Braswell Electric

In early Oct 2013, we had odd things start to happen with our 60s-era 100A service. It turns out the old main breaker was melting on one side. (The box and hardware was so old that no one carriers this type of main breaker anymore. Also, the box had always been an octopus of wires that we knew we were going to replace at some point. The melt-down prompted an earlier upgrade than we had planned.) This was on a weekend, so we moved all vital circuits to the side that wasn't melting and started asking friends if they knew of any local electricians they'd recommend. We were referred to Derrick. Early the next week, we contacted Derrick and he came out promptly to review the issue. We discussed options with him and made a plan that we would buy materials for an upgrade to a 200A service and they would come the following Thurs to do the installation. (We had to do some coordinating with our electric provider, and we were doing okay limping along on one half of the old main breaker.) At the last minute, he had to postpone from Thurs to Friday, which was a disappointment. The installation went well. Derrick and Ben came out and rigged temporary power for me. I work from home, so needed to have power and internet. I really like that he did this, so that I could keep working while they had the house otherwise disconnected. Derrick got Ben up and running (Derrick is the Master Electrician and Ben was a journeyman at the time). Ben stayed all day, running new wires into the new box in a much more orderly fashion than the old box had. He also identified that some circuits were not the amperage that we thought (the breakers were one amperage but the circuits were actually rated for a different amperage). He put in the correct breakers and let us know about the earlier mis-matches. Derrick and team arranged for power to be turned back on at the end, and cleaned up pretty well. They did leave a little bit of a mess inside and out, which is why I gave a B for professionalism. But, it wasn't much. They also arranged for the necessary permits and inspections. It all went very smoothly.