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Electrical and Lighting in Ontario (2026): Wiring a New House, Panels and Service, Lighting, EV Charging and Backup Power, ESA Permits and Hiring an Electrician
Trade GuidesElectrical & Lighting
Electrical and Lighting: The Wire Is Cheap, the Wall Is Expensive, and the Licence Is the Law
Wiring a new house, panels and service, lighting, EV charging and backup power, ESA permits and hiring. Written by a builder who has had the walls open on more than 300 houses.
Electrical is one of the smaller cheques in a new house and one of the most expensive to change later. A 4 dollar wire before drywall is a 400 dollar wire after it, and a panel that is full on move-in day is a panel you pay for twice. This section is what I wish every customer knew before the first walkthrough with the electrician: what the wiring costs, how big the service has to be, where the lights go, how the EV charger and the generator fit, and who is allowed to do any of it.
What this section covers
Five parts: wiring a new house, including ICF walls; panels and service, where the money arguments start; lighting, where the regret starts; EV charging and backup power, which matter more in rural Simcoe County because the well pump stops with the power; and the permit and hiring side, which costs the least and saves the most.
It does not teach you to work inside a panel; nobody should learn that from a website. It tells you what the job should include, what it costs and what to ask.
$10per sq ft, new-house wiring with 200 A service ($8 to $12)
$3,800100 A to 200 A upgrade, overhead ($2,500 to $5,000)
$2,000Level 2 EV charger installed ($1,500 to $2,800)
$13,00022 kW automatic standby generator installed
Ontario, installed, before HST, October 2026 prices. A 2,000 sq ft house at $10 a square foot is $20,000 for the wiring, plus a light fixture allowance of about $4,000, which is our assumption and not a researched price.
Why Ontario prices are all over the map: the contractors and published price guides we checked for this section quoted very different prices for what sounds like the same job. New-house wiring ran from $4 to $7 a square foot (an Ottawa contractor) to $18,000 to $24,000 for a 2,000 to 2,500 sq ft house (an Eastern Ontario contractor), which at 2,000 sq ft is $8,000 against $24,000. The cheap number usually leaves out the service, the permit, the exterior and the appliance circuits; the dear one includes them. Budget $10 a square foot plus fixtures, and get two or three quotes on the same written scope.
Start here
Wiring a new house
What the wiring costs per square foot, wiring an ICF house, kitchen and bathroom requirements, and rewiring an older house.
Panels and service
Panel swaps, 100, 200 and 400 A service, subpanels, what the utility does, and whether the heat pump and the EV fit.
Lighting
Pot light cost new and retrofit, lighting a kitchen in layers, and exterior lighting that the neighbours will forgive.
EV charging and backup power
Level 2 chargers, chargers on 100 A, standby generators, batteries, the electrical side of solar, and rural outages.
Permits, safety and hiring
ESA notifications and fees, hiring a licensed electrical contractor, comparing quotes, the inspection checklist, and old wiring.
The calculators
Four free ones, on the same October 2026 prices the pages use. They give you a budget and a good question; they do not replace the electrician's load calculation or quote.
Whole-house electrical cost calculator
A new house or a rewire by square feet, with the add-ons (EV circuit, extra pot lights, Cat6, generator inlet, subpanel) counted once, not twice.
Service capacity calculator
The Rule 8-200 arithmetic for your house: living area, heat, AC or heat pump, range, water heater, dryer, EV and hot tub, against 100, 125 and 200 A.
EV charger cost calculator
The installed cost by distance, panel and load manager, and what charging costs a year on your rate against gasoline.
Generator and battery sizing
The loads that matter in an outage, running and starting watts, the generator size, the battery hours, and the installed cost of each.
Already on the site as well: the load and wire size calculator for a single circuit or feeder, and every calculator on BuildersOntario.
Who does what
Six parties touch the electrical on an Ontario house, and most delays come from somebody assuming another one was handling it.
| Who | What they do | What they do not do |
|---|---|---|
| Licensed Electrical Contractor (LEC) | Plans the circuits, does the work, files the ESA notification first, meets the inspector, fixes what fails. | Cannot energize a new service or move the meter; that is the utility. Check the 7-digit licence number on ESA's contractor locator on esasafe.com. |
| Electrical Safety Authority (ESA) | Licenses contractors, inspects rough-in and final, issues the Certificate of Acceptance and the connection authorization. | Does not design, quote or fix your job. It says pass or fail, and it says it to whoever filed the notification. |
| The utility (Hydro One, Alectra, Toronto Hydro, Elexicon and the rest) | Owns the line, the transformer and the meter; disconnects and reconnects for a service change; connects a new house once ESA authorizes it. | Will not reconnect after a service change without ESA's authorization. On Hydro One the meter base belongs to you, not to them. |
| The municipal building inspector | Inspects the building permit work: framing, insulation, fire separations, and the smoke alarm locations the Building Code calls for. | Does not inspect the wiring. A building permit is not an electrical notification, and most new houses need both. |
| The builder or general contractor | Hires the LEC, keeps insulation and drywall waiting for ESA, coordinates the utility and the penetrations. | Is not licensed to do electrical work unless the company is itself an LEC. We are not; our electricians are. |
| The homeowner | Decides where things go, picks the fixtures, walks the house at rough-in, keeps the Certificate of Acceptance for insurance and resale. | May do work in their own home, but must file their own ESA notification before starting and pass inspection. Anyone you pay to do it must be an LEC. |
The rules that save the most money
- Hire an LEC and check the number before the deposit. A handyman or a general contractor is not licensed to do electrical work, and an unpermitted job turns into an insurance question the day you sell. How to hire an electrician.
- The notification goes in before the work starts. ESA's own fee for a panel change is under $100. Skipping it saves nothing and costs plenty later. ESA permits.
- Nothing gets covered until ESA authorizes it. Insulation, drywall and flooring wait for the inspector, and the schedule should say so. The inspection checklist.
- Run it before the drywall. An EV-ready 240 V circuit at rough-in is $750 to $1,200. The same circuit after drywall is $2,000 to $2,800. The circuits people wish they had run.
- Do the load calculation before the panel quote. A full panel is not a full service. A parking lot with no empty stalls can still have a quiet road out front. Subpanel or upgrade.
- Two or three quotes on the same written scope. Otherwise you are comparing a price for a house against a price for half of one. The comparison grid.
- Never backfeed a generator through a dryer outlet. That suicide cord can kill the lineman working on your road. A permanent connection needs a transfer switch or an interlock and an ESA notification. Rural outage planning.
- A hot or discoloured receptacle, or a burning smell: breaker off, call an LEC today. Not on the weekend. Today.
What we do on our own houses
I build ICF houses with hydronic radiant floors, and the exterior walls are foam forms full of concrete. The electrician fastens boxes to the webs moulded into the forms and runs cable in channels cut into the foam, at the depth the code requires, then protected. Anything that has to go through the concrete, from the service entrance to the outdoor receptacles and the generator inlet, needs a sleeve set before the pour, so we walk the house with the electrician with a list of every penetration first. Forget one and it is a core drill. Wiring an ICF house has the list.
A tight ICF house has a small heat loss, so an all-electric one with a heat pump, electric backup, induction and an EV usually still fits on 200 A when it is planned. Our showhome in Tiny Township costs about $100 a month to heat in the coldest part of winter. The same floor plan in leaky frame with baseboard heat often does not fit. If you want to see how we build, ICFhome.ca is the building side.
Have quotes in hand? Let a builder read them first
For $99 I read up to three electrical quotes, or one quote plus photos of your panel, and put them on one grid: the service and panel, the circuit count, the devices, who supplies the fixtures, the pot light count, the exterior work, EV and low voltage, the ESA notification, the utility, patching and the warranty. You get a written answer on what each one left out, in dollars, and which one I would sign.
There is no contractor network behind it and no referral fee on who you hire. We are a builder, not an electrical contractor: on our own builds and renovations in Simcoe, Muskoka and Georgian Bay the electrical is done by the licensed electrical contractors we hire, under their licence and their ESA notification. Outside that area I will tell you honestly whether I know anyone.
Questions people ask
Can I do my own electrical work in Ontario?
In your own home, yes, but you must file the ESA notification yourself before you start, do the work to the Ontario Electrical Safety Code and pass inspection. You cannot take out a notification for someone else, and anyone you pay to do electrical work must be a Licensed Electrical Contractor. ESA permits covers the fees and the inspections.
How much does it cost to wire a new house in Ontario?
About $8 to $12 per square foot of finished area for a complete package with a 200 A service, devices, smoke and CO alarms, exterior receptacles and the permit; $10 is the number to budget. A 2,000 sq ft house is about $20,000, plus a light fixture allowance of $3,000 to $6,000. What wiring costs works three houses out.
Do I need 200 amp service?
Most new houses get 200 A because the difference is small at the start. For an existing house the Rule 8-200 calculated load decides, not the age of the panel. The service capacity calculator does the arithmetic, and 100 or 200 amp service is the long version.
Is there a rebate for a home EV charger in Ontario?
Not from the province in 2026. Some local utilities have run charger programs, so ask yours. The federal Electric Vehicle Affordability Program pays up to $5,000 on a battery-electric vehicle and $2,500 on a plug-in hybrid bought from February 16, 2026; that is the car, not the charger, and check it is still funded before you count on it.
Who inspects the wiring, the building inspector or ESA?
ESA. The municipal building inspector checks the building permit work and does not inspect the wiring. On a new house the two inspections run side by side, and the drywall waits for both.
Price the wiring before anyone quotes it
The whole-house electrical cost calculator takes your square footage and add-ons and gives a budget on October 2026 prices, so you know what a fair quote looks like. When quotes arrive, send up to three to the $99 review.
Sources and further reading
- Electrical Safety Authority: homeowners: who may do electrical work in Ontario, why a hired electrician must be a Licensed Electrical Contractor, and what the Certificate of Acceptance is for.
- ESA contractor locator: where you check the 7-digit licence number on an electrician’s estimate before you sign.
- Ontario Electrical Safety Code: ESA on the 2024 (29th) edition in force since May 1, 2025, and what changed for houses, EV loads and energy storage.
