When we negotiated a lower price for the house with aluminum wiring, I knew it had it because of one line in the home inspection report: “house has aluminum wiring”.
So I rushed out and made a few phone calls to find a ballpark number for getting that replaced. While it was high, once the purchase was complete and we called to get official bids, the price was higher yet. I thought I had really screwed myself over, all the while thinking I had done the smart thing by covering the costs up front.
The fourth electrician that came out looked around the house for awhile, then came over to where I was and said “why do you want all of the wiring replaced?”. “To get rid of the aluminum wiring”. “You only have aluminum wiring in the kitchen.”
What? I didn’t believe him, so we walked around the house taking off faceplates, inspecting the fuse panel and sure enough, only the wires to the kitchen were aluminum. His bid came in way lower than the discount I negotiated and, since we were remodeling the kitch anyway, the extra wall patching necessary was minimal. And he did a great job. And none of the other electricians had bothered to point out to me the limited scope of the aluminum.
Purchases have more twists and turns than I could imagine up front.
