The Electrician, friend or foe?

Factual Questions
1

A power circuit blows, resetting the breaker has no effect.

Run a cord to the fridge so the food’s safe. Go to the phone book.

“100% guarantee. Licenced, bonded. Thousands of satisfied customers!” I look at the 6 biggest ads. Each ad looks just like the last. I noted that finding the name of the companies was not easy and in some cases the ads are different, but the phone numbers are exactly the same, except for the last two digits. Picked one.

The guy shows up with a nice truck, but it’s not a van with company name on it. Tells me it’s $70 to show up and take a glance around. He does his tricks with the circuit checking tool, but I have no idea what’s he’s doing.

Then he gets into the attic. Comes down and tells me there’s nothing obvious. It takes takes 20-30 minutes to get to this point. The next step is going to cost $900 to investigate further by checking each of the 5 outlets on this circuit and see if there’s a loose wire.

I assume there’ll be another large number to actually make the repair.

I told him I don’t have that kind of money. He asks me what I do have–indicating to me, at least–that he’s willing to work off the clock. No way in hell!

A year or so back, the same thing occured. I asked the neighbors for a recommendation–nothing. I called the local homes association. They gave me a name. This guy spent a full day chatting with my elderly, trusting mother. He charged her $900, for what I believe was replacing the switch in the circuit box. I wasn’t there. I think my mother got took.

It is that exact same circuit that is causing trouble this time.

The house is old, like 50 years. I know things go wrong. The scam-guy suggested we pull out the entire electrical system and put in state-of-the-art. Not today, thank you.

I don’t mind paying a fair price for good service, but how do I know I’m not getting ripped off?

The plan is to call another outfit, maybe a smaller one, and see what story I get.

Any guidance from those of you more knowledgeable than I will be very much appreciated.

2

Well, don’t get adventurous because that’s one of the things that can kill you.

To be it sounds like he was full of it - especially since he went straight to your attic.

These “five other outlets that are on the same circuit” - do they work? Also, this may seem silly and insulting, but you don’t have a GFIC on the fridge’s outlet, do you?

Oh, and you left him up in the attic unsupervised. Obviously, nothing to do about it now, but that was a bad move. He may have just invented a problem that he can ‘fix’ for you.

ETA: He wanted $900 to open up the outlets and look for loose wires? I hope he offered to kiss you afterwards.

-Joe

3

Loose wires can be easily checked by yourself. Since you know where your panel board is, plug a lamp into each outlet and turn it on. Then go to your board and turn off the breakers, when the light goes out the power is off. Remove the outlet covers, and inspect the backside of the recepticles ( the things you actually plug into). If you have loose wires, tighten the screws that hold them in the little slots. Replace your covers and turn everything back on.

If that does not work, then you may have a bad breaker . You can also change this yourself. It is a bit trickier though and you will have to shut off the whole panel to change it safely. If you need to do this, and feel uncomfortable, call an electrician and tell them that you have checked the outlets and suspect that you need them to change a breaker for you.

You can find plenty of more detailed instructions online.

4

Snip>

Good call! I’d forgotten about that. That home is a bit on the old side for that, but if they have one, It will be the little button on the outlet that says something like “reset” or “test”. Push it in and try again.

Oh, and myself , that price is ABSURD for what they did. He started right, but should have checked for a bad breaker, or bad recepticle FIRST. It is a simple thing to do as I’ve posted above. Though i’m not certain of the pay scale in California, top electricians make about 40.00 an hr here.

5

Yah, the bad breaker is what I was going to suggest. The thing is, some older panels can be a major paint to deal with, and others may actually be impossible to find parts for.

-Jo

6

Ah, but using my Holmesian powers of deduction, I surmised that at some point they installed a fridge with an icemaker, and as such, they made the smart move and put a GFIC in that outlet in preparation for a possible leak!

Also, Myself’s typing style indicates that he has slight carpal tunnel in his left hand and he used to have an addiction to black licorice.

-Joe

7

:smack: Icemaker. Well done Holmes. Good show!

8

(crosses fingers)

Big money. No whammie, no whammie, no whammie, STOP!

Or, at my parents house, we had the damned hose pop loose from the back of the fridge TWICE and, not only did I have a lot of stuff in the basement get ruined, I was lucky to have not been electrocuted.

-Sherlock Joe

9

One way to find a good electrician is to ask the electrical inspector for your city or county. They inspect everyone (or at least, everyone working legitimately), and should know who does good work in general and who does not. They might not know who charges how much, but at least you can get someone who knows what e’s doing this way.

10

I second Chronos.

11

I came in to say the same thing, well, to call the inspector, not to second Chronos.
Call your city hall and ask for the electrical inspector and go from there. Hell, I’ve even known some inspectors that will come out an do the work themselves (for a fee of course) and that’s even better.

12

And that may work over there for him in Frisco. I can tell you that in lovely Mississippi, a recommendation from someone like that would generally be given because “Dave goes to my church”.

-Joe

13 
 Careful there, sometimes inspectors can be BIG trouble. For instance if the home in question is really over 50 years old, the inspector may not want to do work on it unless it's brought up to current code, grandfathering notwithstanding. MOST inspectors are good guys though, just be sure you don't stir up a hornet's nest, that could cost you plenty financially.  :eek: If you go that route merely ask for a good reccomendation.
14

And I can tell you that here in Chicago, building inspector is a pretty clout heavy position and often has nothing to do with actual competence. Recommendations of this type should be given due scrutiny.

15

I should have mentioned this was for a business and the owner (my dad) is friends with most of the community officials. The building inspector did some structual work for us, the electrical inspector has done a few odd jobs for us and the plumbing inspector has done some work for us. All of these people either had moved on from that post when they did the work or they called in the county inspector to check out their work. But like I said, they where all friends of my dad and this was at a time (years ago) where a little cash under the table and an “I owe you one” went a long way.

16

You could always call around and compare hourly rates and such, you may also consider places advertising themselves as more of the handyman type. Many of them are perfectly competent electricians but operate on a far lower billing scale since many of them are independent non union 1-2 man shows. Its been a few years, but the last time I called an electrician it was @ about $55/hour. Even at a more realistic $100-$150/hr 6-9 hours of work sounds a bit steep for checking 5 outlets. For an experienced electrician that sounds more like 2 hours tops, especially for someone with the right tools.

IANAE, I’m an onsite PC tech, YMMV.

17

The $900 figure is a complete ripoff. My advice is to NEVER use the largest ad in the Yellow pages. Those ads cost thousands of dollars per month. I figure if they can afford the ad, they don’t need my business. There may be exceptions, but I haven’t found one yet. Call some of the names on the smaller ads and get a quote for the cost of the service call and how much labor (if any) is included with it and what their hourly rate and mileage charges are. Check at least 3 or 4 and pick one from the middle of the pack, preferably one near you.

As for the electrical problem itself, I would check for stab-in connections on the other plugs in the circuit. These types of connections are prone to loosening over time, leaving everything downstream of them without power. Use care if you do this yourself. 120 VAC can kill you in some circumstances, but even if it doesn’t, it still hurts like hell.

18

As a civil servant in the regulation of the construction trades, I would consider it highly unethical to recommend any one private concern over another.

I guess I’m not old enough to be part of the old boy network yet.

19

Myself, what part of the Bay Area do you live in? I’m over in the East Bay and between myself (El Cerrito) and my friends and relatives in the EB we’ve had a variety of electrical work done. I can probably come up with a few names for you.

20

This is depressing, because you have to figure that the inspectors know exactly who is a rip-off artist and who does excellent work. There must be contractors whose work has been inspected 100 times and been found impeccable. Other contractors must do everything in their power to discourage the home owner from even thinking the word ‘inspector’, and I bet inspectors know who a lot of these guys are. I also bet that on the rare occasion these guys have had their work inspected, it’s failed.

Too bad you can’t somehow post the results of your inspections, publicize the results, and then let homeowners come to their own conclusions. You wouldn’t be recommending anyone. I’ve used government services in the past that kinda, sorta did this, but they were spotty, not up-to-date and didn’t help me at all. Imagine, you see a contractor’s name on the list 200 hundred times, and his work always passes easily, or passes with maybe a few minor revisions. I’d hire that guy. I’d be suspicious of a guy who says he’s been in business fifteen years, and his name only appears on the list five times.