AMERICAN PLUMBING AND ELECTRICAL 59 MINUTE SERVICE

The electrician arrived punctually and was clean and prepared. The estimate was nearly twice as high as the lowest estimate (of three) that I received, and about $1200 more than what I ended up paying. It included, among other things, a charge of $200 for the permit. The City of Denver charges only about $50 for a permit to do electrical work on a house of this size, and the other electricians estimated $169 and $80 to obtain the permit.) The estimate included a $1700 fee to remove knob and tube wiring in the attic and to fix the living room fan. It turned out after the fact that the fan was working, just controlled by a different switch. I would have thought that a professional electrician would have discovered this. The other electricians said that the k&t wiring could simply stay there. No need to replace it at this time. The estimate to move a laundry outlet was $695. When I had the work done by another electrician, it cost $518. On a final note, the electrician who came out was wearing heavy work boots, yet made no offer to cover or remove them when walking around on our polished hardwood floors. I didn't really notice this until the other electricians offered to cover their boots before entering the house. It seems that a company charging a heck of a lot more for the same work would pay attention to those little niceties of service. When I looked shocked at the estimate, the "59-Minute Service" electrician offered to drop the cost by $400. Then he offered another $400 off if I contracted to have the work started that week. This sort of bargaining made me think that the estimate was probably pretty heavily padded to start with and it seemed very dishonest. In fairness, the company told me about charging for the estimate before they came, and that the fee would go toward the cost of the work if we hired them. Still, compared to no estimate fee at all, and combined with the very high estimate, I found their whole way of operating pretty shady.