Thursday, February 21, 2008

Electricians

First, today is Jessica's birthday. Happy birthday, wife!

After the home inspection, we learned that the wiring in the house is, predictably, outdated and obsolete. We want to get the worst of this taken care of immediately by upgrading/ consolidating our breaker panels and upgrading some outlets to grounded and, in some cases, GCFI-protected circuits.

I didn't have any electricians recommended to me, so I just flipped through the Yellow Pages and emerged with these: Mr. Electric, PRO Electric, and Foster Electric. For Mr. Electric and Foster, I visited their websites and investigated them for grammatical and spelling errors; things looked good. All three are "licensed, bonded, and insured" and the last two are BBB members, so I figured I couldn't easily go wrong. Then, in a manner not unlike that of an air traffic controller, I set about carefully orchestrating consecutive, non-overlapping appointments with three different electricians to give me (free) estimates on the work we want done.

I also set up an inspection by our homeowner's insurance agent. They have to check out the ancient wiring before we can get an insurance policy on it. If this sounds paradoxical given the preceding paragraphs, that's because it is. I suppose it will be something like...
Agent: "Yes, the condition of this wiring is acceptable to our underwriters; we'll insure the house."
Us: "Thanks! ...Now, let's call Mr. Electric and get this old wiring replaced!"

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