How Long Does It Take to Wire a New House?

By Crown Electric • Updated June 30, 2026 • 5 min read

It's one of the first questions builders and homeowners ask us: how long will the electrical take? The honest answer is that it depends on the home — a production townhome and a fully custom house are completely different animals. After wiring everything from 110-unit townhome communities to one-off custom homes across Clark County, here's how the timelines actually shake out.

Townhomes: about two days to rough-in

We can typically rough-in a townhome in about two days. Townhomes are built economically — they're designed to keep costs down for the buyer, so there aren't a lot of frills. Fewer circuits, simpler lighting, and repeatable layouts mean the wiring moves fast. On a large townhome development, that repeatability is exactly why we can keep crews productive and hold a schedule across dozens of units. (For perspective, we wired the 110-townhome Green Mountain community — a former golf course — start to finish in about 15 months.)

Custom homes: five to six days, sometimes much more

A typical custom home runs about five to six days to rough-in — at least three more days than a townhome. Custom homes just have more in them: more circuits, more recessed cans, and specialty features homeowners ask for. The largest, most detailed custom homes we've wired have taken three weeks to a month. Our crews actually enjoy those jobs, because they get to do more detailed lighting and specialty work.

What drives a custom home's timeline

A few things stretch a custom build well beyond a production home:

• More circuits and recessed lighting throughout the home.
• Specialty features — outdoor barbecue kitchens, hot tubs, and detailed lighting layouts.
• Changes during the build. A layout that looked right on paper often gets adjusted once everyone's standing in the framed space. We start with a base plan and expect it to evolve.
• A single fixture that takes five minutes to hang on a fast-track job might take two hours on a custom home.

It's not just the high-voltage wiring

Most of what we install is the high-voltage wiring, but new homes get more than that. We also run low-voltage — coax plus Cat5/Cat6 to locations throughout the house — so TVs and smart-home gear can be hardwired instead of relying on Wi-Fi. And every job includes EV-ready circuits, which Washington's updated code now requires in new residential construction.

The real variable: scheduling

Honestly, the biggest threat to any new-construction timeline isn't the wiring — it's coordination. When another trade runs late and the roof isn't on or the site isn't ready, it pushes everyone. We manage that aggressively: every job is color-coded and tracked, so the ones that need watching get checked a week out and the tight ones get checked daily. When something slips, we move crews around to keep your build progressing. Put simply, if we say we're showing up, we're showing up.

Wiring a new home across Clark County

We wire new construction throughout the region — Vancouver, Camas, Battle Ground, and Ridgefield — and we'll travel for the right project, wiring a handful of custom homes out toward Stevenson every year. Whatever you're building, we can give you a realistic timeline up front. Learn more about our new construction electrical service.