HALCYONE INC

The service was fine and I would work them again.

We spent 2 hours together but never found the issue.  I found it later with my father in law who does home remodel projects as a hobby.  The electrician was a nice guy, meant well and tried real hard with lots of measurements - just never could fine the outlet where the problem was.

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I had him come out and give me an estimate first, and it seemed reasonable.  However, when the work was actually performed, the charge was simply by the hour, not by the job as estimated.  He turned out to be very slow, and didn't do all the work we'd discussed, so it ended up being more expensive than I'd thought it would be.  Having hired electricians for three other jobs since then, I am absolutely certain than he is far slower than the norm.  I've also learned that electricians charge strictly by the hour, so being slower means he's more expensive. 
My house is one of those that doesn't have overhead light fixtures, just outlet/lamps controlled by a switch.  At the time of the work, he told me it would cost me more than it was worth to install light fixture boxes in the ceilings of three rooms, since the location was difficult to access.  He estimated $300 per fixture, so I elected not to have this done.  I subsequently had them installed by another electrician who said it was an easy job and charged me $90 a piece.  I asked a different electrician about the same project in some other locations and he also said this was an easy job that would take an hour or less.  
One of my bathrooms didn't have a GFCI on the outlet by the sink, and we wanted this outlet replaced.  John spent a fair amount of time determining that the outlet was on the same circuit as another bathroom, which did have a GFCI, so he felt this wouldn't be necessary.  He talked me out of replacing the outlet.  I subsequently had another electrician working in that bathroom, and he said it was such an obvious safety and functional problem that he swapped it out in a couple minutes without even discussing it.  Keep in mind that you pay the electrician by the hour, whether he's solving the problem or deciding not to do the work.
Although this electrician was personable and appeared to be meticulous, he's just too expensive for me to hire again.

Provider visited my home before the actual service date to look at what I wanted done.  It was noted that a tall ladder would be needed to install entry chandelier, and he would rent one if his own wasn't tall enough.  On the service date, the provider didn't bring a ladder tall enough to do the job.  Since he was already there, and I had already paid, I had him install the dining light fixture, even though my husband could've done it in his spare time.  I was severely disappointed in this deal, and was confused why the provider even agreed to do it.  I ended up hiring someone else to replace our entry light, and that person actually charged me the same amount and was done in an hour.

He didn’t have a ladder that could reach our ceiling fan that was twelve feet in the air. He determined that the ceiling fan needed to be replaced and he advised me to purchase a part and call him back for additional work.

Bought the $99: 2 hr electrician Big Deal. He came and did what we had agreed upon, in less time then he initially quoted. I was not impressed with his customer service skills.

He arrived late and at the house across the street.
He was very professional but very slow.
He put in a ceiling light in the kitchen and a ceiling light in the dining room.
It took him an hour and forty five minutes.
He half installed a door bell but had to leave because his
 time was up.

It took him quite awhile to come out and start the job. He did follow through and I told him that it was okay because I was not in a rush to have the work done. He installed a new electrical outlet in my basement. Previously, I had a sprinkler system wired to an extension cord that was plugged in to an outside electrical outlet. He wired the basement outlet into another wire that was down there, and it is wrapped in black electrical tape, but it does not look like it would be up to code. He nailed the box to a stud and the nails are three times longer than the board itself. The job does not look pretty, but it is functional.

Do:    Engage John for purely electrical work, as he is working, I sense, because he has to and while he is really good with his area of expertise, it would make his work that much more enjoyable if he did not have to tackle DIY-type tasks.

We purchased the Angie's List deal for two hours of electrical work at $99.00.
I made contact with the company and the owner/operator/electrician was responsive and came out to take a look at the work we wanted done.  We requested ceiling lights be installed in two bedrooms with pre-existing switches, but no overhead pots, a ceiling light in a family room area which would require a new switch and an external power plug on our deck.  I offered to show him the attic space and corresponding electrical access that he would need to become familiar with in order to complete the bulk of the work and he declined.
He gave us a reasonable sounding time estimate for each task on the job list and we scheduled a date for the work to be completed.  He estimated all of the work to take approximately five hours.
The day before the work was to be completed the electrician called to move the appointment back 30 minutes (no biggie) and confirm that we were still expecting him.  The morning of the appointment he arrived an additional 20 minutes late, with no call (annoying, but not a deal breaker).
He ran into issues with the first bedroom ceiling fixture, which, again isn't a big deal (our house is older and everything from plumbing to insulation is an adventure in creative, half correct, not up to code fun).  This immediately doubled and almost tripled his time estimate for that install and used up the 2 hours we had paid for with the Angie's List deal.  After 2 hours and 45 minutes he informed us that he had another job to get to, so we would have to reschedule to finish the work.  Okay, now here is were things are beginning to become very unprofessional.  He scheduled a job, a 5 hour job, and has to dash away after 3 hours.  Time management was not his strong suit.
Additionally, he made quite the mess, left drywall pieces around and, due to the snails pace at which he moved, I finally encouraged him to just go, so that I could finish the clean up myself.
Before he left, he offered up some basic instruction in how to install the pots for the two remaining overhead lights, the external plug and the switch that one of the lights required.  I am pretty handy around the house myself and, although, skeptical of his methods, agreed to do the work to cut down his billable time by doing the bulk of the work myself prior to his return.
I am all for having a contractor allow me the flexibility to complete certain areas of jobs myself, but if he is too slow to complete the job in anything resembling the time quoted and resorts to having me do the bulk of the work myself I doubt the overall strength of his work and integrity in general.  I do many household projects myself, but when I hire a professional I expect a professional response in a timely manner with quality work.
On the morning he was to return and complete the work we returned home from running errands approximately twenty minutes prior to his scheduled arrival.  He did not arrive on time and I did not hear from him until several hours later when he called to say he had been at the house "early" and nobody had answered the door.  He informed me he left his card on the doorstep (which we do not use to access the house regularly) and would like to reschedule, again.  Showing up early, not calling (every other contractor I have dealt with seems to know how to call ahead if they are running ahead of schedule), and hoping that dropping a card on a doorstep is good enough, since "I had another job I could go right to" is wholly unacceptable.
Prior to ultimately deciding not to hire this gentleman again, I went into my very accessible attic space and began working to install the ceiling pots I required, locate the wall the new switch was to be on and run wire to the new switch and the new ceiling fixture.  During my time in the attic I observed the work that this electrician did and began to suspect that it was less than ideal.  
I observed wires wire-nutted together laying the open of my attic space, not enclosed in a box.  My attic has blow in texture.  With some shifting or a fresh layer of blow in the wires would become obscured.  And with vibration, tugging or being stepped on the wires could easily come loose.  Not acceptable. Is that even up to code to leave wires like that? If it is, I'm surprised - it's sloppy and unprofessional. Could lead to a fire hazard.  
Two hours and forty five minutes to make a mess, complete one fifth of the supposedly five hour job and leave wires connected in the open attic with wire nuts only.
No thank you.

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He installed lights and went above and beyond to even repair the drywall. I thought he was very trustworthy. He went above and beyond.

How did it go overall??
Well he was over an 1/2 hour late to begin with - He set the appointment at 7am -a phone call would have been professional
In all my years of hiring different contractors, I have never and I mean never hired any contractor or crew that worked as slow
as this contractor did. It what should have been a job that was easily completed in under 2 hours ended up running over - in fact he charged 1 additional hour of labor. This was totally unacceptable, I've hired electricians before, even off Angies list using a Big Deal ticket and they all worked at an acceptable pace, a pace that I felt was reasonable for their labor rate . I can't put in more simply than this - I would not hire this contactor for any electrical work what so ever. I was embarrassed to even have recommended this contractor to my daughter and son-in-law for their project.

I saw a Big List special for $99.00 for 2 hours of electrical work. I have been wanting to put a light in a small area underneath the stairwell going to the second floor. So I bought the special and within 24 hours I received a call from John who owns Halcyone Inc. We setup a date and time for him to show up and see what could be done. He arrived in a timely fashion( well 15 minutes late but it was Monday morn and my place is off the beaten path),So no big deal. After looking at the area , he decided it could be done and asked if i minded doing some light drywall patching. I said no and then he proceed to get to work. To make it short and sweet, He installed the light and I am VERY pleased with the work. He got it done in 1 1/2 hours and everything looks AND works great. John is an easy going fellow with over 35 years of electrical experience and it shows. After it was all done, he offered to clean up but i had to vacuum anyway, so I said i would take care of it. There was very little mess and parts were cheap....$10.00 was all he charged for parts and so if you add the $99.00 for the 2 hours labor, I got a light installed for $109.00 and in under 2 hours. I assure you it would have taken me a week and about $400 had i attempted it myself. So Overall I give John and his company an EXCELLENT rating and would not hesitate to use him again for any electrical work i might need.

The call and job completion went very smoothly.  We were very pleased with John.

It took him a long time to do it and I wasn't real thrilled. He wired it up where the switch of the fan was not where the other switch existed. It works but it’s wired so crazy. It took him a long time to do it. The price I could live with, but it was on the high end of the pricing and it wasn't done right. I brought him back and he said he couldn't fix it nor offer me a discount.

As the first half of the project went along our impression of John was that he was a friendly, competent, honest and nice guy. He did seem to work quite slowly (a comment that we had received from another reference when we called before hiring him), but we felt that he was doing a thorough job. Once it was clear that the project was going to be significantly higher than estimated, we sent John a letter regarding our concerns about the overrun. His response was very nice and he expressed concern that we were unhappy about cost, but ended up boiling down to him feeling that he was just charging for what it actually took and that it took longer than he thought was just unfortunate (even though scope never changed and there were no surprises). He did offer to halve the cost overrun with us, but even that would have significantly exceeded our budget.

We made the decision at that point to finish as much of the remaining electrical work as we could ourselves and use John on a consulting basis only. During the pricing phase we made VERY clear to John that we needed a number we could hang our hat on for the estimate and we spent time with him clearly laying out the plan and looking at existing wiring. We went with John even though he was not the cheapest because we really felt like he had spent time to understand the job and was confident in his number. Being a bit off the estimate would have been one thing, projecting to come in more than 50% over ($7000 more) is quite another. We had four different electrical estimates that were very close to (and in one case significantly less than) what John had estimated so the overrun was a big surprise. This was a major remodel and we worked with multiple contractors and had various issues throughout the project, but the electrician is the only trade where I wished we had picked someone else.

Once we informed John that we were not going to use his services for the second story rough-in and finish and that we would complete ourselves, his attitude shifted to being very defensive (bordering on rude) and less cooperative. We discovered several issues with his work subsequent to this including: 
- AC and furnace not connected at panel. Once the project was complete and John had finished and had the panel inspected we found that he had forgotten to reconnect both the AC and furnace wiring runs inside the panel. The wires at the existing AC and furnace were not powered or connected to anything 
? wires were loose in the attic and could not be put back in panel without redoing all the drywall we had just replaced. John?s solution was to add a separate breaker for the AC outside the house at the main service and to have us rewire an outlet near the furnace to hardwire it in place.
- John?s labeling of the service panel he wired was vague and inaccurate (e.g. he labeled one double breaker ?AC? but in reality it was a plug in the kitchen and an empty breaker and the AC wire had been forgotten in the attic)
- When the county inspector came out he commented on a couple of code issues and less than ideal workmanship that John had overlooked in his wiring layouts and advice. Namely a) that bathroom vanities require an outlet for each sink, not just each vanity (John had allowed for one outlet instead of two for double-vanities) b) that John had stripped back the wire covering too far on boxes that he had roughed-in downstairs (we had to redo this wiring) c) that the number of outlets John had mapped out was insufficient. This was particularly annoying as we had researched code and told John at the outset that we thought code required one outlet every 12 feet along the walls and John had told us we were wrong and that there was a different rule related to diagonal distance. Turns out John was wrong and working from a rule-of-thumb, not actual code. d) that the way John had bundled wires into the service panel was ?not the ideal? but would pass inspection.  

In general we felt that John handled the cost overrun issue very poorly and chose to get defensive rather than trying to understand our position and work with us. We were also subsequently disappointed that the work he did was not of the exceptional standard we had expected based on his apparent attention to detail and lots of other positive reviews on Angies List.

I would definitely NOT hire John again because of how hard it was to work with him collaboratively when we took over finishing the job, his significant errors in not reconnecting our furnace and AC (i.e. not counting how many wires he disconnected and making sure he reconnected the same number!), and lack of knowledge of code. John appears thorough ? but in hindsight I think he is just slow (and hence costly) and his work is not more rigorous or tidy than any other electrician out there.   If someone were to hire him, I would STRONGLY recommend putting a cap on any time and materials contract or going with fixed fee and I would hire him for smaller very well defined scopes only. As I said ? when things were going well, John was very friendly and gave the impression of competence. It was only when we asked him to stop work that dealing with him was more difficult and when we started doing electrical ourselves that we uncovered his errors.

In response to John's comments and in our defense, we will say that we had no comparable problems with any other contractor that we were managing for the project and that multiple other contractors we worked with commented that John's attitude and price over-run was indefensible. We certainly concede to being tough customers with very high quality standards and expectations from people we deal with, but we are fair and we have tried to be as balanced as possible in our posted review.

this was not a major project. It was however a thorn in our sides. John examined the light fixture in question discovered the contacts were broken

 and recommended we purchase a new fixture to install.

He returned my call the second day after I left him a message. A estimation was scheduled the next day and a repair was done the next week.

This is the second time John has done work at my home.  He is a true professional.  John is efficient and charges a fair price.

Good!

He was very good. The service people from where I bought my stove had told me there were problems with the wiring in my house and that they couldn't install my cook top. I had Halcyone come out to look into it and he found no problems. He was able to look at the directions on how to install it and get it put in properly. He came quickly since I was going to leave town, the price was reasonable, and I really appreciated him being so thorough. I had no complaints.

I called on Monday, August 29th and made arrangements for John to do the work on Friday, September 2nd.  He was on time and quickly began the work.  At one point he let me know that the "cap" that goes against the ceiling on the new fixture was not the same size as the previous one and asked if I wanted him to proceed.  We discussed alternatives and I went ahead with the installation. 

John then moved to the outside of my home and removed the exterior lighting on either side of my garage and installed new lighting fixtures I had previously purchased.

The overall experience was very satisfying.  Not only is he efficient and knowledgeable (38 yrs as an electrician), but a warm, polite and courteous individual.  The work was completed in the estimated time.  I plan on having him back to change out additional lighting fixtures and to do anything else that is needed in the future.