+100 on Westside Electric. I’ve hired Bob to do work at my home in West Seattle & my business in Queen Anne. Terrific work, great attitude & very fair price.
For small jobs I would recommend someone other than Eagle Electric. The repairman gave me a spiel (complete with plasticized chart) about having to test the entire electrical system for $247, declining to solve the very simple/specific glitch that existed. Anyone else have this problem? I was floored.
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Ok is it standard for a 59.99 charge to just to come look at the job? So if I get several companies to come out and bid on my house, it could cost me up to $180.00 just for bids? I own a house cleaning company and would never think to charge some one to come look their house. I understand there is a lot more involved but that seems a bit much especially in this economy.
We recently had bids from all 4 of the contracters mentioned here for a kitchen remodel. Although we went with another contractor; the only one I would recommend here would be Eagle Electric. Since my 1913 kitchen had some non-standard construction and some knob & tube wiring issues, three of these contractors chose to either bid so high so as to be assured of not being selected or didnt even to get back to me, even to say they wernt interested, very rude I think. David with Eagle electric came back twice to revise the orginal bid. David goes out of his way to explain the project, very professional. We have had past work done by his father and Grandfather and would highly recommend them. We ended up choosing Scott from Max Electric for various reasons and we’re happy. If you’re project isn’t clean and pretty, or has “issues” some of these contractors just dont want to be bothered. Business must be pretty good, or at least good enough to not take on a project like mine.
Thank you Aanderson, for the very kind words. We pride ourselves on 100% customer satisfaction and the best recommendation you can give us is a referral. We appreciate your business. Please if you are in need of electrical work don’t hesitate to give us a call… Mister Sparky and Eagle Electric of Seattle LLC 206-246-7123. We are proud to say that we are owned and operated by true West Seattlelites, Dave is 4th generation.
I had a great experience with Eagle Electric/Mr Sparky. The owner, Dave, who lives in WS, was prompt, extremely helpful and very efficient. He explained everything he was doing, the pricing was very reasonable and overall I actually enjoyed the time he was at my house. He was kind, polite, and did a great job! He went the extra mile to not just do what I asked but to actually fix the problem. I recommended him to several neighbors on the spot! I would definitely use them again.
After posting we found a WS Blog sponsor, Eagle Electric. They are coming out tomorrow. They were very nice on the phone and seemed happy to help. Thanks everyone!
We really like Patrick at In-House Electric. He basically re-wired our house and my father-in-law’s condo and we highly recommend him. He doesn’t mind doing small jobs and is very patient, trustworthy, and fair. I think the number is 206-607-0134.
We are having a few electrical issues and the electrician we used to us will not travel to seattle. I was wondering if anyone had any reccomendations of an electrician?
Mark Kesler 206 409 7046
I’ve used Mark for years and referred him to others who have ALL either referred him on as well and/or used him again themselves. He’s even local WS.
This is your guy.
We’re looking for someone to update the outdated parts of our wiring. There’s some newer wiring and some knob and tube. Does anyone have an electrician they’d recommend?
Thanks.
Take the bus you Plumbers, carpenters, electricians,painters, law mowers, construction,
police, aid people, restraunt and grocery suppliers, Boing suppliers(no wonder they want to leave), and on and on.
So we stop the cars and choke out WS with exhaust.
Send cars wizzing on side streets where our children and pets are. I don’t want more roads or faster speed limits, in fact 30 mph should be the limit on all of Fauntleroy. 35th SW is next! All of these changes don’t effect me, but I do read that it is already having a impact on others. I think these changes would be fine after a Sound Transit extention to WS.
BTW, I have no problem with more Ped lights, but with two lanes you prevent huge backups.
Telephone work is dead easy for the most part and any handyman service can do it. They might be working under a company electricians license or just doing the wiring and calling in the electrician or homeowner to make the final connection.
Current applicable parts of law.
http://apps.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=19.28.161
Rules continue on to 19.28.271 The legalese is oppressive like nearly all RCW’s
Overview page for the entire law if you’re a masochist.
http://apps.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=19.28
And the exemptions . (note getting a “friend, neighbor, relative or other person when none of the individuals doing the electrical installation hold themselves out as engaged in the trade or business of electrical installations.”
to do the job or help the property owner is one of the exemptions.)
http://apps.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=19.28.261
The rule was mainly aimed at people like me who did such wiring in large commercial buildings and businesses without paying license fees or hiring union electricians. (admittedly some practitioners may have been winging it at the time. I had to rewire a few offices for customers due to unsafe practices)
I don’t remember exactly when this was passed but it seems like 1998-99 or there about. Some of the exemptions my have been added on since I don’t remember hearing about the municipalities having the right to proclaim exemptions per city.
Ken,
When did the electrician requirement go into effect? I had an electrician at my house for some “real” electrical work (120V) but when she looked at my telephone wiring she was totally befuddled! :-)
I did low voltage work up to and including building early datacenters and remote points of presence (pops)for local ISPs and business networks up until the state of WA passed a law requiring all low voltage work to be done by or under the supervision of a licensed electrician.
Depending on how complex your needs are, I could probably tell you whether a handyman (or yourself) could do the job or you need to bite the bullet and hire an electrical contractor.
Homeowners are allowed to do all sorts of things with low voltage that an electrician or handyman can’t legally do.
Convert most of your network stuff to wireless. The cost savings will be immense over network cabling.
Phone and cable wiring can get expensive also if you want to add extensions into rooms where there are none and you don’t have a handy basement or attic to string wires in.
I don’t really need an licensed electrician, but someone good at telephone and home electronics wiring. I have some “low voltage” wiring that’d I’d like to get cleaned up.
I belong to Professional Business Builders group. We are looking for new members in the following fields: petsitter, hairsalon, mortgage person, business and health insurance, handyman/general contractor, carpet cleaner not limited to a plumber, electricians too. We are having a visitors day May 11,2009. 11:15-1:15 or so. It will be held at the Lake Union Outback Steakhouse. Cost for lunch only 13.00 networking priceless.(I made a funny) LOL. PM if interested.
Here are a couple of additional thoughts on this that you may find helpful when getting further bids. We had a big electrical project done last year by a local WS electrical contractor.
We arranged to have the job done based on the cost of materials and the actual number of hours that it would take to do the work multiplied by the number of electricians they put on our job. Their hourly rate ($80/hour) seemed reasonable at the time because we were told that their electricians were experienced Journeymen and fully licensed. In actuality they put one good Journeyman electrician on our project & the rest of their electricians were obviously very new at their jobs; some may not have even been licensed as they seemed to be “in training”. The company billed us at full hourly rate regardless of the quality of the electrician…& they seemed to round the number of hours up to include all the training that seemed to be going on between the younger & the experienced electricians.
With regard to the cost of materials, we ended up being charged for an astronomical amount of materials, mostly wiring. The final cost was surprising to us because we had been in good communication with the lead electrician & inquiring periodically about what the material costs were. In hindsight, we should have done a better job of tracking the materials ourselves. At the end of the job when we got the bill, it was hard to pinpoint how many materials were actually needed & used for our job. The electricians were either extremely wasteful or something else was going on. You also want to be careful to specify about the quality of materials they plan to use.
These are only the issues we had relating to costs/bids. You might also want to get written agreement regarding any other expectations (such as the schedule, if they cause damage in some way or do sloppy work). Although these folks seemed very nice, throughout the job they did things that slowed down our project schedule & impacted us negatively in other ways.
I would HIGHLY recommend C&R Electric. I have used them on several times for both consultations, and completing work that I have started but do not feel comfortable completing on my own.
You can save a LOT of money by doing the grunt work yourself. Running a few simple extensions is not a big deal. Most electrical work like this is fairly straight forward. There are plenty of books out there if you need a little help.
In the past I have used C&R to consult with me on the best plan to do the work I want. $150 or so for an hour consultation is pretty reasonable.
In another case, I did all the grunt work and then had them inspect my work and do the final connection in the circuit breaker box because I was a “fraidy cat” working in the box. Again, I did all the basic work and they did the hookup and it ran around $150 or so for an hour of their time.
What you are proposing should cost $500 or 600 dollars, or less (C&R consultations and materials)
McClendons is another good source of help. They have licensed electricians who will advise you of the best materials and code compliant practices.
FYI – C & R Electric Inc
4200 SW Admiral Way
Seattle 98116
206-937-3654
What does the estimate say?
No one should give you just a number scrawled on a post-it.
Usually the issue is that a contractor has to do all work to current code, and often do the paperwork and get permits.
The homeowner can sometimes have the permitting, major pulls and circuit upgrades done by an electrician and by doing the individual box wiring themselves. It should be much cheaper. An electrician should be able to inspect your wiring (and the city inspector too if the local permit process requires it) since you say you have open walls.
Last year I got some quotes from local electricians they were estimating about $70 to $90 per outlet and I think $120 per circuit. My notes are kinda scrawly but $3700+ does seem a little high for the work you listed.
So, I’m starting a renovation project in my house. I demolished my office down to the studs and have a semi-open basement.
Two electricians from a well-respected local electrician’s just left my house. I got the recommendation from this blog.
The quoted price to run two circuits, install 6 outlets, and a couple of ceiling boxes?
A WHOPPING $3,783.22!
Now, I’m no electrician, but I did at one point pull telephone and cat-5 cable for a living. I know that this price is total and complete BS. The cable runs would be fairly simple, since the destination room and ceiling are open to the studs.
So, what is a fair price for this much work? Anyone have any ideas?
Thanks,
Christy
