Quick Summary
Big Easy Electricians carries out electrical safety inspections on homes and commercial property across New Orleans, Metairie, Kenner, Harahan, River Ridge, Gretna, Covington, Mandeville, Slidell, Hammond, and LaPlace. An inspection documents the condition of the service, the panel, the grounding and bonding, the branch wiring, and the device protection, and it identifies the two conditions that most often affect insurance on local property: active knob-and-tube circuits in pre-1950 housing stock and single-strand aluminum branch wiring in 1960s and 1970s construction. Findings are measured against the 2020 National Electrical Code, the edition Louisiana enforces. Call 504-226-7555 to arrange one.
Last Updated: August 2026
Big Easy Electricians inspects electrical systems throughout New Orleans and five Louisiana parishes, and the reason people ask for one is almost always specific: a purchase is pending, an insurer has raised a question, a home inspection flagged something the inspector could not fully assess, or a house has started behaving oddly. An electrical safety inspection answers what is actually installed and what condition it is in, which is a different exercise from a general home inspection and produces a different kind of document.
What an Electrical Inspection Covers
An electrical safety inspection examines the whole system rather than the symptom that prompted the call. The service and meter base, the panel and its overcurrent devices, grounding and bonding, branch circuit wiring types and condition, device protection, and the visible condition of terminations throughout the property.
The areas assessed on a typical residential inspection:
- Service capacity and condition of the service entrance conductors and meter base
- Panel make and model, including types with documented failure histories such as Federal Pacific Stab-Lok and Zinsco
- Breaker sizing against the conductors they protect, under Article 240
- Grounding electrode system and bonding, under Article 250
- Branch wiring types present, specifically knob-and-tube, single-strand aluminum, and ungrounded two-wire circuits
- Ground-fault protection at the locations Section 210.8 requires
- Arc-fault protection status in living areas under Section 210.12
- Receptacle condition, polarity, and grounding
- Evidence of overheating at terminations, in the panel and at devices
- Signs of previous unpermitted alteration, which is common and frequently the source of the original complaint
What separates a contractor inspection from a general home inspection is access and interpretation. A home inspector is limited in what may be opened and generally reports a condition as needing evaluation by an electrician. The electrician is the evaluation, and can say what a condition is, whether it is a defect or merely dated, and what correcting it actually involves.
The Reasons People Book One
People rarely book an electrical inspection out of curiosity. It is nearly always driven by a purchase, an insurer, a referral from a home inspection, a storm, or a house that has started behaving oddly. What the inspection has to establish differs in each case, which is why the reason matters.
| Trigger | What the inspection needs to establish |
|---|---|
| Buying a property | What is installed, what it will cost to bring current, and whether anything is unsafe now |
| Insurer request or renewal | Presence of knob-and-tube, aluminum branch wiring, or a flagged panel type, with documentation |
| Home inspection referral | A definitive answer on a condition the general inspection could only flag |
| After a storm or surge | Damage to the service, panel, or equipment that is not visible from inside the house |
| Symptoms in an occupied house | Repeated tripping, flickering, warm devices, or a burning smell |
| Before a renovation | Whether the existing service and circuits can carry what is planned |
| Landlord or rental turnover | Condition and safety documentation between tenancies |
The insurance case is the one most specific to this market. Louisiana carriers routinely ask about wiring type and panel type on older housing stock, and active knob-and-tube circuits or certain panel makes are common grounds for declining, surcharging, or requiring remediation before a policy is written. A documented inspection is usually what moves that conversation, because it replaces an assumption about a house of that age with a statement about that particular house.
Older New Orleans Housing Stock Needs a Closer Look
Two wiring systems dominate the findings on local pre-1980 property and both are routinely under-detected: knob-and-tube in pre-1950 construction and single-strand aluminum in homes built between roughly 1965 and 1973. A third condition, ungrounded two-wire circuits, is more common than either and is the one most often misrepresented at the receptacle.
Knob-and-tube wiring, in service from the 1880s into the 1940s, has no equipment grounding conductor and sheds its heat into open air. In New Orleans shotgun doubles and camelbacks it commonly runs through the ceiling plane with the joists, above original plaster, in rooms with no attic access above them. A partial visual check from the accessible attic will report a house as free of it while live runs remain over the front rooms. It also means later insulation work, done in good faith for energy reasons, can pack insulation against conductors designed to be surrounded by air.
Single-strand aluminum branch wiring, common in construction from roughly 1965 to 1973 and widespread in Jefferson Parish subdivisions of that period, moves more than copper as it heats and cools and can work loose at terminations over decades. The connections, not the cable, are the hazard. Accepted remediation is devices listed CO/ALR or pigtailing to copper with listed connectors such as COPALUM or AlumiConn, applied at every termination rather than at a sample of them.
Ungrounded two-wire circuits sit in a third category. They are not a fault in themselves and were entirely normal when installed, but they change what can be done at every receptacle, and a three-prong receptacle fitted to an ungrounded circuit without ground-fault protection is a misrepresentation of what is behind the wall. It is one of the most frequent findings on this housing stock and one of the easiest to miss without testing.
The Standard Findings Are Measured Against
Louisiana enforces the 2020 edition of the National Electrical Code, adopted by the Louisiana State Uniform Construction Code Council with an effective date of January 1, 2023. Later editions exist and are widely discussed online, so property owners researching a finding often encounter requirements that are not enforced here.
An important distinction runs through every inspection report. Existing work is generally judged against the code in force when it was installed. It does not automatically become illegal because the code has moved on. What triggers current requirements is new work, alteration, and replacement, which is why a panel upgrade or a rewire pulls a great deal of a house up to current standards while an untouched circuit may legitimately remain as it is.
That distinction is worth understanding before reading any inspection report, because it separates the two categories that matter: conditions that are unsafe now and need attention regardless, and conditions that are simply dated and become relevant when that part of the system is next worked on. A report that does not draw that line clearly tends to read as alarming when much of it is not.
What Happens After the Inspection
The output is a written record of what was found, the reasoning behind each finding, and a separation between what is unsafe now, what is dated but acceptable, and what will be triggered by future work. Where corrections are recommended, they are quoted so the owner can decide the order and the timing.
Most findings fall into ordinary repair or replacement work, and straightforward corrections such as failed devices or damaged terminations are handled as standard repair work rather than as a project. Where an inspection turns up branch wiring at the end of its serviceable life across the whole property, the conversation moves to replacing the wiring throughout, which is a considerably larger undertaking and one worth staging deliberately alongside any other planned work on the building.
Where corrective work requires a permit, and most electrical work in Orleans Parish does, it is filed under the company City of New Orleans Class A Electrical License. The city requires a permit to install, repair, replace, or alter electrical equipment, with replacement of light bulbs and fuses the only published exception, at a fee of $40 plus $3 per new circuit plus $0.30 per amp of service, set by the City and covering the permit alone. Properties in Jefferson, St. Tammany, Tangipahoa, and St. John the Baptist parishes are permitted by their own authorities under the same statewide code.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is this different from a home inspection?
A home inspector surveys the whole property and is limited in what may be opened, so electrical findings are usually reported as requiring evaluation by an electrician. An electrical safety inspection is that evaluation, carried out by a licensed contractor who can open equipment, test circuits, and state what a condition is and what correcting it involves.
My insurer is asking about knob-and-tube wiring. What do I need?
Insurers generally want confirmation of what wiring is present and, where knob-and-tube is found, evidence that active circuits have been dealt with. A documented inspection by a licensed contractor is normally what satisfies that request, because it replaces a general assumption about the age of the house with findings about that specific property.
Does an older house automatically fail an electrical inspection?
No. An inspection is not pass or fail. Existing work is generally judged against the code in force when it was installed, so a great deal of older wiring is dated rather than defective, and the report separates what is unsafe now from what simply becomes relevant when that part of the system is next altered.
Can you tell if a house has aluminum wiring without opening the walls?
Usually yes. Aluminum branch wiring can generally be identified at the panel, at accessible junction points, and at device terminations, along with cable markings where any sheathing is visible. Confirming the extent throughout a property may require opening a sample of devices.
How long does an electrical inspection take?
A residential inspection commonly takes a few hours depending on the size of the property, the number of circuits, and how accessible the panel, attic, and crawl space are. Older homes with multiple generations of wiring take longer because more has to be traced.
Do I need an inspection before buying an older New Orleans home?
It is worth it on any property built before roughly 1980, where knob-and-tube or aluminum branch wiring is plausible. Big Easy Electricians inspects property across New Orleans and the surrounding parishes during the inspection period, when findings can still inform the negotiation rather than arriving as a surprise afterwards.
What if the inspection finds something dangerous?
Anything presenting an immediate hazard is identified on the spot with a plain explanation of the risk, so the owner can decide what to do straight away. Everything else is written up with its reasoning so decisions can be made on timing and budget rather than under pressure.
Book an Inspection
An inspection is the cheapest way to replace guesswork about a building with a record of what is actually there. Call Big Easy Electricians at 504-226-7555 to arrange one, or send the property address and what prompted the request so the right amount of time is allowed. Where an insurer, a lender, or a purchase deadline is driving it, saying so up front helps, because the documentation those parties need is not always the same as what a homeowner wants, and the company would rather produce the right report once.