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Had a buyer call us a few months after closing on a place near Indian Beach/Sapphire Shores. Her home inspection report had come back clean — one line on the electrical, “satisfactory,” nothing flagged. Then her insurance renewal came up nine months later and the carrier wanted a 4-point inspection before they’d write a new policy, and that inspection flagged the same panel her home inspector had walked right past. Nothing dishonest happened on either end. It’s just that those two inspections are answering different questions, and most buyers don’t find that out until the second one shows up with a different answer.
If you’re buying in Sarasota right now, it’s worth knowing where the standard home inspection’s electrical check actually stops, so you’re not caught off guard the way she was.
A licensed Florida home inspector covers a lot of ground in one visit — roof, structure, plumbing, HVAC, electrical, and more, usually in a few hours total. On the electrical side, that typically means a visual pass on the panel, testing outlets with a simple checker, confirming GFCI protection where it’s required, and looking for obviously damaged or exposed wiring. That’s real, useful work. It’s also a visual and functional check, not a diagnostic one, and it’s one item on a long list rather than the sole focus of the visit.
This is the biggest gap we run into. An inspector notes the panel’s amperage — 100 amp, 150 amp, whatever it says on the door — but they’re not typically running a real load calculation against what the house actually draws. That’s governed by NEC Article 220, and it’s a separate exercise that tells you whether the existing service has real headroom or is already close to its ceiling. A Sarasota home with a pool, a spa heater, a couple of AC units, and a growing list of smart appliances can be a lot closer to capacity than the panel size alone suggests. We’ve opened panels in homes with “satisfactory” inspection reports and found almost no room left for anything new — a hot tub, an EV charger, a home office buildout.
A general inspector might catch an obviously overloaded panel, but subtler issues get missed more often than people expect. Double-tapped breakers — two circuits landed on a slot not rated for it — aren’t always visually obvious unless you’re specifically checking for them. Certain older panel brands, Federal Pacific and Zinsco among the most common ones we run into in Sarasota’s older housing stock, carry documented failure risks that a general inspector might note in passing without flagging as urgent, because recognizing “this specific brand has known issues” requires trade-specific knowledge, not just a visual scan.
This surprises almost every buyer we talk to. A home inspection tells you what the house looks like today. It says nothing about whether the electrical work behind the walls was ever actually permitted through Sarasota County when it was done. We’ve walked into homes near Whitfield Estates and Kensington Park where a previous owner clearly did their own panel swap or added circuits without pulling a permit — work that can look perfectly fine and still be unpermitted, uninspected, and technically out of code. That’s not something a home inspection report is built to catch. You’d only find it by pulling county permit records or having an electrician physically trace the work.
Sarasota’s salt air and humidity get into places a quick visual check won’t reach — inside outdoor disconnect boxes, around pool equipment pads, behind exterior outlet covers. We’ve found corroded terminals inside boxes that looked completely fine from the outside, the kind of thing that only turns up once someone actually opens the equipment and looks at the connections directly. A general inspector isn’t necessarily opening every exterior electrical box during a standard walkthrough.
An inspector checks whether outlets test correctly and whether wiring is visibly damaged, which is reasonable but doesn’t tell the whole story of a wiring system’s condition. Aluminum branch wiring, still present in some Sarasota homes from the 60s and 70s, can test fine electrically while carrying a known long-term risk at its connection points, where it loosens and overheats over time in a way that isn’t visible without opening the box. Insulation on old wiring degrades from heat exposure too, and attic temperatures here regularly exceed what older wiring’s insulation was rated to handle indefinitely. None of that shows up as a failed outlet test.
Here’s the thing that catches new Sarasota buyers off guard a few months in. Insurance carriers increasingly want their own 4-point inspection before writing or renewing a policy on an older home, and that inspection asks different questions than your purchase inspection did — specifically about panel age, wiring type, and whether the system’s been updated. We’ve had calls from homeowners whose purchase inspection came back clean, only to have a carrier flag the same panel a few months later and require upgrades before renewal. Knowing that during your option period, rather than after closing, lets you factor it into your offer instead of eating an unplanned expense in year one.
One more thing worth knowing that a general inspection doesn’t touch at all: Sarasota properties fall under FPL for electrical service and Sarasota County (or the City of Sarasota, depending on exactly where the property sits) for permitting. If the seller ever had utility-flagged issues — a service disconnection, a meter upgrade, a documented outage tied to equipment failure — that history doesn’t show up on a home inspection report either. It’s a separate record, and most buyers never think to ask about it because the standard purchase process doesn’t prompt for it.
A general inspection really answers one question: is anything obviously wrong right now. It’s not answering how much life is left in the wiring, whether the panel’s going to need replacing in five years, or whether the system’s actually sized for how the next owner plans to live in the house. Those questions matter more for a purchase decision than a single pass/fail line item suggests.
If you’re under contract on a home anywhere in Sarasota — an older place near downtown or a newer build out toward Palmer Ranch — it’s worth having a licensed electrician do a separate, focused assessment during your option period, especially on anything more than fifteen or twenty years old. That means opening the panel, running an actual load calculation, checking permit history through the county, and physically inspecting exterior equipment for corrosion. It’s a different level of detail than the general inspection, and it gives you real numbers to negotiate with before closing instead of surprises after.
Finding a real issue during this deeper look doesn’t mean walking away from the house. Most of the time it means going back to the table with actual numbers — a documented load calculation, a written estimate to bring unpermitted work up to code, a real quote for replacing a known-risk panel brand. Sellers tend to negotiate more readily against a specific number from a licensed contractor than a vague concern from a buyer.
Age isn’t the only factor, but it’s the biggest one. A home built in the last decade in a newer Sarasota development is far less likely to be carrying unpermitted work, aluminum wiring, or a known-problem panel brand than something from the 60s or 70s near the older parts of the city. That doesn’t mean skip the deeper look on a newer home — we still recommend it, especially if there’s any renovation history — but it does mean the odds of finding something worth negotiating over go up significantly on an older property, and it’s worth budgeting a little extra time in your option period accordingly.
If a load calculation does turn up limited headroom, our piece on the electrical inspection issues Sarasota buyers should watch for goes deeper into panel brand risk and what’s usually negotiable versus a deal-breaker.
A clean home inspection report is a good sign, but it’s not the whole picture electrically. Coharbor Electric is licensed and insured, and we work with Sarasota buyers during their option period to give the electrical system a real, hands-on look — panel condition, load capacity, permit history, and anything a general inspection wouldn’t have caught. Reach out to Coharbor Electric before you close, and let’s make sure the house you’re buying is as sound as the report says it is.
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At Coharbor Electric, this is what to expect when entrusting us with fixing your electrical issues.
The first step is to get all the information we will need so that we can correctly assess the problem or situation. The photos or videos you send will be sent directly to the electrician.
Once our electrician has the info he needs, we will dispatch one in the next available spot–armed with expertise, equipment, and the parts he’ll most likely need.
Our Promise is to to You is to perform the job completely, efficiently, and to the Florida electrical code standards. We are committed to fair and honest pricing.
We offer flat rate pricing for service calls, so you always know the price up front. Simple to understand. Flat-rate fixed price so you can be confident you’ll get what paid for.
As a Florida homeowner, you have an endless list of choices for electrical contractors to hire…some great, some good, some bad.
At Coharbor Electric, our benchmark is to be “great”. If you decide to hire us for your electrical service, here’s what you can expect from our electricians: