Provident Electric

We hired Provident to run a 240V circuit to our hot tub. This was a simple job, which Provident messed up twice, and nearly three times. When their sales rep first came out, he explained that they would run a conduit from my garage to the tub, along the joists of my unfinished deck. However, when the crew came out to do the job, they insisted on burying the conduit around the perimeter of the house and deck. This entailed tearing up a bunch of lawn (and some concrete) unnecessarily, and after all that, the county inspector would not approve the job because the electricians had filled in their trench before having it inspected. Provident agreed, reasonably, to redo the job correctly. The next crew out wanted to place the GFCI box WITHIN five feet of the tub – code clearly says it needs to be AT LEAST five feet away. The “compromise” location at exactly five feet satisfied the inspector, but hardly inspired confidence in Provident’s expertise. Finally, the electrician that came out to do the final wiring managed to forget to connect the neutral line from the tub to the GFCI, so the GFCI immediately tripped when powered. This basic error required a fifth visit from Provident, and had us initially blaming the spa vendor (and nearly paying for an unnecessary service call from them). Any one of these mistakes could be forgiven as an occasional slip up. Having all three happen on one small, straightforward job cannot. The representative we worked with was polite and apologetic about the errors, which is the only reason we are giving Provident a D overall rather than an F. It seems Provident may be saving their best electricians for their large, corporate jobs, leaving residential work to crews who really don’t know what they are doing.