Knob and Tube Out, 200-Amp Service and EV Charger In, Vancouver, WA

We did the whole list at once on this one. An older home in Vancouver still had knob and tube, a panel that had been added onto until there was no room left, almost no grounding, and an EV in the driveway with nowhere to plug in. We replaced the service, pulled out the old wiring, and left the house ready for the next thirty years.

Why these four jobs go together

Knob and tube removal, a service upgrade, grounding fixes and an EV circuit usually get quoted separately. Together they cost a lot less:

• The panel’s coming off the wall anyway. Re-landing the circuits is the expensive part, and doing it once instead of twice is where you save.
• New wiring needs somewhere to go. Pulling new Romex into a panel with no open spaces just moves the problem.
• Grounding gets fixed at the service. An old system often has almost no ground, and replacing the service is when you fix that.
• A 60-amp EV circuit needs room a 100-amp service may not have. Doing the charger after the upgrade means it goes into a panel that can handle it.

That’s why a new meter main and panel is the center of a job like this. Our breakdown of what a service upgrade costs shows how the numbers add up when you do it together.

Romex in place of knob and tube

We pulled out the rest of the knob and tube and replaced it with modern Romex.

The key word is rest. Almost nobody gets all of it out at once, because a lot of it is inside finished walls and ceilings nobody’s opening. What you do is take out everything you can reach, everything feeding an important circuit, and everything an insurance company or inspector will find. Then you know what’s left.

The common bad option is leaving old knob and tube in place and still live somewhere nobody remembers. That’s how a house ends up with hundred-year-old live wires in an attic the next owner walks around in. More on that on our page about knob and tube removal.

The before photo

Look at the photo of the old panel. Wires leave it in every direction, splices sit outside the box, and there’s no way to tell what feeds what.

That’s not unusual on a house this old. Every add-on over sixty years got done by whoever was cheapest at the time. Replacing the service is the only real way to clean it up. There’s no partial fix that leaves you with a panel you can trust.

Charger last

The 60-amp hardwired EV charger circuit went in after the new service was turned on. That’s the right order, even if it’s not the order people want.

If you run the charger off the old panel and upgrade later, you pay to move it. Doing the service first means a hardwired EV charger goes in once, in a panel with room, with the load calculation already done.

Older Vancouver home with cloth wiring, a full panel and an EV on the way? Call 360-828-7143 or get the whole service updated in one visit instead of four.