Will

Sadly, what had seemed like a great experience turned into a negative one. The initial work went well, a bit messier than I’d have liked but hey re-wiring an old house without ripping down every wire is challenging. Everything was in and working except for a complicated wiring situation in the hall that prevented my preferred solution from being used, but otherwise Eugene went above and beyond. Everything was going perfectly until….. my tenant moved in and a breaker kept tripping. I’d noticed it once before; just though hm power surge, power failure, breaker tripped no big problem that’s why we have breakers. Tenant reset the breaker. Everything worked. Then I was up in the apartment going through some final finishing touches with the carpenter and the breaker tripped again. I reset it and the panel sparked/arced, and the lights didn’t come back on. I turned the breaker off and called Eugene. No response. Called the next day. No response. Emailed. “Sorry, sold the company, I’m back in the union, I’m moving I can’t help you” so I was forced to pay another electrician to come in and repair the issue, which was that ‘side cutters’ had apparently been used on the conduit that contained the wires, and a sharp edge plus a burr of some sort on the sleeve the wiring runs through to enter the box (protecting against fraying etc) had penetrated the insulation. That, plus a ‘phase issue’ - I now understand why the panel itself had been electrified at one point (done by his unlicensed apprentice at the time) but was told no it wasn’t electrified I must have been confused. Anyways issue resolved, everything seems to be working fine now, but it’s unfortunate. Good thing I still have the text messages identifying it as a problem prior to any new work being done on the house by any other licensed electrical contractors.

Eugene is a good guy; talks a mile a minute, funny, good at what he does and offered competitive pricing. This understandably left him very busy, which meant his apprentice was left to do much of the work. Fine, he seemed pretty good at what he was doing, everything got done roughly on time and on budget and Eugene handled (paid, of course) add ons easily as long as we accommodated budget-wise and in terms of timing. However there was a moment where I got zapped by a secondary panel on the top floor that had been wired by the apprentice. I was treated like I was crazy (I’d used my multimeter and tested it and it was live) but the issue seemed resolved. Fast forward 8 months and a breaker keeps tripping - it only feeds four LED light fixtures so it wasn’t a load issue. Then when reset the breaker I now notice a spark or arcing each time (so I leave the breaker off) and reach out to Eugene. Oh sorry I sold the company and I’m moving and I can’t help you. So I call around and find another electrician, have to wait four days with my third floor having no lights in the stairs, closet, hall or bathroom until they come in. In one hour they diagnose that the apprentice cut the conduit incorrectly leading to compromised insulation and also a phase issue. Repair done, no more sparking/arcing, done and done.