"Electrical inspection" means three different things in Fort Smith, and people regularly book the wrong one. Start here.
Three Different Things Are Called an Electrical Inspection
They are done by different people, for different reasons, and only one of them is us.
1. The City of Fort Smith's electrical inspection
This is the municipal inspection tied to a permit. The City of Fort Smith conducts mechanical and electrical inspections for compliance with the National Electrical Code as amended by local ordinance, and states that its mechanical and electrical inspection program pertains to all mechanical and electrical within the city. The code currently adopted is the 2020 National Electric Code together with the City of Fort Smith Electrical Code Amendments.
That inspection is performed by a City electrical inspector employed by the City's Building Services department, not by a contractor. It is what signs off permitted work — a rough-in before wiring is covered, or a final once a system is installed and ready for use.
Tower Electric is not the City electrical inspector and cannot perform that inspection. What we do on permitted jobs is pull the permit and request the City's inspection, which the City requires the electrical contractor to do rather than have it folded into another trade's. If you are trying to reach the municipal inspector — to ask about a permit, a failed inspection, or an inspection on someone else's work — the City's Building Services department is who you want, not us.
2. A home inspection
A general home inspection covers the whole property — roof, structure, plumbing, HVAC, and electrical among them — and is usually ordered during a purchase. It is performed by a home inspector, and its electrical portion is a visual, surface-level review: it flags what looks wrong and recommends further evaluation.
That is a genuinely useful service and Tower Electric does not provide it. We are not a home inspection company. A home inspector will not open the panel the way an electrician does, will not run a load calculation, and cannot correct what they find.
3. An electrician's electrical safety inspection — what Tower does
This is a licensed electrician examining the electrical system itself, in order, and going deeper than a surface review. It is not tied to a permit, it produces no municipal approval, and it issues no certificate. What it produces is an accurate picture of what is actually in your panel and behind your walls, and a written quote for anything that needs correcting.
It is the right call when you want to know the real condition of a system — not when you need a permit signed off.
What We Actually Look At
An inspection is the opposite of a normal service call. A service call chases one symptom; an inspection goes through the system deliberately. In practice that means the panel and what is in it, the service equipment feeding it, grounding and bonding, whether GFCI and AFCI protection exists where it belongs and still functions, the condition and type of the branch wiring where it can be seen, devices and boxes, any sign of heat or damage, and a calculation of what the service is actually carrying against what it was sized for.
The output is sorted plainly into three buckets: what is a genuine safety issue, what should be planned for, and what is simply old but fine. That last category matters more than people expect — a lot of what worries homeowners about an older house is age rather than danger, and it is worth knowing the difference before spending money.
When It's Worth Doing
- You have just bought, or are buying, an older house and have no idea what previous owners did behind the walls.
- Before a remodel or addition. Knowing the panel's real capacity before the design is finished is much cheaper than discovering it during rough-in.
- Before adding a large load — an EV charger, a hot tub, a shop, or a standby generator all change the arithmetic on an existing service.
- Recurring symptoms. Breakers that keep tripping, lights that dim, or a warm cover plate deserve a systematic look rather than another one-off fix.
- After a storm, a lightning event, or water intrusion. Damage to service equipment is not always visible from the ground.
- An insurer or lender is asking about the panel type or the wiring and you would rather give a documented answer than a guess.
What Fort Smith Housing Stock Tends to Turn Up
Fort Smith grew in distinct waves, and each one left its own signature in the wiring. That is what makes an inspection here worth doing properly rather than generically.
In the older housing near Belle Grove and downtown, the recurring finds are two-wire circuits feeding modern three-prong receptacles that look grounded and are not, cloth-insulated conductors, and panels that have been added to for decades without ever being resized. Mid-century homes on the Northside and Southside more often show a panel that was correctly sized for its decade and is now full, along with the double-tapped breakers that get used to make room. Newer construction out toward Chaffee Crossing rarely has failing wiring at all; there the question is almost always remaining capacity for something the owner wants to add.
Two things show up across all of it: missing GFCI protection where kitchens, baths, garages and exteriors would now call for it, and panel brands that are replaced rather than repaired. Federal Pacific and Zinsco panels appear regularly in older Fort Smith homes and have well-documented histories of breakers failing to trip during a fault.
None of that means an old house is unsafe. Age alone does not condemn a system. It means the system deserves an honest look before someone adds a hot tub, a shop, or a charger to it.
What Happens When Something Is Found
An inspection on its own does not fix anything, and we do not pretend otherwise. Findings land in one of three places:
- Correct it now — a genuine safety issue. That is electrical repair work in Fort Smith, quoted in writing before anything is touched.
- Plan for it — the system works but is at its limit, or a panel is a type worth replacing on its own merits. Usually a panel upgrade, on your timeline rather than ours.
- Leave it — old, non-standard by current practice, and not actually a problem. We will say so.
The inspection itself is quoted up front before it is scheduled, the same way any other diagnostic work is. You are not committing to repairs by having a look done, and nothing gets corrected without a written price you have agreed to first.
