Frequently asked questions

The City of Buffalo and the surrounding towns and villages of Erie and Niagara counties within roughly 25 miles of downtown - including Amherst, Cheektowaga, the Town and City of Tonawanda, North Tonawanda, Kenmore, Williamsville, West Seneca, Lackawanna, Orchard Park, Hamburg, Depew, Lancaster, Grand Island and Niagara Falls. If you are near the edge of that area, call and ask. We do not maintain a walk-in office; the phone line and the web form are the ways to reach us, and every job starts with a visit to the house.

Call or send the form with a short description of the problem or project. We set up a free on-site visit, look at the panel, the service and the work in question, and give you a written scope and price. There is no charge for the visit and no obligation to proceed. Quotes are itemized so you can see what is required by code, what is recommended, and what is optional, and staged projects like rewiring are broken into phases you can schedule as budget allows.

Yes. Buffalo's two-family homes are a large part of the work - separating tenant circuits, adding house panels for common loads, detector circuits and rental-inspection corrections. We also work on small multi-unit buildings and mixed-use buildings with apartments above storefronts. For two-family homes in particular, we start by mapping which panel and meter feed each circuit, because in older Buffalo doubles the answer is frequently not what the labels say.

A panel replacement swaps the breaker box and usually keeps the same amperage. A service upgrade increases the capacity coming into the house - typically from 60 or 100 amps to 200 - and involves the entrance cable, meter socket, grounding and a new panel. Many Buffalo jobs are both at once, because the old panel is undersized and worn. The utility is involved only in the service upgrade, which is why it takes more coordination and why the power is off longer.

A GFCI (ground-fault circuit interrupter) trips when current leaks to ground, protecting people from shock; it is required in kitchens, bathrooms, basements, garages, laundry areas and outdoors. An AFCI (arc-fault circuit interrupter) detects the arcing that precedes an electrical fire and is required for most living-area circuits under the 2023 NEC. Older homes have neither, and both are added when circuits are rewired or a panel is replaced. Both can be provided at the breaker or at the first device on the circuit, and we choose based on the panel and the wiring in the house.

Yes. Federal Pacific Electric Stab-Lok and Zinsco panels have documented histories of breakers that fail to trip. The brand is usually on the label inside the door. If you send us a photo we can often tell you over the phone, and we confirm it during the assessment. A flagged panel does not have to be replaced the same week, but it should be replaced, and it is a common reason an insurer or a buyer's inspector asks for an electrician's evaluation.

We do. Permits for electrical work in Buffalo and the surrounding municipalities are pulled by the contractor, and the work is inspected by an approved electrical inspection agency. We schedule the inspection, meet the inspector and provide you the sign-off documentation. Permit fees are listed as a line in the quote. Work that is done without a permit in New York can create problems at sale and with insurance claims, so we do not skip it even when asked.

For service upgrades, meter socket work and storm damage to the service entrance, yes - the utility disconnects and reconnects at the drop, and will not reconnect a new service without an inspection sign-off. We coordinate that. For panel-only work, new circuits, rewiring, chargers and most generator installs, the utility is not involved. Where the utility is involved, we schedule the disconnect for the morning of the job so the house is not without power any longer than the work requires.

Less than most people expect. Cable is fished through existing walls from the basement and attic, with small openings at devices and turns that are patched afterward. Work is staged so the house has power each night, and each stage is inspected. Plaster walls get extra care because repairs are harder to match than drywall. Furniture is moved away from the walls being worked on, floors are covered, and we clean up each day. The dust from cutting plaster is the part most homeowners notice, and we contain it as much as the layout allows.

Treat them as a symptom. A room that needs a power strip in every corner needs more receptacles or another circuit. Adding outlets to an existing circuit, or running a new circuit, is a routine job and removes a common cause of overheated cords under rugs and behind furniture. The code now requires receptacles so that no point along a living-room wall is more than six feet from one, which is a good benchmark for how many an older room is missing.

Yes. Fixture and fan installation, including adding a box rated for a fan where a light was, is everyday work. Smart switches and thermostats often need a neutral conductor at the box that older wiring lacks, and we can add one or recommend devices that work without it. Exterior fixtures, doorbell transformers for video doorbells, under-cabinet lighting and recessed lights in insulated ceilings all fall into the same category of small, common jobs.

Bring it. We will look at the house and tell you whether the proposed scope makes sense, whether anything is missing or unnecessary, and what we would do differently. The visit is free and you are under no obligation to hire us. We will not undercut a quote for work that does not need doing, and we will say so if the other contractor's scope is right.