SYNAPSE ELECTRIC

The basement work came in 75% over estimate, which might not have been a terribly big deal, except that Paul never mentioned the overrun, nor explained it, until I asked. He just invoiced us. Whether the cost is justified or not, I really expect a vendor to explain an overrun like this. The overhead light work was great, though we needed to remind him several times to get us contact info for a drywall guy he said he'd recommend (the guy he recommended did a great job, though). The kitchen work was (a) late (when the estimate was given to us, we were told the lights were "in stock," and later were told they were "on order," and still later that they were a "custom order"), (b) the pricing on the LED lights was way above list price, and (c) he took forever to get me info on the lights he installed (manufacturer, model, etc.) -- and the info he finally got me was, as best I can tell, just wrong. I asked him about this, and he ignored me first, and when he finally got back to me, never satisfactorily explained the differences between his answer to me and the data I gave him suggesting his answer was wrong. After several back-and-forths, he just repeated his original statement that his supplier had IDed the lights as model XXX, from company YYY. That, of course, didn't answer the question of whether the supplier was wrong (which, like I said, I'm pretty sure it was -- I could find no evidence of a company YYY, and I found a similarly named company with a product that looked identical to the installed product, though the description failed to match the description Paul gave me). End of the day, I like the lights we have installed, and the work that was done. I don't think much of the customer service, though.

the first phase went pretty smoothly and was mostly done in about 1 week, some additional work dragged on over another week or two. paul has a lot of crews and jobs and it felt like he was using our job as surge/filler around the rest of his jobs. while we felt we were billed actual time, the guys would come late, leave early or not show some days we thought they would. we had just bought the place and were trying to get a lot done in a short time and move in 6 weeks later. often they would not consult the rest of our contractors about convenient times for taking away power for hours or overnight. the workers also did not clean up any of the little wire trimmings or cable stripping and seemed to think it was our job or job of other contractors (working on our heating system or bathroom) to clean up after them. that was frustrating. the electrical system has been ok, though we had some leaking from our power line to our breaker box this winter, and it seems like they should have checked integrity of that connection as part of a major rewire and replacement of breaker box. paul came out to look at that but didn't have any suggestion other than tell us to gop some sealant on there.