Residential electrical · Belleville & Quinte
Knob and Tube Removal and Rewiring
Common in Belleville's pre-1950 housing. We rewire in stages so you are never left without power to the rooms you need.
Ceramic knobs on a joist, original conductors visible
How to tell if you have it
Knob and tube was the standard way to wire a house from roughly the 1880s to the late 1940s. Belleville has a lot of housing from that window, so this comes up here more than it does in a newer town.
Look in the attic or the basement, wherever joists are exposed. You are looking for:
- White or brown ceramic knobs screwed to joists, with a single wire wrapped through each
- Ceramic tubes through drilled joists where a wire passes through wood
- Two separate conductors running a few inches apart, rather than one cable with several wires inside
- Cloth or rubberised insulation rather than plastic
- Two-prong outlets with no ground pin, especially throughout an upper floor
Any one of those is worth a look. All of them together and you almost certainly have live knob and tube.
The one that matters most
If someone has blown insulation into an attic or a wall cavity that still has knob and tube running through it, that is the combination that starts fires. The wiring was designed to shed its heat into open air, and buried in insulation it cannot. If you have had insulation upgraded on an older house and nobody checked the wiring first, get it looked at.
What the work involves
Rewiring an occupied house is mostly a logistics problem. The electrical part is straightforward; keeping a family living in the building while it happens is the hard bit.
So we stage it:
Stage one — the panel and the service. Everything downstream depends on having somewhere modern to land it. Usually a panel upgrade at the same time.
Stage two — the circuits that matter. Kitchen, furnace, bathroom, laundry. The ones you cannot live without and the ones carrying the heaviest loads.
Stage three — bedrooms and living space. Usually the largest single chunk, and where most of the wall opening happens.
Stage four — everything left. Attic lighting, porch lights, the garage, the odd outlet nobody thinks about until it stops working.
You keep power throughout. On the days we are pulling a specific circuit, that circuit is off — not the house.
Each stage gets its own ESA notification and its own inspection, so at the end you have documentation of exactly what was replaced and when. That is what your insurer wants and it is what a buyer’s lawyer will ask for.
Local note — needs client input
Which Belleville streets and neighbourhoods this actually turns up on. Roughly how many of these the client does in a year. One real staged rewire with before-and-after photos and a real timeline. Reviews from those customers.
This page is competing with Toronto and Hamilton contractors for the same search. Specific local evidence is the only thing that beats them.
What it costs
A full rewire of a 1,200 square foot home runs $11,000 to $19,000. That is a wide range and it is wide honestly, because the variables are enormous.
What drives it:
- Access. A house with a full unfinished basement and a walkable attic is a fraction of the cost of a house with finished space above and below. Same square footage, completely different job.
- Plaster or drywall. Lath and plaster is slower to open, slower to work behind, and much more expensive to make good afterwards.
- How many devices you want. Modern code and modern life want far more outlets than a 1930s house has. Adding them is the right call and it adds cost.
- Whether the house is occupied. An empty house is faster and therefore cheaper. If you are buying, doing this before you move in is genuinely the cheapest version.
- How much has already been half-done. Houses where someone ran a few new circuits in the 1980s and abandoned the rest are common, and sorting out what is connected to what takes time.
We quote per home after seeing it. There is no per-square-foot number that means anything on this kind of work, and anyone who gives you one over the phone is guessing.
Doing it in the right order
If you are also planning insulation, new windows, or a kitchen, do the wiring first. Every one of those is cheaper before the walls are closed up and far more expensive after.
The most costly version of this job we see is the one where a house was insulated, drywalled and decorated, and then the insurer asked about knob and tube.
Common questions
Is knob and tube wiring actually dangerous?
Not inherently. Installed properly and left alone, it can still be sound after a century — it was well made. The danger comes from what has happened to it since. Ninety years of brittle insulation, splices made in the 1960s with electrical tape, extra circuits spliced in by people who were not electricians, and above all insulation blown in over the top of it. Knob and tube was designed to shed heat into open air. Bury it in cellulose and it cannot.
Will my insurer refuse to cover the house?
Many Ontario insurers will not write a new policy on a house with active knob and tube, and some will not renew one. Others will, at a higher premium, or on condition that it is removed within a set period. It varies by company and it changes. Ask your broker directly before you buy the house or before you assume you are fine — and get the answer in writing.
Do I have to do the whole house at once?
No, and usually you should not. We stage it — typically the circuits that matter most first, then the rest as budget allows. You keep power to the kitchen and the furnace throughout. What you cannot do is leave half of it live and tell an insurer the house has been rewired, so we document exactly what has been replaced and what has not.
How much damage will this do to my walls?
Some, honestly. We fish cable through existing cavities wherever we can, and in a house with accessible attic and basement space we can reach a surprising amount that way. But some walls have to be opened, especially on middle floors and around light switches. We cut small and we cut deliberately. We do not patch or paint — you will want a drywaller or a plasterer after us, and we will tell you roughly how much of that to budget for.
Can you just replace the panel and leave the wiring?
You can, and sometimes that is the right first step. But be clear about what it does: a new panel makes the distribution safe and the connections modern. It does nothing about ninety-year-old conductors in your ceilings. If the reason you are doing this is an insurance requirement, a panel alone will usually not satisfy it.
Related work and reading
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