You’re getting ready to list, and the evaluator’s report is about to describe your wiring in writing. Or your insurer wants to know whether any knob and tube is still live, and “some of it” isn’t an answer. Or the insulation contractor stopped at the attic hatch. Those are the calls we get most from St. Paul.
At Northloom Minneapolis Knob and Tube, we replace knob and tube across St. Paul, from Summit Hill and Macalester-Groveland to Como, Payne-Phalen, the West Side and the Greater East Side. Every job starts with us tracing each circuit from the fuse box or panel, because a house of this age is almost never all original or all updated.
What changes on this side of the river is who inspects the work, what the permit costs and what a sale requires. We plan for all three from the first visit.
How is a St. Paul job different from one in Minneapolis?
The steps are the same: trace, scope, permit, rough-in, switch over, final. The office is different. St. Paul inspects its own electrical work.
- The permit
- It goes to the City’s Department of Safety and Inspections, not the state. St. Paul enforces the same edition of the National Electrical Code that Minnesota adopts. Getting the permit in place is part of the job.
- Rough-in
- A city inspector sees the new wiring before plaster, drywall or insulation covers it.
- Switch-over
- We bring new circuits live one at a time, so your house keeps heat and power on its old equipment until the panel changes.
- Final
- A second city inspection, then you get a written record of what we replaced and what we disconnected.
If a new service is part of your job, Xcel Energy disconnects and reconnects the meter, and we put that appointment on the schedule with the inspections.
Is my St. Paul house likely to have knob and tube?
If it was built before the 1940s, there’s a good chance some is still there. St. Paul’s housing is about as old as Minneapolis’s: 55,312 of its 133,051 homes, 41.6%, were built in 1939 or earlier, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Another 6.2% went up in the 1940s, the decade cloth-covered cable began replacing open wiring, so a house from those years may have either. Tracing tells us which your house has, circuit by circuit.
What will the permit cost?
St. Paul charges per circuit, where the state uses a flat fee for a mid-sized job. For a typical one-family rewire, that puts the city permit above the Minneapolis equivalent, though it’s a small share of your total either way.
| Job | St. Paul permit | Same job in Minneapolis (state fee) |
|---|---|---|
| 20 circuits | $301 | $191 |
| 20 circuits and a new service | $386 | $226 |
The St. Paul figures come from the city’s fee table: $15 a circuit, $85 a service, an $85 minimum and a $1 state surcharge. The cost guide shows how the permit fits into a full price.
Will the TISH report force me to rewire before I sell?
No. Selling a house in St. Paul starts with a Truth-in-Sale of Housing report, and it’s where most sellers first see their wiring described in writing. But it’s a disclosure, not a repair order.
- Who prepares it
- A City-licensed private evaluator, hired by the seller or the listing agent.
- When
- Available to buyers within three calendar days of listing, and valid for one sale within 365 days.
- What it requires
- Disclosure only, with one exception: a single-family home without a working hard-wired smoke alarm needs one, installed by a licensed electrical contractor under permit.
- How it reads wiring
- The city’s sample report rates ungrounded three-prong outlets in a kitchen as a hazardous condition.
Buyers still read the report with their insurer in mind. If you have the circuits traced before listing, you can answer their follow-up questions with a record instead of a guess. TISH electrical repairs covers the items that show up most often.
Will you damage the plaster and trim in an older house?
We plan to keep openings few and easy to patch. St. Paul’s older neighborhoods include several local heritage preservation districts: Historic Hill around Summit Avenue, Summit Avenue West, Dayton’s Bluff on the East Side and Irvine Park near West Seventh. Houses there often keep original plaster, built-ins and trim, and those decide where an opening can go.
We route around that trim rather than through it: cable drops from the attic and climbs from the basement, and we place openings where they patch cleanly. Plaster-wall rewiring explains the method. If a new service would move a meter or a mast on the outside of a house in one of these districts, we check with the city’s heritage preservation staff before we design it.
I own a duplex. Does anything change?
A duplex is two electrical systems under one roof, often with separate meters and panels. The TISH requirement applies to duplexes as well as single-family homes. We schedule a duplex rewire unit by unit around the residents. Minnesota’s homeowner electrical permits can’t be used on a duplex, so the permit is filed as part of the job. Duplex knob and tube replacement covers the sequence.
My address says St. Paul. Does the city inspect my house?
Not always. St. Paul’s permit office stops at the city limits, and houses on either side can follow different rules. If your house straddles a question, such as a St. Paul mailing address outside the city limits, the property’s city decides, not its post office.
A house in Minneapolis is inspected by the state at the state’s fee schedule. South St. Paul and West St. Paul have older housing too, with 22.6% and 10.5% of homes built by 1939, and we confirm who inspects electrical work there for each address before the permit is filed. The same goes for the other suburbs around St. Paul: about 66 Minnesota cities run their own electrical inspection, so the permit line in your quote should name the office that will actually inspect the work.
Can I insulate the attic once you’re done?
Yes, and in a St. Paul winter that’s usually the next thing you’ll want. Active knob and tube is what usually stops it. The Center for Energy and Environment notes that insulation contractors generally won’t insulate around active knob and tube, and most want an electrician to confirm it’s inactive. For Xcel heating customers, the insulation rebate pays 40% of qualifying attic or wall work, up to $1,200 each, once the wiring question is settled.