Hank Hotard

This electrician installed two porch lights and 9 digital wall switch timers in my house. I had purchased the timers and the lights prior to the visit -- and the electrician installed them. Total price was something over $800. Less 60 days later, one of the digital timers failed. I opened up the wall plate (after disconnecting the power to this area of my house) thinking that I might see a 'loose connection' that I might fix. What I saw was that the timers took up a lot of space -- and the wires & wire caps were really jammed into the wall plate. I didn't figure I could fix this issue. So I bought another digital wall switch timer (in case the malfunctioning one didn't have a loose connection but was bad) and I called the electrician. An appointment was arranged in a timely manner. Mr Hotard came out and replaced the timer. I asked but didn't get an answer to whether the old timer was bad -- he just replaced the malfunctioning one with the new one that I previously had purchased and I was ok with that decision. Time to replace the timer was less than 15 minutes. I had thought about the bill for this visit before the electrician came out. To me, the problem was a "call back" -- something went wrong within 60 days of the original work. There was good reason to think the visit would be at "no charge". That's what I expected Mr Hotard to say when I asked casually "how much do I owe you?" I was prepared to object to a no charge response and offer Mr Hotard $50 or so for his time. After all, I wanted to establish a relationship with this tradesperson -- and I wanted him to know I was a good payer. However, Mr Hotard said I owed him $125 for this visit. That was a shocking amount to me. Remember -- this was a return call within 60 days of the original work, I had purchased all materials, and the work took less than 15 minutes. But Mr Hotard said the cost was $125 and I paid him. So this is a notice to any future client --- Mr Hotard's rate for return calls is $125 per 15 minutes!!!!