In the summer of last year(2022) we had a large branch fall on the electric line coming from the…read morestreet pole to our home. The line tore the heavy steel riser from the house and broke part of the meter box. Although the electricity didn't go out, the electric company was forced to disconnect us as having a live wire laying across the yard was dangerous.
Cue our call to Cunningham. They sent an electrician out(we were charged for the time it took said electrician to drive here which I thought was extremely unprofessional but that's not the point of this review). The gentleman proceeded to reattach the heavy metal riser to our home. Seeing as I'm not an electrician, I believed all to be fixed even though he told me I needed to silicone the holes left by the initial damage myself(found out later that this is something most other companies do themselves as a courtesy)
Fast forward six months to 2 am during a mild wind storm and, lo and behold, the line pulls the riser off the house again, but this time tears out a bunch of siding, the meter box, and leaves us without electricity in the middle of winter.
Upon inspection, there was no debris or anything else that could have caused the line to pull everything off the house like this. I was immediately suspicious as we live near a lake and medium to high winds are a pretty common occurrence here and lines would be falling every other day if a storm like that could have caused it. In short, there was no way that wind should have been able to cause the damage that I was seeing. Again, I'm not an electrician so I didn't want to jump to conclusions, but I was highly suspicious that something was not on the up and up.
I had my wife call Bill the next day to come out and check to see if something had gone wrong with the initial repair. His answer was to give her the "mansplaining" version of some condescending BS about "storms cause damage" and there was nothing he could do short of charging us for another repair.
I called back a bit later and his tune completely changed(Im a guy). He wanted to "send his guys out to check and we'd talk after". The same guy that performed the initial repair came and his first words were an off-color joke about how unlucky we were. I immediately bristled at such unprofessionalism and proceeded to question him candidly about the quality of his work.
He, in turn, began to BLAME ME for the shoddy repairs. He asserted that he had told me to have the electric company install a ring on the house that provides extra support(found out later that the company doesn't do this and never has) and begins to accuse me of moving a branch or other debris that caused the damage. Then, he changes his story to "the line length from the pole to the house is too long and that's what caused it". Needless to say, I told him he wouldn't be working on my home again, sent him on his way, and I called a different company to come out and fix the damage correctly.
This company was able to shine a light on the situation for me, a layman, so I could understand the truth of the matter. The guy who performed the initial repair had screwed the extremely heavy(50-80lbs) riser into nothing but the particle board under the siding, not one screw was in a stud, explaining why mild wind was able to tear everything away like it did. Not only that, but the ring he had accused me of not having installed by the electric company(again not even an option nor had it ever been) was something he should have installed.
The new company installed cross braces, and the aforementioned ring, replaced the heavy riser with a lightweight plastic one, and secured the meter box to the house(all of which the Cunningham guy should have done if work quality was a priority for them). We had that blizzard at the end of December with extremely high winds and the new repairs held up just fine.
That's not the end of the story though. I had to pay out of pocket(~350$) for the first repair and 1000$ deductible for the second, as well as spend an entire day in the middle of winter without power because Cunningham performed a terrible repair job. I emailed Bill and gave him the opportunity to do the right thing and reimburse me for both repairs but he has gone radio silent, forcing me to initiate a complaint with the BBB which will hopefully resolve the matter. If not, I fully intend on initiating a small claims case against them.
DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY. They will perform sub-standard work and then try to gaslight the homeowner to make them think it is their fault. There are other, more professional, and skilled Electricians who do honest work in the Kalkaska area. Use them!
