J T L & Son Limited

I sought 3 quotes in December 2006 to remove/replace the knob&tube wiring in my 800 sq. foot 1920's era 2 story house w/basement. I received quotes from 2 highly regarded electrical contractors from this site. One offered me the "Gold medal" service at higher price point and the other offered me a "Bronze medal" service at a very reasonable and low price. I am confident that either Gold/Bronze could have done the job on time and on budget. But I was not satisfied - the "Gold" would have done more drywall/plaster damage, been too expensive and taken longer than I cared to wait. And the "Bronze" just seemed too good to be true - the contractor seemed too over confident with the scope of the work and low quote(though that may just come with the territory). I called Jim from JTL Electrical out of the yellow pages. He came and walked through the whole house room by room, floor by floor, making notes on his PDA. We shared some ideas and recommendations. Jim took his notes back to his office and - after careful consideration of the job - came back with a quote a day or two later. His quote fell in the middle - about $1000 above the "Bronze" service and half the price of the "Gold". Jim's crew consisted of his son and one apprentice - all 3 were on site for about 85% of the duration of the job. Sometimes Jim or his son would leave to work on another job but it never jeaporadized my job. They started at about 8AM on a Monday and wrapped up Friday afternoon the same week. The work was performed competently, professionally and cost effectively. Jim created the absolute minimum amount of damage to the drywall and plaster. (When I had the drywaller come in after to repair the damage, he was shocked at how little work there was to do considering the scope of the rewiring job). Instead of moving the electrical outlets out of the baseboards and up into the drywall (creating more damage to walls/costs), he left them in the same place but with new/proper wiring. Jim even squeezed underneath the kitchen extension to perform the necessary rewiring rather than making holes in the kitchen walls. It would have been far easier and safer for him to just cut holes in the walls rather than crawling around outside/underneath the extension - especially on a cold December day. But he has a customer's mindset and knew that his extra work would save me time and money in repairs later. Same thing in the attic where he worked diligently to do as much wiring as he could without impacting the walls. As he was doing all the wiring, Jim offered (at no extra cost) to install any and all light fixtures that I purchased. This was a huge benefit for me. It would have been so time consuming and expensive to install new lights afterwards. My breaker panel was outdated but rather than replace it (a costly solution offered by the 2 other quoters), he offered a creative workaround that resulted in him installing a separate small additional GFCI panel to control the bedroom outlets/lights. Rewiring creates a mess - Jim and crew were very diligent about cleaning up after each days work. He even bought me lunch the one day that I stayed at home while they worked! When it came time to total up the final bill, it came to slightly below the initial estimate. Jim also arranged for the Electrical Safety Authourity to inspect the work and to issue a certificate of approval. (This is standard procedure - though I think some contractors can also self-certify the work on behalf of ESA). I don't think that Jim took any "shortcuts" to completing my job in such a fast time and such a good price. He has a lot of experience and some creative workarounds (and low overheads) that can save time and money. This was not an easy job at all. Jim and crew worked really hard and really long hours and earned all of their money.
I would never hesitate to use Jim again or to recommend his services to anyone. Jim and crew were all nice and pleasant. Knob and tube wiring replacement is such a common and expensive job that it makes sense to get 3 quotes. Consider adding JTL to the mix and compare their quotes and references.