John Kivel Electric

I called John on a Friday afternoon and he was willing to come in the following day. Because my phone didn't ring we missed each other during the day. When I called him at 5:30 on a Saturday afternoon, he was willing to leave his father's house and come right in that evening. I was super impressed. He seemed to be thorough, explained everything to me and did some creative problem solving. I will use him again.

John solved my power source problems with skill, patience, and ingenuity. He and Connie offered prompt service with encouragement and confidence. I will schedule John for future electrical projects within the month with enthusiasm.

He came out on time. He did a great job. I had him come out to do a follow up job and I was also impressed with the work.

John came to my home on a Saturday to take a look at several electrical issues in my home, made several recommendations and helped me prioritize "projects" in my home based on safety and cost. The work performed was just the first project. Working with John is very easy, and I will be having him back for future jobs.

John was EXTREMELY responsive to my frantic call after 2 nights of storms ripped through Minneapolis. I had a large branch fall onto the powerline attached to my house, pulling it down, and bending the mast to a 45 degree angle to the ground. There were sparks shooting from the meter box, when it rained, so the urgency to get this resolved was very high. I called Xcel Energy 5 times within 36 hours to get the line taken care of, and they did not respond. John answered his phone on Saturday night ,and was able to come out the NEXT day. (Sunday) He and his team arrived on time, and were very quick to jump in and get the work done. They were able to work on the mast, even though the power line was 'live'. They replaced the pipe and meter box on the outside of the house and connected the power with a temporary connection, until Xcel could come out and make a permanent connection. His team even took a chainsaw to the huge limb and cut it into smaller, more manageable pieces for me to be able to attend to! They cleaned up very well. I am sure that the price I paid was higher, but due to the urgency of taking care of this issue, I felt it was relative. They came out next day, on a Sunday. Not many company's I contacted even answered my call until Monday.

Better than I could have imagined! I called John ( I live by Angie's list!), and he was at my house in an hour. (He is in St. Paul, I'm in South Minneapolis.) He had to do an extensive investigation to find the shorts in our circuitry, and showed me how much we could load on our current system to keep from having problems. He is an incredibly positive, friendly, and competent electrician with years of experience, but he still enjoys his work, and is clearly happy (enthusiastic, even!) when he finds the source of the problem. He fixed what needed fixing, showed me what needed to be replaced, and, honestly, was a pleasure to have in my house. He's great. I called my husband and said, "Honey, we have an electrician!". He is absolutely the person I will call if I run into any electrical problems.

I needed to have some repairs done for a home sale and John took care of everything professionally and on-estimate. He provided options for addressing an issue with double-lugging on my electrical panel that fixed the problem while saving me a good deal of money. We had issues with the buyers wanting an inspection and John juggled his schedule at the last minute and made arrangements with a city inspector to make sure we could proceed on time to the closing.

It went great! We recently bought our 1972-built house and wanted to get a lot of odds-and-ends electrical work done, including GFCI protecting and fixing the grounding on some of the outlets, We thought that the GFCIs and grounding fixes would be simple. We were wrong. As John Kivel, and his brother Jim, found, the electrical work behind the walls in our kitchen and garage was a DISASTER, wires connected to the wrong places and generally shoddy work, at least borderline dangerous. Of course, they fixed the problems. But notably, they were fast, friendly, and tidy. And they made great efforts to explain the process to me (someone who knows next to nothing about electrical work), why they were doing what they were doing. They are incredibly good at what they do, incredibly knowledgeable. We would absolutely hire them again and certainly recommend them. Without question, they've been the best contractors that we've worked with since purchasing the house (and believe me, we have had A LOT of contractors!). Hire them!

Quickly found the source (bad exterior lights). Quick and inexpensive solution.

It was really nice of him to come out just a couple hours after I called on a Saturday because we had a potential safety issue with our DIY installation gone bad. He worked for a few hours figuring out the problem and reinstalling the fans, and they work great! I thought the price was about right for the job. He came back another day to do a third fan, which had rotted wood at the electrical site so it required reinforcing the framing of the ceiling, and that was $300. It's an old house so I'm very impressed with these fan installations because they function great and don't wobble like they did when we put them in ourselves.

Left three message requesting an estimate - didn't return any of them.

I live in an old 1920's house. Old wiring and the one ceiling light was also a junction for many other wires running through it. John came and went right to work. He's been in the business a long time and this was just routine procedure for him. One of the new lights was missing a part that would have extended into the ceiling bracket. John figured out a way to make due. So he was resourceful and I didn't have to run out and look for that part. It all works now, lights are snug to the ceiling, and safe. So, yes, he's very experienced, nice, and professional and I would definitely call him again.

The first thing that John did that was great, was that he made the service call to my house on a Saturday on Memorial Day weekend. You have to love a guy for that. He diagnosed my problem (too many watts from a space heater on my circuit) and he provided labor and materials to fix the problem at a reasonable price. He answered all of my questions, and also gave me some ideas on price and procedures for running a dedicated electric line up to the second floor, so I wouldn't have to worry about space heaters up there any more.

One of my smoke detectors (which was only a few months old) was beeping starting at 3 am. I called John Kivel Electric as soon as he opened, and he came over within a couple of hours. He tried changing the battery, but determined that what had been installed during the winter were very poor quality detectors. He suggested a better quality product, which was a combination smoke/CO detector. He did not have enough of them in his truck, so we agreed on a time he would return this afternoon. He did a great job, cleaned up after himself, and was very courteous and professional.

I needed a couple GFCI's installed and one needed some repair. It took less than an hour. In and out.

One of our circuit breakers kept tripping despite our resetting it. We called John early in the morning, and he came out the same day. He kept us aware of his schedule when he was running a bit behind. He was very cordial, efficient, and knowledgeable. With the tools he had for testing, he quickly identified the problem as a short in our sump pump motor. We now know who to call when we have any electrical problems.

I needed some electrical repairs resulting from a pre-sale home inspection. John was on time, completed all repairs needed and resolved an issue of an improperly wired flourescent fixure in the basement with a new installation and installed a new flourescent fixture to provide additional light.

Called John at about 10 a.m. to see if he would be able to rewire a switch for us so it could control two lights individually, as opposed to both together. John asked that I send him and email with my phone number, so he could call me back after he was finished with the job he was currently working on, to set-up a time to come out. John called back around 5 p.m. and said that he could come out right then, or we could set-up a time for later. I said that if he could stop out now that would be great, and he was to our home within 10 minutes. All in all, it only took about 20 minutes to complete the project, and now our lights function exactly as we wanted. John was extremely polite, punctual, and efficient - I could not have imagined the project going any more smoothly.

John called to confirm the appointment, showed up early and was very nice and professional throughout the service call. He worked quickly and explained everything he was doing. John provided some estimates for future upgrades and repairs that I had inquired about. He was very helpful and straightforward. I could see myself calling him again in the near future for some planned projects.

John was prompt, professional, and thorough. He was quick to respond to my email and scheduled a visit that worked for both of us as early as possible. Unfortunately, I was unable to be present at the house during the call, but John called me immediately after and informed me of the work he did and any further work he had quoted. I very much appreciated this, as he fixed what we asked but also gave a no-hassle quote on work we knew we would eventually have to do. John was great and I would surely use his services again!

Our bathroom fan quit working and we had some light switches that were not working. The guys did a good job and worked quickly. Would have them out again. Considering them for upgrading our electrical service.

My experience with John was great. He was very knowledgeable and diagnosed issues right away. John charged a reasonable rate and was very pleasant.

I have used John before and he is definitely my go to electrician. John always does a great job, explains the job clearly, the cost is always exactly what he quotes. In addition to the work he did at our house he did some research for us on a stand by generator for our house that could be tied directly into a panel. John also recommended places for us to find quality lighting which also worked out great. John is a great guy, easy to talk to, great with communication, and he does outstanding work. I highly recommend John for any electrical work.

John returned calls promptly and gave me an accurate ballpark estimate on the phone. John and Frank showed up when they said they would. I recommend John (and Frank) highly. The ceiling fans I had bought wobbled due to a design flaw--while they could have just installed them, they went the extra mile to call me at work and explain the issue. Then they went to lunch to give me time to leave work and buy new fans. The work turned out great! Very pleased with the work and the experience.

He and his partner arrived on time and got right to work, they were affable and very professional. It is my fault that I chose the LED strips and then proceeded to hate them. The light is a cold grayish to my eyes. So when I called him to ask if he would return to remove them, I am happy to say he didn't balk or make me feel stupid. He was able to return that next week and remove the offending lights and change out an overhead light as well for just $200. I really appreciated his accepting attitude.