The skinny: Greg from Powerplus is an absolute professional. If you're looking for an electrician who does quality work, is exceptionally thorough, and charges reasonable rates, look no further.
Here's my long-winded story:
With the power outages we've had in my area the past couple of years I wanted to make sure this year I was ready for future emergencies. Standby generators and other such solutions were way out of my budget so I opted to go with the portable generator + Interlock solution (as opposed to manual transfer switches, etc.).
I found a couple of electricians via word of mouth and from local online forums and got some estimates. I heard roughly the same details from each of the 3 electricians I talked to:
- This would be a straight forward job, estimates roughly the same
- The only gotcha is that my town is extremely anal about inspections (2 of the 3 who have done work in my town said this, including Greg. The 3rd usually does work outside my town, but said my job should be no problem, based on permit work he's done elsewhere in NJ).
What set Greg apart were the following:
- Very responsive. You can tell he's busy, but he's never too busy to answer your call or answer your e-mail. I had a lot of questions along the way and I was always appreciative of how patient Greg was throughout the process.
- Foresaw Potential Issues - Though the general sentiment was that my job would not have any issues with the town, Greg did notice that my existing panel was overloaded (due to tandem breakers). He remarked that usually town inspectors don't make you redo existing work as they inspect the new scope of work. However, he was the only one of the 3 that made the effort to contact my town's inspector to check. And lo and behold, my town, true to their reputation responded that they would fail the new work (for the interlock) because of my existing overloaded panel. Greg came up with alternatives and continued to think through what the potential pitfalls were. If I had gone with anyone else, they would have done the work, failed inspection, and then we would have been at the point to consider alternatives. Greg was the only one that helped me figure out the issues ahead of time. I'm a no surprises kind of guy, so that was very important to me.
- Leveraged Technology - One of the other things that distinguished Greg from others was he was the only one with a Facebook page (facebook.com/powerplusel…) All very clean cut and nice. He also was the only electrician I contacted willing to scope out the work based on pictures. Part of that is that he's about an hour away from me so it wasn't the most convenient for him to come out to my place. But, I mean, it is 2014, you'd think more contractors would be able to use technology to their advantage and save everybody (both themselves and the homeowner) time. To be clear, Greg did come in person to finalize some things and confirm what he saw in the pics I sent him, but it just makes a whole lot more sense to me for an initial estimate to be done via pictures. I wish more contractors would do that.
- Saw the Job Through (start to finish) - I never had to bug Greg on status or what was going on. He was usually the one to ping me and keep me up to speed on what was going on. That's a breath of fresh air compared to all of the other contractors I've ever dealt with.
So what happened:
- Greg did an awesome job, the subpanel looked great, all the wiring was clean cut. He took the time to explain everything as we tested the setup (generator, interlock). I was happy.
- We went to inspection, and my town failed it due to some their interpretation of working clearance. Note this had NOTHING to do with Greg's work and I am convinced that my town is just difficult to work with (this was confirmed later, by the way, as I spoke to more people)
- We were stuck between a rock and a hard place at this point. But credit Greg. Long story short, he helped me persevere and we found a solution to all of it. Honestly, as I've stated above, I think my town is the exception and inspectors elsewhere would not have failed my job. I would never advise anyone to do electrical work without a permit, but in my case it was an extreme hassle.
- It's hard to say what would have happened if I had chosen someone else. But I do think any lesser electrician would have bailed on me as this literally took months to sort out.
Bottom line: Greg is hard-working, honest, and does quality work. That combination of qualities rare these days. To be completely honest, given the experience it took to get a permit in my town, I'm hesitant to ever do any electrical work in my home again. But, if I do, I will definitely go with Greg.
