Silverback Electric

I've used Aaron and Silverback electric 3 times now. The first time Aaron quoted on a job of adding a secondary panel to our garage with 100amps. He came in on our agreed budget and the guys were great doing the work. I thought I'd found my new electricians for all future updates and was excited to be able to depend on them.

The second time he sent one of the guys who had done the first job and I wasn't impressed - the bill came to a lot higher than it should have for the scope of work considering I provided all the lighting. Andrew answered 4 personal phone calls while on the job as well as chatting with us a great deal - which I didn't comment on during but in hindsight I should have said something since I clearly was charged for his personal time. I was also charged for a voltmeter he seemed to have gone off to buy (shouldn't he have one already? I shouldn't be paying for tools that an electrician is meant to have)

I figured I'd give them another shot so I called Aaron when we wanted our sump pump electrical moved. He said that he could send someone by in a few hours because he'd be in the area. Sean showed up and called Aaron because he hadn't done much work on sump pumps (odd that he sent him over). He was at our place for 15 minutes (of which a third of the time was spent on the phone to Aaron asking for advice), . He pushed the reset button. That was it. When I got the bill it was $157! For 15 minutes. When asked, I was told that this is their minimum callout charge and that Aaron needed to pay his electirican for drive time. At no point did Aaron mention this and I had never been charged this on the other 2 times he had come to do work for me or quote on work. He told me he had to pay his guy for drive time - but he had originally told me that sean was already in the area. If I had been told up front about this charge I would have used the minimum 2 hours to deal with other electrical issues.

This has left a pretty bitter taste and I won't be giving his company any more of my business. We have a lot of renovating we're doing and wanted a good electrician we could trust but to be nickeled and dimed when we've worked with them several time before is disappointing. I strongly recommend establishing costs up front if you're going to use Silverback Electric, otherwise you might get a surprise bill like I did, twice.