CT Electric is an electrical contractor in Colorado with office in Durango and Pagosa Springs. They…read morewere the electrical subcontractor on the home I purchased. Based on the poor work performed by CT Electric as well as the seeming lack of ready concern for issues brought to their attention, I caution against using them. CT Electric gets a failing grade on all counts. Evidence suggests that CT Electric is a contractor more focused on getting work than finding, training and retaining truly competent help. Stay away from them.
The reality is that contractors, especially those in rural areas with limited pool of qualified labor, to keep work coming in, they can and do hire those who otherwise lack requisite skills. That being said, there is still no excuse for the errors, omissions and workmanship defects the result of CT Electric.
Defects by the electrician suggest inattention, lack of skill and professional competence. The issues:
1. Almost all of the screw shells (light sockets) in ceiling cans were not clipped to the cone insert - leaving light bulbs loose and dangling a simple fix only a moron would miss;
2. electrical boxes set up to a half inch behind the drywall;
3. loose, crooked, miss-aligned boxes;
4. outlets and switches with barely hand-tight connections;
5. rats-nest of co-mingled wires instead of separating hot, neutral and ground wires;
6. stripped threads in boxes (fiberglass ones especially) so that the outlets and/or switches could not be correctly secured - basically held in place by the outlet or switch plate;
7. no spacers or proper length securement bolts where boxes were recessed too far; inadequate wire length in boxes especially grounds;
8. switches and outlets being held in place by the outlet or switch cover instead of being snug to the box;
9. Placing two wires on a single switch pole connection ( bolt or screw) - clearly a violation of the NEC (National Electrical Code);
10. communication cables dropped into walls but none were connected to the wall plate;
11. installed a switch upside-down (switches and outlets are no-name Made-in-China);
12. installed a 3-way switch where a single-pole was correct;
13. in one case the electrician dropped communication cables into the wall but failed to install a frame or box. As a result, the room had no visible comm. connections.
14. The hard-wired doorbell wire had shorted but rather than run new wire, they Gerry-rigged with a battery-powered doorbell;
15. GFIC installed in the kitchen despite that the circuit breaker is a combination GFIC/arc-fault;
CT Electric sent two purported electricians to my house to fix screw-ups from the prior CT Electric electrician (that should have ever passed internal inspection). They suggested to me that that "'electrician" was let go - presumably because of his awful work but that does not change that CT Electric had thoughtlessly sent him to experiment on my house. I had been changing-out the outlets and switches and had fixed many of the electrical issues. The kid noticed the bucket of switches and outlet and I mentioned that they were no-name Chinese. He looked as switch of a moment then brightly offered: "Here's who made it, UL." No UL stands for Underwriters Laboratories, they don't make things, they test them. And this guy is a budding electrician? I would imagine that being cheap stuff from China, it may be stamped "UL" suggesting UL approval but I would not put money on that. When I spoke with the Pagosa Springs manager and mentioned how there were 4 communication cable bundles but only 3 outlets on the walls, he immediately came-up with some fiction about the 4th one was for an outside connection. Not so and a sign of quick on excuses and slow on action. A similar conversation occurred when I phoned the Durango office to let them know that the Pagosa Springs office was slow to get back to me. I mentioned the dangling light bulbs in the ceiling cans (careful to fully explain what I had found). Another genius quick with excuses; he said something like "That's how they come from the manufacturer, we can't do anything about that." When I noted to the general contractor that CT Electric has installed a random mix of (probably left-over) fiberglass, metal and plastic boxes in the house, after conferring with CT Electric he brightly offered that the mix was required by code. Sorry buddy, nope. I wrote to the company owner to advise of issues and suggested that he may have professional liability for sending hacks to do the work of professionals. I gave him a couple for weeks to respond, heard nothing so phoned. Yep, he got my letter he said. That was it; no apology, no promise to do better; nothing. Unfortunately, this contractor and others have been tricked into thinking that they provide a sound product. From lack of code enforcement to that tricky labor pool of pretenders and dabblers, they get away with providing junk service.
