Homeowners Count On Sleuth Electrician -King County WA
Dead outlets at home? Lights gone out? Do you know which electrician King County homeowners have been calling for these disturbing problems?
I'm Larry, The Circuit Detective. Finding and fixing these circuit malfunctions is all I've been doing since 1997. All my experience in the trade since 1977 and in business as an electrical contractor since 1982, should help you know who to trust ... and to call. Details on what I do. About me.
$ Not an Arm and a Leg $
My average job runs less than $100 because it only takes me 40 minutes. And I'm not there to sell you upgrades you don't need, just to get things back working. My rate includes a trip charge that varies by your location (see Eastside). To this we add $1.00 per minute for the work I do at your home.
How to Reach Me & When I Can Come
If you call my cellphone, 425-333-4400, on Mon-Sat 7am-9pm, you are most likely to reach me in person. Usually I can come within a day or two of your call. Normally my appointments fall between 9am and 4pm Mon-Fri.
Could You Do It Yourself?
Are you wondering if the solution may turn out to be something very simple? Or would you like to gain more expertise yourself? Homeowners around the country have been amazed at all the info and tips I've put on My troubleshooting website.
Troubleshooting Stories Around the County
In the Lake Alice area. No one likes the thought of a short circuit happening in the wall, where you can't see it or get to it. This problem was close to that. The man of the house had already looked in some electrical boxes of the circuit. But then he told me that one time the breaker didn't trip till his wife turned on the front lights. By undoing certain wires at these lights, I narrowed the short down to the light by the front door...OR the wire in the wall from the switch inside out to this light. Actually, the wires behind the light came directly out of the siding, but I knew from a missing ground wire that there was a box (or at least a splice) behind the siding. I'm not a carpenter, but I pulled two boards off as carefully as I could. There was a metal box! And there were a few suspicious long sheathing nails near the path the cable was running in the wall. It turned out after exhonerating the nails, that the short was not in the wall but at the light's box. The electrical contractor who had run the cable into that box had tightened the clamp to hold the cable so tightly it began to short these several years later. I was able to repair the wire and get the siding back on pretty well (for an electrician, King County).
Out in Preston. I learned something new about vintage light fixtures when I was called to an old mansion. The lady reported that one particular circuit was tripped and wouldn't go back on. Sure enough, a short of some kind. Now, many people apologize to me for the mess their house is in, thinking that I care. If anything, clutter adds to the challenge, although I do prefer electrical challenges. This lady was apologizing too. She had a lot of stuff around. But as I was getting acquainted with the problem circuit, I saw a closed door that she seemed to be shying me away from. "What's in there", I said. "Oh, you don't want to go in there", she said. I managed to convince her that I needed to and that I didn't care what it looked like. In I went. I truly don't remember it being that bad. What I did notice, however, was that, like the other bedrooms I had looked at, this one had a heavy and ornate old chandelier. On the "arms" of this one, though, she had hung a lot of clothes, using wire-type hangers. Ordinarily that would not be noteworthy, but these fixtures had the two wires for each bulb running along the top of each arm, not inside the arms (solid brass, not hollow). As I looked closely, I did see that one of these fixture wires was worn bare against the metal because of a hanger. But this house is so old, I thought, the metal won't be grounded, so how could a short occur? My answer was on another arm of the chandelier, where another wire (of the opposite polarity, I gathered) was also held bare against the metal. So this was a hot-to-neutral short through the metal of the fixture. I don't remember how I repaired this, but I had a little talk with my customer about where she was going to hang her clothes from now on.
