Homes in Central Florida sell fast. A general home inspection covers the whole house, but it only skims the wiring. An Orlando electrical inspection by a licensed electrician goes deeper. What it turns up can change your offer, your budget, or your mind.
What a Home Inspector Does Not Check
A home inspector opens the panel, counts breakers and tests a few outlets. That work has value. It is still a quick look.
An electrician checks the parts that hide. Is the wire the right size for the breaker? Are two wires jammed under one screw? Is the panel tied to the water pipe and the ground rods?
None of that shows up in a photo of an open panel. The gap matters here, because so much add-on work goes in without a permit.
Age Tells You Where to Look
Homes near downtown, College Park and Colonialtown often date from the 1920s to the 1950s. Look for cloth-covered wire, two-prong outlets and a service that was never sized for air conditioning.
Houses built from about 1965 to 1973 may have aluminum branch wiring. Aluminum is not always a hazard. The splices do need approved repairs to stay safe.
Suburbs like Oviedo, Winter Springs and Casselberry raise other issues. Old panel brands, first-round smoke alarms and small services lead that list. Newer homes in Lake Nona and Horizon West look clean. Even there, we find missing surge protection and rushed low-voltage work.
The Insurance Angle Florida Buyers Miss
Insurers here are strict about older homes. A four-point inspection often decides whether you can buy a policy at all. Wiring is one of those four points.
Aluminum branch wiring, a few old panel brands and a worn-out service can all stall a policy. An Orlando electrical inspection during your due-diligence window flags those items early. The week before closing is far too late.
An electrical safety inspection hands you photos and written findings while you still have room to ask. Most of what we find can be fixed. Knowing the price is the whole point.
Outdoor Panels Take a Beating Here
Most panels and meters here hang on an outside wall. That frees up room indoors. It also leaves the gear out in heat, rain and damp air.
We look for rust inside the can, water running down the service wires, a crusted neutral bar, and a meter box pulling loose from the stucco. Light rust at the bottom is common and often fine. Rust on the bars behind the breakers is not.
Heat does its own damage. A panel on a west wall bakes every afternoon, and years of that loosen the screws on every wire. Aluminum service wires move the most, so we check those lugs on every visit.
See what one visit turned up at an Oviedo home with unlicensed add-on wiring. The owners had no idea until we opened the cover.
Pools, Lanais and Weekend Wiring
Screen rooms, outdoor kitchens, sheds and pool heaters are where weekend wiring shows up. An owner taps a bedroom circuit, runs cable out to the lanai, buries it three inches down and calls it done.
Pool bonding is the first thing we check. Bonding ties the shell, the ladder, the pump and nearby metal together. When that grid breaks, swimmers can feel a tingle in the water. Treat that symptom as urgent.
Storm repairs deserve a look as well. Crews move fast after a hurricane, and a bent service mast or a rusted meter box sometimes gets patched instead of replaced.
Ask the seller for permits, too. Orange, Seminole and Osceola counties keep permit records you can search. Gaps in that history show you where to look.
Will the Service Carry the Way You Live?
Cooling drives the load here. Two air handlers, a pool pump, a water heater and a dryer already crowd a 150-amp service in July.
Add a car charger, a hot tub or a garage shop and the math shifts again. Ask for a load calculation instead of a guess.
Price these items before you close, not after:
- A panel or service upgrade if you are short on capacity
- Whole-home surge protection, which pays off in a lightning belt
- GFCI and AFCI protection where the code calls for it
- Hardwired, linked smoke alarms with battery backup
- A dedicated circuit for a future car charger
- Approved repairs at aluminum wire splices
Our guide to the signs a panel needs replacing is a good companion while you read the findings.
What Your Orlando Electrical Inspection Report Should Include
A useful report is more than a pass or a fail. Ask for a photo of every finding, with the room or the wall noted beside it.
Ask for the items to be ranked, too. Fix now, fix soon and simple wear all belong in different piles. Then ask for a price range on each one. That turns a scary list into a budget.
Now the report can work for you. You can ask for repairs, ask for a credit, or buy with clear eyes about year one. If the seller agrees to repairs, ask for the permit and the final sign-off, not a paid receipt.
Two groups can help you sort the urgent from the routine. ESFI, the Electrical Safety Foundation International, and the NFPA both publish plain homeowner guides.
Book the Electrician Early
Timing is the mistake we see most. Buyers call on day nine of a ten-day window. By then there is no time left to price the work.
Before you hire anyone, our list of questions to ask before hiring an electrician helps you compare bids fairly.
Ready to book an Orlando electrical inspection while you still have leverage? Call Thomas Edison Electric at (407) 490-0004. We hold Florida license EC13015487 and work with buyers and agents in Orlando, Winter Park, Oviedo, Lake Mary, Kissimmee and nearby towns.