There’s a reason buyers fall for older homes. The trim, the plaster, the lot sizes you can’t get in a new subdivision. But somewhere between the inspection and the closing table, a lot of those buyers get a second education, and it usually starts in the basement, in front of the electrical panel.
Alexandr Godonoaga, owner of Cob Services LLC, a licensed electrical contractor in the western Chicago suburbs, has spent more than ten years working on exactly these houses. In a recent conversation about what trips up first-time buyers of vintage homes, his short version was reassuring and blunt at the same time: an older home isn’t a problem, but its electrical system is rarely “finished,” and the smart move is to know what you’re buying before the contingency period runs out.
Here are the five things he tells buyers to plan for.
1. The panel may be smaller, or older, than your life
Most homes built before the 1990s came with 60- or 100-amp service. That was plenty for a house with a few lamps and a television. It gets tight for a household running central air, a couple of computers, a microwave, and maybe a car in the garage that wants charging.
“The panel is the first thing I look at, and it tells me most of the story,” Godonoaga said. “If it’s a 100-amp box and the family wants an EV charger and a new range, we’re going to have a conversation about an upgrade.”
Then there’s the brand. Federal Pacific and Zinsco panels went into millions of homes and have a documented habit of breakers that don’t trip when they should. Inspectors flag them on sight. “Those aren’t a ‘someday’ item,” he said. “If I see one, it goes to the top of the list.” A service upgrade in the suburbs usually lands in the low-to-mid four figures, depending on the amperage and whether the meter base and grounding need work. It’s the kind of number a buyer wants in writing before waiving anything.
2. What’s behind the walls might not be up to code, or insurable
The wiring you can’t see is the part that surprises people. Plenty of older homes still have knob-and-tube or cloth-insulated wiring tucked behind the plaster. It can look fine from the basement and still be a problem.
“Knob-and-tube was good work for its day. The trouble is it wasn’t built for today’s loads, and it has no ground,” Godonoaga explained. “The bigger headache for buyers is usually insurance. A lot of carriers won’t write a policy on a house with active knob-and-tube, or they’ll make you pay extra for it.”
Rewiring a whole house is a real project, and the cost moves with the size of the home, how easy the access is, and how much plaster has to come down to get there. The point, he said, isn’t to scare anyone off a house. It’s to know whether the wiring is a finished system or a future one.
3. Ungrounded outlets and missing GFCIs
Two-prong outlets are a giveaway. They mean part of the home was wired before grounding was standard, and they leave both sensitive electronics and the people in the house with less protection than current code expects.
The other common gap is GFCI protection, the kind built into the outlets that have little “test” and “reset” buttons. Today’s code calls for it anywhere water and electricity are neighbors: kitchens, bathrooms, garages, basements, and outdoors. Older homes often have none of it.
“This is usually the cheapest thing on the list and the one that buys the most peace of mind,” he said. “Sometimes it’s a quick swap at the outlet. Sometimes the circuit has to be grounded first. You don’t really know until you test it.”
4. The ‘handyman special’ wiring nobody disclosed
Some of the worst things Godonoaga finds weren’t put in by the original builder at all. They were added later, on a weekend, by someone who meant well.
“Double-tapped breakers, a junction box buried in a wall with no cover on it, an outlet fed off an extension cord run through the ceiling. I see it more than I’d like,” he said. “It sits there unnoticed for years until an inspector or an electrician opens something up.”
This is the category that makes a closer look worth the money. A general home inspector will catch the obvious. For an older home, buyers around Downers Grove and the western suburbs often bring in residential electricians for a focused look at the panel and a few accessible circuits before the contingency window closes, so anything serious shows up while there’s still room to negotiate.
5. Capacity for the way you actually live now
The last one isn’t a defect. It’s the gap between what the house was built for and what a modern household plugs in.
“People mostly aren’t upgrading panels because something broke,” Godonoaga said. “They’re doing it because they bought an EV, or they’re finishing the basement, or they’re putting in a heat pump. The house was wired for 1965. Their life isn’t.”
His advice is to think a project or two ahead. If an EV charger, a hot tub, or a kitchen remodel is anywhere on the horizon, it costs less to size the electrical for it once than to keep paying to come back to the same panel.
How to turn this into leverage instead of dread
None of this is a reason to walk away from a house you love. Older homes are worth it. The difference between a good purchase and an expensive surprise comes down to timing: get a real read on the electrical while the contingency still gives you an exit.
“Get the numbers early,” Godonoaga said. “An honest quote does more than protect you. It gives you something to take back to the seller. I’ve watched buyers fold a panel upgrade right into the deal because they had a written estimate in hand. That only works if you ask before you sign.”
Bring in someone licensed, get it in writing, and let the older home be the one you wanted, with wiring you don’t have to think twice about.
Alexandr Godonoaga is the owner of Cob Services LLC, a licensed electrical contractor serving Downers Grove and the western Chicago suburbs (Illinois license #26-00032356).
