Alves Electric

This was our first Angie's list experience and it could not have gone better! Not only was the listing thorough and accurate, but the electrician we met was delightful. When Rick arrived we were immediately confident in his expertise and could see he meant to solve our problem with efficiency and fairness. And so he did! He could have made the visit far more complicated and costly, but he used his knowledge and skill to meet our needs and answer our issues as simply as possible. His explanations were clear and he was very friendly and cordial. We will be very pleased to rely this valuable resource in the future!

I've reviewed Rick before -- the more we use his service the more we appreciate him! This time we had a mystery -- flickering lights, power drops to things like the microwave and other appliances, but breakers (and everything we could test ourselves) looked fine. We had several contractor friends try to figure out what was wrong, but couldn't pin it down. One suggestion was it might be a power problem with PG&E, but our friend said to get a specialist to scope out the system before we called them. That meant Rick. I called him, and he got back to me in the morning. He sandwiched us in among several emergency calls and arrived exactly when he said he would -- with my tight schedule, that's appreciated. I met him in front of the house and told him what was happening. Before we even went inside, he looked up at the weatherhead and said he could see at least one problem -- looked like we might have a burned wire up there. He went to get his ladder and check. Moments later, he came down and said we had a badly-deteriorated ground wire that he was going to replace immediately, and that he would come back and replace the other wires as well, since they had probably been there since the house was built in the 50s. We made sure the computers were shut down and he went up on the roof again. About an hour later the microwave (which was our most visible symptom) was operating without power drops. He could have counted the problem solved -- a lot of guys would. But this morning, he called me and said he still wanted to replace the other wires, and tape them with weather-resistant material, just to make sure. Between our home and another property of ours, we've used Rick's services eight times now -- for the heating system (as reviewed before), to add security lights, electrify a couple of outbuildings, put in some vent fans, repair some bad wiring, and now this lovely bit of detective work. Just one more reason Mr. Alves is our go-to guy.

I had checked the breakers, resetting as I went, at the time we lost power. I checked each receptacle for a possible break or burnt wire but could not find anything and was convinced we had a break in the line somewhere for some reason so on Monday morning I called Alves Electric from the reviews he had on Angie's List. He was able to come out same day and within 4 hours of my call. As Rick went about resetting the breaker he wanted me to watch and learn why I thought it had been reset, explaining the type panel and why it was necessary to remove the cover in order to re-set the two breakers that were tied together. I had tried to do this 4 or 5 times yesterday and thought it had reset but after he showed me and explained why, I understood and was relieved that is all it was. Rick was/is very polite, thorough, was here a bit earlier than he thought would be but he called first. I have a garage rewiring job that he gave me am informal bid on that I will definitely give him the job to do. Great guy and great service.

I'm Mrs Geoff. I'm writing this review because I'm the one who can run home and connect with builders and fixers. We met Rick while doing 25 years' worth of 'deferred maintenance' on our home. We needed so many things -- replacing three breaker boxes of different ages and tech with a single system, wiring our house for central heating, installing security lighting, equipping a 1955 tract home with outlets enough for a pair of 2013 nerds. The work was always beautiful, quick, clean and professional. Once he discovered that I knew a bit about electrical systems, he was happy to discuss options with me as well as with our contractor. His prices are reasonable, and he was willing to do the work in segments, as they came up, so we could pay for each phase as we went along. I was impressed. Last fall I asked him to help with another property, that hosts a theatrical group I work with. He added ventilation and lighting to our outbuildings and the dark back yard, put in some security lighting at my assistant's home nearby (and some realistic cameras that now deter would-be prowlers) -- replaced some sketchy wiring for our son. We consider ourselves very lucky to have someone so considerate and professional to call. There's no such thing as a worker who has no faults, and Rick has one -- he's put years into his reputation, and he's pretty popular when people have emergencies. That sometimes means he has to reschedule more routine matters, but he's very considerate about calling when his calendar implodes. Geoff and I, and the other members of our and quot;tribeand quot;, thoroughly recommend Rick. He's made quite a few problems of ours disappear. We're having to pace ourselves on fix-ups for budget reasons, but I have no doubt that we'll be using him again and again.

Rick's electrical work was clean, simple and, in a word, elegant. We started by replacing our patchwork of boxes at home with a single service, went on to wire several outbuildings on another property, had him install security lighting for us, and referred him to several friends and family members. Then we discovered that he also offers handyman services! We've been in heaven ever since -- this man is a treasure! We've had to wait occasionally while he handles emergencies for others, but that comes with the territory when a person is as skilled as Rick is. We're really happy to have him to call on when things go wrong.

I've been using this company for years. He's straight forward, honest, and won't try to rip you off.