Whole-Home Rewire Permits, Including Knob-and-Tube

Insurance underwriters and home buyers have a way of forcing conversations most homeowners put off for years.

Active knob-and-tube wiring, a fuse panel that cannot carry a modern load, or an inspection report that says the house is “ungrounded” can turn a quiet remodel into a whole-home rewire—especially when walls are already open. That job is not the same as swapping a service panel or adding a few outlets. You are replacing the branch wiring that feeds lights, receptacles, and appliances throughout the house, and the permit and inspection path is built around that larger scope.

PermitCove is an independent homeowner guide, not a government agency. The Portland and Oregon examples below are concrete local rules you can check against official pages. Your city or county Authority Having Jurisdiction (AHJ) may package fees differently, adopt a different National Electrical Code (NEC) year, or limit who can pull the permit. Confirm every step locally. See our disclaimer.

What a Whole-Home Rewire Actually Is

A whole-home rewire means new branch-circuit wiring across a large share of the dwelling—often every room—running from the panel out to boxes for lights, switches, and receptacles. In practice that usually means opening walls or ceilings (or working while a remodel already has them open), installing modern cable, new boxes, grounding, and protection where cable passes through framing, then closing up only after the rough-in passes.

Compare that with two jobs people often confuse with a rewire:

• Panel upgrade or service change. You replace or enlarge the main breaker panel (and sometimes the meter/mast equipment). Existing branch circuits may be re-landed in the new panel, but the wires in the walls stay. That is a different permit scope, covered in our panel upgrade permit guide.
• A few new outlets or a room circuit. Adding receptacles in one area, or extending a handful of circuits, is usually counted as individual circuits—not a house-wide wiring package. See outlet and circuit permits.

After a full rewire, some homeowners also reconsider panel capacity for future loads (EV charging, heat pumps, workshops). If a charger is on the list, run the EV charger load calculation before the new panel schedule is drawn.

Whole-home rewire scope: new cable through open framing—not just a new panel cover and a couple of outlets.

When Knob-and-Tube Forces the Issue

Knob-and-tube (K&T) is early open wiring: single conductors on porcelain knobs, with ceramic tubes where wires pass through framing. Intact, unmodified K&T is still grandfathered in some places for existing installations. Extending it, overloading it, burying it in insulation, or splicing modern cable onto it without a proper plan is a different story—and many AHJs will not allow those practices.

What often forces a full retirement of K&T is not a citation on its own. It is the practical pressure around the house:

• Insurance. Many carriers decline new policies, non-renew, or attach conditions when active knob-and-tube remains. Requirements vary by carrier and by state; ask your agent what documentation they need (usually a closed permit and final inspection, not a contractor invoice alone).
• Sale or refinance. Buyer inspections and underwriting commonly flag K&T. Sellers who wait until contract time discover that remediation must be permitted and closed before closing—or that the buyer’s lender will not proceed. Checking prior electrical permits before you buy is covered in how to check permit history before buying.
• Open walls and insulation projects. Once plaster or drywall is off, or once you plan to insulate attic bays that still hold K&T, “leave it alone” stops being a realistic option. That is the moment many homeowners convert a cosmetic remodel into a rewire.

Do not assume every U.S. jurisdiction treats K&T the same way. Portland’s rules below are one concrete example; ask your own AHJ what is allowed for existing wiring versus replacement.

Knob-and-tube still shows up in attics and unfinished basements—insurance and sale paperwork often force documented retirement.

How Portland Prices a House-Wide Rewire

Portland requires an electrical permit for running new wiring even when no building permit is needed. For a rewire, the application asks for the square footage of the area being worked on, because that is how the city prices the job.

Portland prices large wiring replacements with square-foot wiring packages that start at 1,000 square feet, with additional 500 square-foot increments. That packaging is meant for replacing wiring across a large area inside the building. A square-foot package covers circuits, services, and feeders within the purchased area for that building. It does not cover services larger than 200 amps, and it does not cover feeders, circuits, or panels in detached buildings such as garages or sheds—Oregon rules call for separate permits for detached buildings.

Portland also offers permitting by individual circuits plus service/feeders. Their guidance is clear: buy a square-foot package or individual circuits and service/feeders—not both. Purchasing both is redundant. For smaller jobs (generally fewer than 12 circuits and no service/feeder), individual circuits are usually the cheaper path than the minimum 1,000 square-foot package. A whole-home rewire that replaces wiring across most of the house typically maps to the square-footage package. The package amounts are on the city’s current electrical permit fee schedule. Portland adds a 12% Oregon State surcharge to permit fees, and plan review, when required, adds 25% of the permit fees.

If you are only redoing part of the house, count circuits the way Portland does before you pick a package; the circuit definition is explained in our outlet and circuit permit guide.

A labeled panel is part of the story—but a whole-home rewire is mostly about the wiring in the walls, not only the breakers in the box.

Open Walls, Rough-In, and the Insulation Crew

On a house-wide job, the rough-in inspection is the one that matters most. Portland wants boxes set, cable run, grounding conductors connected, and nail plates in place, with nothing covered and no devices installed yet. With every room open at once, that can mean one big inspection or several, floor by floor. Ask the inspector which they prefer before you book.

On a rewire, the risk is scheduling. Plaster patching, insulation, and drywall crews are often booked before the electrician is finished, and one closed bay can mean a failed rough-in. Book insulation only after the rough-in is approved. If the panel or service changes too, that equipment gets its own service inspection (see the panel upgrade permit guide). The final, and Portland’s 180-day gap rule, are covered in our electrical permit guide; a long rewire that stalls between inspections is exactly how a permit expires.

Homeowners who skip rough-in and close walls early risk opening everything again for corrections. For a broader inspection-prep checklist that applies across trades, see building permit inspection prep.

Rough-in means boxes and wiring are in, walls are still open, and insulation or finish cover waits for approval.

Who May Rewire an Oregon House (and Elsewhere)

Most U.S. jurisdictions expect a licensed electrical contractor for a whole-home rewire. Portland is a useful example of how owner-occupant exceptions are narrow.

Oregon’s Electrical Safety Law (ORS 479.540) lets an owner do their own electrical work only in the home they own and live in, never on a rental or a house headed for sale, and Portland applies that strictly (the details are in our electrical permit guide). For a rewire, one more Portland detail matters: on an owner-occupant job, only immediate family (parents, siblings, children) may help. Extended family and friends do not count. Licensed contractors need both a CCB license and a BCD electrical license on the application.

A Portland rewire that needs plans has to use the PDF application rather than DevHub alone. Questions before an inspection go to Residential Inspections at 503-823-7388.

Elsewhere, treat DIY electrical as the exception, not the default. Ask your AHJ who may pull the permit and who may perform the work before anyone opens walls. The application flow itself is similar to other trade permits; our how to apply for a building permit walkthrough covers the general homeowner sequence.

Paperwork Insurers and Buyers Usually Want

Carriers and closing attorneys rarely accept “the electrician said it’s done” as proof. What tends to close the loop is a permit that was issued for a clear scope, inspected at rough-in and final, and marked closed or finaled in the city’s records. For a K&T retirement, the description on the permit and any contractor notes should make clear that obsolete wiring was removed or permanently de-energized and abandoned per the inspector’s requirements—not merely bypassed in one room.

Ask for, and keep:

• The issued permit number and a PDF or printout of the approved application scope (square footage or circuit list).
• Inspection results showing rough-in approval before cover and a passed final electrical inspection.
• Confirmation in the AHJ’s online portal (where available) that the permit is closed—not left “under inspection.”
• A simple written statement from the contractor saying that K&T (or other obsolete wiring) was removed or de-energized as required. Ask your carrier what wording they need.

If you are selling, share that closed-permit record early. Buyers and lenders check history; an open electrical permit can stall a closing the same way an open building permit can.

Aluminum Branch Wiring: Rewire or Repair?

Knob-and-tube is not the only wiring that pushes owners toward a rewire. The CPSC says cables installed between 1965 and the mid-1970s, in new homes, additions, or rewired circuits, may be aluminum, and insurers and inspectors ask about it too. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission’s guide, Repairing Aluminum Wiring (Publication 516), lists full replacement with copper first among the three methods it accepts as permanent, because it removes the main cause of the hazard, the aluminum wire itself.

The other two are repairs short of a full rewire. One is pigtailing: joining a short piece of copper wire to the aluminum at every connection point using a COPALUM crimp connector. The CPSC says that repair should cover every connection or splice in the house, including outlets, switches, dimmers, fixtures, appliances, and junction boxes. Where COPALUM isn’t available, it names the AlumiConn set-screw connector as the next best alternative, done by a qualified electrician. When it republished the guide in 2011, the Commission recognized those two connectors as the only products meeting its standards for this repair.

Either way, this is electrical work on existing circuits, so expect a permit. Ask the electrical counter whether a house-wide pigtail repair is permitted by circuit count or as a square-foot package, and ask your insurer which repair it accepts before you choose.

Rewire Checklist: From Trigger to Closed Permit

1. Confirm the trigger. Insurance condition, sale demand, open-wall remodel, or insulation over old wiring—write down who is requiring what document.
2. Call your AHJ. Ask whether a whole-home rewire is permitted as a square-footage wiring package, by circuit count, or both, and whether plans are required.
3. Decide who does the work. Verify contractor licenses (in Oregon: CCB + BCD electrical). If you hope to DIY, confirm owner-occupant limits in writing.
4. Describe scope accurately. Square footage of area rewired; whether the panel/service also changes; any detached building work on a separate permit.
5. Schedule rough-in before insulation or drywall. Boxes in, wires run, grounding and nail plates done; devices and cover plates wait.
6. Close with a final. Covers on, circuits labeled, equipment energized and grounded; confirm the permit shows closed in the city system.
7. Keep the paper trail for your insurer, buyer, or future refinance.
8. Verify the code year. Oregon’s 2026 Electrical Specialty Code (based on the 2026 NEC) took effect October 1, 2026. Your AHJ adopts a version of the NEC—ask which edition is currently enforced where you live.

The Short Version for a Rewire

A whole-home rewire is a permit-driven replacement of the wiring in the walls, often forced by knob-and-tube, insurance, or a sale—and it is not interchangeable with a panel swap or a few new receptacles. Use Portland’s square-footage packages, rough-in-before-cover rule, and final inspection requirements as a clear example of how AHJs structure the job, then match that process to your own city or county before anyone buys cable or cuts plaster.

Last checked: October 31, 2026.

Official Sources

• Portland Permitting & Development — Residential Electrical Permits (when a permit is required, who may do the work, wiring packages, rough-in/service/final inspections, DevHub vs PDF application, Residential Inspections 503-823-7388)
• Portland — Lights, outlets, switches, and service reconnect (circuit definition, square-foot package vs individual circuits, detached-building permits)
• City of Portland — Electrical Permit Fee Schedule (current residential square-foot wiring package fees; confirm before you apply)
• U.S. CPSC — Repairing Aluminum Wiring (Publication 516) (copper replacement, COPALUM, AlumiConn)
• Oregon Building Codes Division — Oregon Electrical Specialty Code adoption (2026 OESC effective Oct. 1, 2026, based on 2026 NFPA 70/NEC)

PermitCove is an independent guide for homeowners, not a government agency and not a substitute for your local building or electrical department. Always confirm permit requirements, fees, licensing, and inspection sequencing with your AHJ before starting work.

Edited by Ahmed Khalifa, founder of PermitCove. Sources are linked inline; see our Editorial Policy.