DOWLING & ARRIGALE

Arrigale came recommended from a friend who had used him for years. When he arrived I was pleasantly pleased that he came with both a clipboard and a flashlight. Before listening to our list of things we wanted done he wanted to see the breaker box. He said we needed a new one which was a surprise since we had had 3 others (inspector and electricians) to see it and none of them said anything of the sort. So, when I asked why he only provided a one word answer: "overloaded". Then he wanted to see the meter box on the side of the house and same answer, but this time the word was "old". In neither case, even when pressed, he would not justify his reasons why, indeed he acted arrogant and put-off that I was questioning his expertise. When I asked him for an approximate estimate for those two he said "I don't do ballpark figures", and when I then asked him to itemize them so I could decide if I wanted them included or not he also refused. I'm leaving out details, but sufficed to say he wound up storming out muttering that he didn't want to do business with us. It was actually hands-down the most negative experience I've ever had with a contractor and it ruined my weekend. His loss, and I'm glad to see another similar negative report here.

A very negative experience. The owner has been an electrician for years and had rewired (3) of my coworkers homes. He however did not want to read our plans or our list of items to be worked on. The list of work he sent to us removed entire rooms from being worked on, added rooms that did not exist and added work that we did not need done. When we repeatedly corrected these items, he refused to address them and said we were being difficult and that he could not work with us. His refusal to read anything we sent made us difficult. We see his refusal to work with us as a blessing in disguise. When I found out from others that they had found him arrogant and difficult to deal with, it made us glad that we did not continue with his services.

Larry Arrigale was the second electrician we called to check this problem out. The first electricians suggested we add dedicated circuits for my aquarium and for each room up stairs and to install a 100 amp service panel. This was going to cost around $3000. We called Larry Arrigale and he came out with two technicians and tested the outlets and did something that the other guys didn't: take apart the main breaker panel. He found that the main wires from the power lines were loose and he tightened them up. He also replaced one of our light bulb sockets that was broken at no charge. He figured that the tightening of the wires would resolve the problems we described and he was right. So we saved $3000 and weeks worth of having our house torn apart because the other electricians were too lazy to look in the main breaker box for a very simple problem. Larry was an old-school straight shooter that flat out said that even if our wiring was bad we didn't need a 100 amp service installed.