My designer recommend Spanco for my kitchen renovation. Some work done well but one contractor kept showing up late with a hangover on a consistent basis. The electrician who re wired the pot lights and added other lighting was not licensed, which we found out later. His work caused the lights to short out and caused an electrical arch in the switch bank. Smoked poured out of one lighting fixture and melted the wires. The gang box was too shallow, all the wiring in the box was improper and some wires not properly grounded. We were lucky this wiring did not cause a fire in our house. Shocking to find out the guy who did electrical was not licensed but was told he was a certified electrician.
- Approximate cost of services:
- $15,000.00
- Company Response
Span-Co finished a well designed remodel of a north Rosedale home in 2000. Approximately 8 – 9 years later we received a phone call explaining how the switching or lights were shorting out. The home owner had two electricians in her home performing corrective work. When briefly speaking to one of the electricians by phone, he refused to disclose their hourly rates or any details regarding their work. The bill amount seemed excessively high for the work we were told was performed. The home owner expected us to pay the full bill which was thousands of dollars more then the original electrical work ever costed. Because I had no opportunity to send our own master electrician to access the situation or even given the opportunity to review the bill, we were left in a difficult situation. I discussed this with the designer and we both decided to compensate the home owner. Span-Co refunded the original electrical work. I thought this was a fair and proper way to respond 8 years after working on the project.
In regards to having a tradesman late and hung over, unfortunately we never received any complaint from the client or designer. Reading this post 10 years later is the first we heard about it. If we had known that one of our tradesmen was hungover and arriving late we would have acted accordingly.
All in all we had a good project and enjoyed working with the designer and home owner. I felt that refunding the original electrical portion was very fair. I also feel that the electricians doing the work were excessive in their invoicing. By not paying the electrical invoice in full I have an upset client that has posted this story. It is unfortunate that we could not satisfy this customer but I do feel we went above and beyond what would be expected.
In our past 35 – 40 years of operating we do have thousands of happily satisfied customers hundreds of whom have personally written letters of thanks. I would gladly share this with anyone that would like to read them .I enquired about posting them up on the site but home stars does not allow personal handwritten reviews that were given to the contractor.Clayton.
President Span-Co General Contracting.