I have now used Manuel of California Power Electric to redo almost every electrical connection and…read moredevice in my home and on my back patio. He has completely rewired my home, installing new switches, fixtures and outlets, as well as fixing some other non-electrical items. He is very knowledgeable and experienced, as well as being a nice guy who will work with you on cost.
My good friends and neighbors had recommended him to me after I had already gone through about a half dozen high-priced and usually unavailable Valley electricians. I could not find someone who could do the jobs I had in mind at a reasonable price and within my time-frame. And then Manuel appeared, like a knight on a white horse, and proceeded to revamp my home's woefully out of date electric wiring system in a reliable and cost-effective way.
He does not use an assistant, saying that it would take him longer to train someone to do the job right than it would take him to do everything himself. As a result, since he is quite meticulous, he does take longer to complete a task than someone else with a helper. But, on the plus side, you are also not paying for an assistant and you are probably getting a better result.
Do not be fooled by his calm, low-key demeanor, Manuel knows his stuff and will stick with a project until it is done correctly. His knowledge of LA's building code assures one that he will not produce mickey-mouse results that may need to be redone in a few years. He also works on a time and materials basis which worked out better for me and produced no surprises with the final bill. He is also very good at explaining what needs to be done and why, and what it will cost in time and materials.
For my project, he first redid my outdoor patio lights and outlets and then tackled the rest of the house which had been built in 1956. It had a crazy quilt of outdated wiring, not up to current code, in the attic, in the walls and in the crawl space under the house. There were also a number of potential fire hazards due to the old and sometimes frayed wiring.
Many different electricians had worked on the house in the past, but all they did was add to the mess instead of correcting it from the ground up. The electric panel in the garage was indecipherable and, as Manuel pointed out, it was not properly grounded so was a fire-hazard. To my surprise, it also turned out that many outlets and switches throughout the house, some of which were fairly new, also did not have neutral wires and so they were also dangerous.
After Manuel re-wired everything he added the extra breakers and corrected labels that were needed for the panel to pass code and be understandable to the next person.
Prior to Manuel's arrival, I had recently had my kitchen renovated over a period of many, many months, with new appliances, countertops and cabinets. However, I was unhappy with the contractor's kamikaze electrical crew which showed up one day with about a dozen guys and redid all the kitchen's electrical fixtures, switches and outlets in a whirlwind of activity in a very confusing and seemingly haphazard way.
I later discovered that they had made a lot of mistakes and had taken many shortcuts, like not replacing the old, outdated wiring when they installed new switches and outlets, apparently to cut their costs (while still charging me full price.) Luckily, Manuel was eventually able to correct all of their mistakes and bring everything up to code.
He was also very clever in figuring out ways to rewire things that seemed impossible to a layman. He was constantly crawling around in my steaming hot attic or under the house in the impossibly tight crawlspace with no complaints afterward, only a sweaty smile on his face while saying that the job was done. Besides his electrical skills, as a bonus, he is well-versed in many other trades and also did some painting, plastering and carpentry work that needed to be done around my house.
So, overall, I could not recommend Manuel and California Power Electric more highly. He deserves even more than five stars for a job well done above and beyond normal standards. You will not be disappointed if you hire him. I certainly wasn't.
