“Irshad and his team installed potlights throughout our main floor, hooked up our new appliances and added under-cabinet lighting in the kitchen. Clean, precise work and the ceiling patch lines are invisible. Everything was left spotless at the end of each day.”
Updated for 2026 — pricing, neighbourhoods and availability on this page are current for this year.
Electrician Toronto: why credentials matter most in this market
Toronto has no shortage of electricians — which is exactly why credentials matter. Before hiring anyone, verify three things: an ECRA licence number, insurance, and who actually does the work. With Bano, all three are simple:
- ESA/ECRA licence #7004060, verifiable on the ESA website in under a minute.
- Owner-operated by a Licensed Master Electrician — Irshad M. Javed has over 20 years in the trade and personally stands behind every job.
- Insured, WSIB-covered, family-owned since 2003 — no rotating subcontractor crews.
- Older-home specialists — Toronto's housing is our core expertise, from fuse panels to heritage-sensitive rewiring.
Electrical services across Toronto
- Knob & Tube Wiring Replacement — the most common insurance issue in Toronto's pre-1950 housing
- Service & Panel Upgrades — 60A/100A to 200-amp breaker panels
- ESA Inspection Defect Correction — we clear defects fast when a sale is on the line
- EV Charger Installation — houses, townhomes and condos
- Pot Light & LED Lighting, Basement Wiring, Home Renovation Electrical
- Control4 Home Automation and Smart Home & Lighting Automation
- Custom Home & New Construction Wiring, Smoke & CO Detectors
- Commercial: Emergency & Exit Lighting, Office Renovations, Restaurant Electrical, Retail & Store Electrical, Medical & Dental Electrical
Toronto neighbourhoods we serve
Etobicoke
Post-war bungalows and split-levels, many still on 100-amp service or with partial aluminum wiring. Service upgrades, panel replacements and EV charger installs are our most frequent Etobicoke jobs.
North York
From 1950s ranch bungalows to newer infill, North York homes span every electrical era. We handle whole-home rewiring, pot light retrofits and basement electrical packages across the former borough.
Scarborough
Large volumes of 1960s–70s housing with aluminum branch wiring and aging panels. We remediate aluminum connections to code, upgrade panels and help homeowners get insurable, certified electrical systems.
East York
Some of Toronto's oldest residential stock — small pre-war homes frequently still on 60-amp fuse service. We upgrade these to modern breaker panels and rewire where needed, coordinating with Toronto Hydro where service changes are involved.
High Park, Leslieville & downtown
Character homes and semis across Downtown Toronto, where knob and tube is routine and heritage finishes matter. We rewire with minimal disruption, and handle condo EV charger projects downtown — including the board approvals and load studies that make them possible.
The practical details matter here. Most Toronto buildings require an Entitlement Letter from a licensed contractor confirming your charger won't overload shared infrastructure, plus board approval under the Condo Act. Older towers often need an Electrical Planning Report before anyone's charger is approved — buildings that have one move fast; those without stall for months. We prepare the technical documentation boards ask for, coordinate with property managers who've done this before (and patiently with those who haven't), and install with ESA inspection regardless of whether the panel is in your unit or three levels below your parking spot. If your building says no, ask us about the planning-report route before giving up — the answer is often yes with the right paperwork.
West of the Humber, Long Branch and Mimico add their own layer — lakeshore-era cottages and wartime housing with decades of incremental, often unpermitted, electrical changes. We untangle these histories methodically: what's original, what's safe, what's insurable, and what a buyer's inspector will write up. The New Toronto and Alderwood pockets in particular reward homeowners who document corrections early, because their resale market moves fast and deals die on inspection findings more often than on price.
Yonge Street north of the 401 — Willowdale, Newtonbrook and Lansing — mixes 1950s bungalows now being rebuilt into larger homes with the strip's first generation of mid-rise. Rebuilds need complete new electrical from service to switch, while the surviving bungalows need the usual panel and aluminum work. We serve both, and we coordinate with Toronto Hydro on service-size changes so a rebuild's electrical timeline doesn't become its bottleneck.
West Hill, Birch Cliff and the Bluffs area hold solid post-war stock whose aluminum branch wiring is now at the age insurers scrutinize hardest. Scarborough homeowners also face the city's longest wait times for some utility service changes, which makes starting the electrical scope early — with a contractor who files paperwork the same week — the difference between a spring renovation and a fall one.
The Danforth and O'Connor pockets add pre-war construction to East York's mix: shared walls, original plaster, and panels that were modest even in their day. Semis and row housing here need careful load planning because neighbouring units share service assumptions, and any service upgrade involves the utility connection as well as the panel. We handle the full sequence and the coordination.
Downtown, the condo market's biggest electrical shift is underway: older towers are adding EV capacity building-wide, and owners in buildings that completed load studies are finally getting chargers approved. We've installed across the downtown core, from Entertainment District studios to the waterfront, and we know which buildings have done the groundwork and what it takes to push the rest through their property managers.
Toronto's older housing stock — the realities
Most of Toronto was built before modern electrical demand existed. The practical consequences we see every week:
- Knob and tube wiring (pre-1950): increasingly uninsurable, flagged on every home inspection, and unsafe when buried under insulation or overloaded. Replacement is a two-to-five-day job with ESA certification at the end.
- 60-amp and fuse panels: can't support AC, EV charging or modern kitchens. Most insurers and buyers expect 100-amp minimum, 200-amp for anything renovated.
- ESA violations on resale: Toronto buyers' inspectors flag unpermitted basement apartments, DIY wiring and past defects constantly. We clear ESA defects on tight timelines so closings don't stall.
- Condo EV challenges: Toronto's condo towers mean shared panels, board approvals and sometimes load management. We've navigated it many times.
Toronto electrical pricing — published upfront
We're one of the few Toronto-area electrical contractors that publishes actual numbers. Almost everyone else says "it depends" and quotes only after a visit — we'd rather you benchmark us honestly. Every job is then confirmed with a written fixed price after a free assessment. Prices are in CAD.
| Service | Typical range (CAD) |
|---|---|
| Diagnostic service call | $150 – $350, credited toward the work when you proceed |
| Panel / service upgrade to 200 amps (60A or 100A homes) | $2,800 – $5,000 plus utility connection fees where applicable |
| EV charger installation (labour and wiring; charger hardware extra) | $800 – $2,500 |
| Pot light installation | from $40 – $59 per pot, volume pricing on full-room layouts |
| Knob & tube replacement (typical semi or detached) | $9,000 – $16,000 depending on size and access |
| Aluminum wiring remediation (copalum/copper pigtailing) | $3,500 – $8,000 depending on circuit count |
What moves a quote honestly: access (fishing wire through finished plaster versus open renovation), service location (overhead versus underground feeds), and scope discovered at the panel. If your job falls outside these ranges, the written quote says why before you commit — not after the invoice.
Toronto Hydro, ESA and the inspection reality
Toronto is one of the few markets where a service upgrade can involve two utilities and two regulators: your local hydro company (Toronto Hydro in the old city, with other distributors in parts of Etobicoke, North York and Scarborough) handles the service connection, while the Electrical Safety Authority governs the wiring itself. Each has its own scheduling, paperwork and fees. Homeowners who try to coordinate this themselves routinely lose weeks; a licensed contractor who does it weekly doesn't.
The same applies to inspections. Toronto-area ESA inspectors see more century-old wiring than anywhere else in Ontario, and they know exactly what they're looking at. Work done to code passes quickly; corner-cutting gets found. That's why we welcome inspections — the certificate at the end is the most valuable piece of paper in your home's electrical file.
24/7 emergency electrician in Toronto
Half the house dark in a High Park semi, a humming panel in a North York bungalow, scorch marks around an outlet in a Liberty Village condo — call 416-903-7166 any time. We answer 24/7 and prioritize genuine emergencies same-day across Toronto. While you wait: kill the affected breaker if it's safe, keep clear of anything sparking, and never reset a breaker that trips twice. Downed lines mean Toronto Hydro and 911 first — then call us for the repair and certification. For Toronto's many older multiplexes, partial power loss often traces to a failed main connection, which is exactly the kind of fault you don't troubleshoot yourself.
Basement apartments, rentals and second suites
Toronto's rental crisis has made basement apartments a fact of life — and Ontario law has caught up with them. A legal second suite requires interconnected smoke and CO alarms, dedicated kitchen circuits, proper egress lighting and full inspection. Landlords should also know that insurers ask directly about secondary units, and an unpermitted suite can void a claim.
We legalize existing units and wire new ones, coordinating with the renovation work so costs stay controlled. If you're a tenant wondering whether your unit is safe — two-prong outlets, no visible smoke alarms, breakers that trip constantly — those are worth a landlord conversation, and we're happy to give straight advice on what code actually requires.
Common electrical problems across Toronto
- 60-amp fuse panels in East York and older North York homes — uninsurable with many carriers.
- Knob and tube throughout High Park, Leslieville and Riverdale semis — the #1 inspection finding on downtown resales.
- Aluminum wiring in Scarborough and Etobicoke splits — needs certified remediation, not just reassurance.
- Overloaded downtown panels — older condos and multiplexes where every breaker slot is spoken for.
- DIY and handyman electrical — the most common source of ESA defects we correct, from splice-filled junctions to undersized kitchen circuits.
Multiplexes and the changing Toronto rental landscape
Toronto's push toward multiplex conversions — up to four units on lots that held one house — is reshaping older neighbourhoods, and every unit multiplies both the electrical demand and the code requirements. Separate metering considerations, interconnected alarms per unit, panel capacity for four kitchens: these projects succeed or fail on electrical planning done at the drawing stage. We work with homeowners and designers on multiplex electrical across East York, Scarborough and North York, and the pattern holds everywhere in the city: the cheap projects are the ones planned early, before the permits and the walls.
Multiplexes bring one more Toronto-specific wrinkle: aging service entrances. Many of these homes still feed off 60-amp or 100-amp overhead drops that were marginal for one family and impossible for four — which is why nearly every multiplex conversion we see includes a service upgrade to 200 amps or more, coordinated with the local hydro utility. Budget it at the drawing stage and the project flows; discover it mid-renovation and it becomes the expensive surprise that delays occupancy.
Rewiring a Toronto home without gutting it
The fear that keeps Toronto homeowners from dealing with old wiring is the renovation itself — walls opened floor to ceiling, plaster destroyed, weeks of dust. In practice, a skilled rewire fishes most cable through finished walls from basement and attic access points, cutting only strategic openings that a drywaller patches in days, not weeks. Knob and tube removal in a typical semi takes two to five working days, pairs naturally with a panel upgrade, and ends with an ESA certificate that satisfies insurers and buyers alike. The rooms that do get opened — usually the kitchen during a reno anyway — become the moments to add everything modern life expects: dedicated appliance circuits, GFCI protection, pot lights on dimmers and rough-in for future EV capacity. Ask us for a staged plan at the free assessment; most Toronto rewires cost far less disruption than their reputation suggests.
What Toronto buyers should budget after closing
The honest post-closing budget for a pre-1950 Toronto purchase usually includes electrical work, and the smart buyers price it in before they bid. A service upgrade runs $3,000–$4,500; knob and tube replacement $9,000–$16,000 for a typical semi; aluminum remediation less than people fear. Knowing those numbers before the offer goes in turns a scary inspection finding into a negotiation line item — and sometimes into a reason your bid wins, because the other buyer panicked at the inspection report while you had a plan and a written quote in hand.
Surge protection and sensitive electronics in older Toronto homes
Toronto's grid is old, its storms are getting stronger, and its homes hold more electronics than any wiring era anticipated. A whole-home surge protector at the panel — a modest add-on whenever the panel is open — protects HVAC boards, appliances, chargers and home-office equipment from the fluctuations and lightning-induced spikes that quietly shorten their lives. For homes with finished basements, sump pumps and freezers, we also plan generator inlets and transfer switches so an outage is an inconvenience, not a flooded basement or a lost week. Both are cheapest bundled with a panel upgrade, and we quote them together by default.
Why Toronto homeowners choose Bano
- Licensed, not just experienced: Bano Electrical Services Ltd holds ESA/ECRA licence #7004060, and every job is led by Irshad M. Javed, a Licensed Master Electrician — Ontario's highest electrical qualification. Verify the licence on the ESA website; we encourage it.
- 20+ years in the trade: family-owned and operating since 2003, with deep older-housing expertise Toronto's stock demands.
- Insured and WSIB-covered: written certificates available for homeowners, landlords and property managers.
- Permits, inspections and certificates handled: your work is legal, documented and resale-ready — essential in Toronto's inspection-heavy market.
- Published pricing: real numbers above, fixed written quotes after a free assessment — one of the few contractors in the city doing both.
Our process
- Free estimate — call 416-903-7166 or book online; same-day response for urgent work.
- Written fixed-price quote, no surprises.
- ESA permit filed, inspection passed — certificate delivered to you.
- Clean, warranted work by our own crew, family-owned since 2003.
Service areas beyond Toronto
One licensed crew covers the full GTA: Brampton, Mississauga, Vaughan, Richmond Hill, Markham, Caledon and Oakville.
Get your free Toronto estimate
From Etobicoke to Scarborough to downtown condos, one call reaches a Licensed Master Electrician who knows Toronto's older housing inside out. Call 416-903-7166 seven days a week.