With all these glowing reviews, we had to give them a shot, but unfortunately we ended up extremely disappointed.
Just to get an estimate was $145, it isn't fun, but relatively typical, we'll take it. Labor is $145/hr, so it makes sense to us.
They show up at around 10am. The estimate comes in at $800, which includes parts, labor, working on two circuits, and a city permit fee of $75 each circuit. That leaves us about $650 for parts and labor based on the estimate. About $300 higher than another estimate we got from another company for free, but they're here now, so let's just get it done.
Then we learn they don't have the necessary parts or equipment. They spend the next hour driving around to get parts. They say the parts are only going to be around $125, so we're thinking 2-3 hours labor + parts + city fees...seems reasonable...we should come in right under the $800.
A little way in to the work, it looks like they can make just one circuit work, so the city fee will be half, just one $75 charge. Now we're thinking we'll come in well under the $800 now, since the labor is almost done, the parts cost is known, and the city fee will be cut in half. We estimate in our head around $635 (3 hours labor @ $145/hr + $125 + $75).
Job is done. It is a little after 2pm. Time to write-up the invoice.
What? It looks like we're going to be billed for the hour it took them to go get the parts for the job. I suppose we should have just had them come back another time, so that they were prepared from the start.
So now we're at around 4 hours total, that's like $580 + half the city fee ($75) + about $125 for parts. Around $780, right? Looks like the estimate is about right.
Wrong.
They said parts would be around $125, but they were $210. Ugh. Okay, but that's $85 more and we saved $75 on one city fee, I guess that's OK. Now we're at $865. A little bit higher than estimated, especially when we thought we were going to come in under, but not too crazy...but we keep going down the invoice.
We were wrong again.
Turns out the $145/hr quote for labor was if there was only one person, but the second apprentice person costs extra, $75/hr more. That's another $300 that was not disclosed to us upfront.
All said and done, the total was $1164 and some change. But we got a meager discount and it was *only* $1100.
$300 more than the original estimate, despite half the city fees. $600 more than another company's estimate we received. Never doing business with them again.