Kyle, the owner came over and gave me a quote of $2000 to replace our electical panel with one that had a transfer switch and surge protector. The quote also included installation of an inlet on the outside of the house for the generator.
On the day a different electrician named Phil showed up to do the work, with a young apprentice. However they immediately discovered that they had brought the wrong panel and cover. Apparently Kyle hadn't bothered to confirm what type of input we have from the electric company - he assumed it was 200 amp, but it turned out to be only 100 amp. So they had to go get a different panel, and Phil told me they would have to order the different cover, which also operates as the transfer switch.
I remember asking Phil to confirm the quote price, because I hadn't had anything in writing, and he called Kyle, and told me "2K", which means two thousand dollars, confirming what I thought Kyle had told me verbally.
The work was completed in good time, nothing unexpected seemed to occur, except I was a bit doubtful about the fact that Phil, the electrician, seemed to turn over the job of actually installing the panel to his apprentice, some 20 year old kid who seemed well intentioned and polite, but was obviously not very experienced. I didn't particularly appreciate my house being used as a training session for an apprentice. I was also concerned about how hard they were banging on the new panel to get it into the wall. When I inspected it later, I saw that there was a raggedy edge of broken wall plaster around the edges of the panel, where they had been hitting it. I asked Phil about this and he just said that I could repair it using Spackle. I didn't say anything, but I was more than a little peeved to hear that I was expected to repair the damage that they had done to my wall. If they do damage, isn't that something they should repair and make right? Why is that my responsibility to repair?
I also had to loan them my flashlight and shop vac, because their battery ran out. I thought it was odd that they didn't have their own shop vac to do cleanup, but I let it slide.
But it just got worse from there. I discovered that the transfer cover which they had to order would take a while, but I didn't expect it to take SIX WEEKS, which it did. During that time I was unable to test my new generator inlet, because they wouldn't wire up the panel to the inlet without the transfer switch cover.
I expect that if a contractor makes an error, then they should correct it and make it right by expediting the replacement item. These days that panel should have been here overnight, not brought over on the slow boat from China.
I also discovered that my nice brand new panel circuit labels were riddled with grade school spelling errors. No offense to Phil, but dude you can't spell worth a damn. It was more than a little bit annoying to have these glaring errors scribbled on my nice new electrical panel. We ended up redoing the labels ourselves, during which we discovered that two of the circuits had actually been mislabeled.
Then the final kick in the balls - when I finally got the bill, it was for over $2,900. The quote had been for $2,000, and that's what I had budgeted for. I called them, only to hear that Kyle was out of town and they would get back to me the next week. Next week came and went, nothing from them, so I emailed again on the Friday. On Monday I receive an email back telling me that the 100 amp panel somehow cost more than the 200 amp panel, and that's just how it is. No other explanation, nothing about the actual costs or price difference breakdown. Really, a difference of $900 between two panels that are the same except for the LESS expensive one is rated to twice the amperage? Ok. The exact same panel costs $900 more in a different amperage. Maybe that's so, but I find it a little hard to swallow. In any case, I was given a quote, and I expect the company to hold to that. If they quoted the wrong panel then that is their problem, not mine. I said I wasn't happy with this, but the office manager seemed totally unconcerned. I paid the bill, because that's what I do, but I told them they could charge me this if they wanted, but they could kiss me goodbye for any future business. Again, he seemed completely unconcerned about this, which makes me wonder how many other people have reacted this way to them. It didn't seem like a normal reaction to a customer complaint.
So they charged me $900 more than the quote after making me wait six weeks for an error which was theirs, not mine, and they left the wall around the panel in bad shape for me to repair. If you enjoy being casually charged much more than your original quote, then by all means go with these clowns. $900 might not seem like much to some people, but it's a lot to us, I had budgeted for $2,000 and now I have to find $900 from somewhere to make up the difference. Very much not happy, and never using this contractor again. read more
