Very sad to leave this review. My request was to 1) replace a lighting fixture in the bathroom 2) troubleshoot the exhaust fan 3) to put in a microwave outlet over the range in the kitchen. He quoted me $285 for the work.
I chatted with Brian on the phone and he was very personable, straight-forward, and seemed to know what the job entailed. He said he needed to make an initial appointment to assess what tools he would need (for which he wanted $100) and then another appointment would be made a few days later (for which he wanted $185).
He came for the initial appointment, and during the second appointment - he installed an outlet for the microwave by putting a wall outlet BELOW the cabinets in the kitchen. I was not there to supervise his work, and intuition tells me that the previous ones I've seen are INSIDE the cabinet. When I was sent the photo of his work, I thought that didn't seem correct, but I assumed that he was the professional and knew what he was doing.
After this second appointment, he asked me which light fixture in the bathroom needed to be changed and said he needed a ladder for the bathroom light fixture and had to make a third appointment to install it. He also said it would be an addition $75 for the exhaust fan. I'm not sure why these issues were not brought up after the first visit.
For the third appointment, we had scheduled him and when the day came, he said he had a different day on his calendar, which did not work for us, so we had to schedule another day. During this time, a contractor saw his electrical work and said the microwave outlet was WRONG. To verify I sent the photo of the microwave outlet to an appliance installer and he said it was extremely wrong and that any professional electrician should know that the outlet goes INSIDE the cabinet. The contractor quoted me $325 to fix Brian's work.
My husband called Brian to tell him to not come for the third appointment, since we felt like we no longer trusted his work. To his credit, he said he would come and fix the microwave outlet and rectify his mistake, but my husband and I told him we were concerned that he did it so wrong the first time. We didn't want him to do any further work. My husband requested a refund and said we would post a 1 star review if we were not refunded. Brian blamed the mistake on the fact that we were not there to supervise his work (my tenant / friend let him in). Brian said he did not appreciate the threat, was very short with my husband and hung up the phone on him.
This is not written to be vindictive or to cheat someone out of money. Far from it. The job was done incorrectly. He was not prepared to complete the job within two visits as first quoted. He did not clarify the appropriate questions after the first visit and wasted his time and ours by having to schedule a third appointment. He did not own his accountability in his mistake and was not willing to be an honest businessperson and refund a dissatisfied customer in a job that was done extremely wrong.
I hadn't previously googled "over the range microwave outlet" before hiring Brian. I didn't assume that hiring a professional would require me to Google and send the professional a diagram of exactly what to do, but I found zero images of microwave outlets that were what Brian did.
I wanted to work with Brian due to his positive reviews and positive record of work, but this was a very negative experience. I'm currently working with a number of contractors who do not have these issues of incomplete, wrong work, lack of preparedness, and lack of courteousness. It makes me very sad to write this review, but the fact is this job was handled very poorly. read more
