previous work — and whether it looks like a permit was ever pulled

What you get

A written report, usually within two business days, sorted by urgency rather than by room:

1. Unsafe now. Fix immediately. Usually short.
2. Should be addressed. Not an emergency, but do not leave it for five years.
3. Does not meet current code, but was legal when installed. Ungrounded outlets, no GFCI in a 1965 bathroom. Worth knowing, not usually worth panicking about.
4. Fine. Named explicitly, because knowing what is not a problem is half of what you are paying for.

With costs against each item. A report that tells you something is wrong without telling you what it costs to fix leaves you exactly where you started.

What it costs

$275 to $450, driven by the size and age of the house. A 1,000 square foot bungalow is at the bottom. A large century home with a finished basement, a detached garage and three previous rounds of partial rewiring is at the top.

If you go on to have us do the work identified, the inspection fee comes off the first invoice.

That policy is worth being clear about, because it is also a reason to be careful: an inspector who profits from finding problems has an incentive to find them. Ours is a fixed fee for a written report, and you are free to take that report to any contractor you like. Several people do. That is fine — it is your report.

Certificates of Inspection

Different thing, and worth understanding before you need it.

When notifiable electrical work is done in Ontario, the contractor files a notification with the Electrical Safety Authority. An ESA inspector attends, and if the work passes, a Certificate of Inspection is issued for that work.

That certificate is what proves the job was done legally and inspected. It is what a buyer’s lawyer asks for on a recent panel upgrade, and what an insurer asks for after a remediation.

If work was done on your house and there is no certificate, either it was not notifiable, or it was never inspected. On a panel change or a rewire it was definitely notifiable — so no certificate means no inspection, and that is a real problem to inherit. Finding out before you buy is the entire point of the pre-purchase version of this.