Electrical
Breakers that will not stay on,
outlets that quit.
Tell us what the house is doing. A breaker that trips every night, a dead outlet, lights that dim when the air conditioner starts, a panel with no room left. We handle the electrical side of the house, and the heating, cooling, and plumbing too.
What we get called for
Electrical trouble tells on itself early.
It usually shows up as something small and annoying long before it turns dangerous. An outlet quits. A light flickers. A breaker trips whenever the microwave and the toaster run together. All of it is worth a call.
Breakers that keep tripping
Circuits that trip once in a while, trip under one specific load, or trip the second you reset them. We find the cause instead of swapping the breaker and hoping.
Dead outlets and switches
A receptacle with no power, a switch that does nothing, half a room out while the rest works. Often a tripped GFCI upstream, a failed device, or a loose connection in a box.
GFCI and AFCI protection
GFCI outlets for kitchens, baths, laundry, garages, basements, and outdoors. AFCI breakers that keep tripping, and whether it is the breaker or a real arcing fault.
Panel work and service upgrades
Adding circuits to a full panel, replacing a panel that is out of room or in poor shape, and raising service capacity when the house needs more than it has.
Lighting, fixtures, and ceiling fans
Recessed lighting, vanity and kitchen fixtures, under cabinet lighting, exterior and security lights, and ceiling fans, including boxes actually rated to carry a fan.
Dedicated circuits
Ranges, dryers, window units, sump pumps, freezers, garage tools, office equipment, and EV charger circuits run properly from the panel.
Breakers
A breaker that trips is a symptom, not the problem.
A breaker is a safety device. When it trips, it is telling you the circuit is carrying more current than the wire behind it is rated for, or that something on that circuit faulted. It did its job. A bigger breaker does not fix that. It removes the protection and lets the wire heat up instead, inside a wall where nobody can see it.
So the question is always what made it trip.
Overload. The common one. A 15 amp bedroom circuit that also feeds the hallway and part of a bath will trip the moment a space heater goes on. The fix is a circuit sized for the load, not a larger breaker.
A short or a ground fault. Trips instantly, and usually trips again the second you reset. Something is touching where it should not: a damaged cord, a nail driven through a cable during a remodel, a failed device in a box, water in an exterior fixture.
A worn breaker. One that has tripped hundreds of times can start letting go below its rating. That is a real answer, but we reach it after ruling out the load and the fault, not before.
When you call, tell us what is on the circuit and what was running when it tripped. That detail saves time.
Warning signs
Shut the breaker off and call.
Some electrical problems are inconvenient. These are the ones where you stop what you are doing and pick up the phone.
- A burning or hot plastic smell near an outlet, a switch, or the panel.
- An outlet or switch plate that feels warm to the touch.
- Scorch marks, browning, or melted plastic on a device, a plug, or a cover.
- Buzzing, sizzling, or crackling from a switch, an outlet, or the panel.
- Lights that dim or flicker across the whole house, not just one fixture.
- A breaker that trips again the instant you reset it.
- A plug that falls out of the outlet or only works if you hold it in place.
- Any shock or tingle from an appliance, a faucet, or a metal cover plate.
- Water in a panel, a fixture, or an outdoor receptacle.
If any of that is happening, shut the breaker for that circuit off. If you cannot tell which breaker it is, or the smell is at the panel itself, shut the main off. Do not keep using the circuit while you wait. Then call and ask how soon we can be out.
Panels and service
Why 100 amp service strains under a modern load
A lot of houses around here were wired for a home that ran a refrigerator, a furnace, some lights, and a television. The load today looks nothing like that: central air, an electric dryer, an induction range, a second refrigerator in the basement, a car charger, all pulling from one service.
100 amp service still works fine for plenty of homes. It strains once large fixed loads get added, and air conditioning and electric heat are the usual tipping points. The signs are clear: the main trips under summer load, lights dim hard every time the compressor starts, or you get told there is no capacity left for the circuit you want.
Space is a separate problem from capacity. A panel can be full of breakers long before the service is maxed out. Tandem breakers get used to squeeze more in, circuits get doubled up, and eventually there is nowhere to land a new one.
Panels wear out too. If yours sits next to an old fuse box, has a rusted cabinet, or has breakers that no longer clip in firmly, have it looked at.
We check the service size, what is landed on each circuit, the condition of the bus and connections, and how the system is grounded and bonded. Then we tell you whether the answer is a service upgrade, a subpanel, or a cleanup and a couple of new circuits. Often it is less work than people expect.
If a car charger, an electric range, or a hot tub is on your list, ask about the panel before you buy the equipment. It is a much easier conversation before the thing is sitting in your garage.
Older homes
Old wiring in older Chicago area housing
Bungalows, two flats, frame houses, postwar ranches. A lot of them have been wired more than once by more than one person. Three things come up over and over.
Knob and tube
Cloth covered conductors run through porcelain knobs and tubes, no ground, and insulation that turns brittle with age. It is often buried under blown in attic insulation it was never meant to be covered by. We can tell you what is still live and what to replace first.
Aluminum branch wiring
Common in homes wired in the late 1960s and 1970s. Aluminum moves more than copper with heat, so connections at outlets and switches loosen and warm up. It does not all have to come out. The accepted repair is the right connector at every device, done everywhere, not only where it got hot.
Ungrounded two prong outlets
No ground wire in the box, so nothing protects a computer, a television, or a surge strip. Swapping in three prong outlets and stopping there is the wrong move: the plug fits, but there is still no ground behind it. The fixes are running a ground or GFCI protection with proper labeling.
Old does not automatically mean unsafe. Plenty of old work was done well and is still fine. What matters is condition, how it has been modified since, and whether it now carries loads it was never sized for. We would rather tell you three circuits need attention than sell you a rewire you do not need.
One company, four trades
New heating, cooling, and water heaters usually mean electrical work
A new furnace, air conditioner, or water heater very often needs the electrical side touched. On most jobs that means a second company, a second appointment, and two contractors pointing at each other when something does not line up.
We do all four trades in house, so the electrical goes in with the equipment on the same job.
- A high efficiency furnace that needs a dedicated circuit and a proper disconnect.
- An air conditioner whose existing breaker and wire size no longer match the new equipment.
- An electric water heater that asks more of the service than the tank it replaced.
- Sump pumps and ejector pumps sharing a circuit they have no business sharing.
- A condensate pump or an air handler going in where there is no outlet nearby.
- Kitchen and bath remodels that need new circuits, GFCI protection, and lighting at once.
- EV charger circuits, which are big continuous loads and the fastest way to learn your panel is full.
If you are planning a remodel, the cheapest time to add circuits is while the walls are open. Tell us what is going in and where, and we run what the finished space needs.
Where we work
Electrical service across Chicago and the western suburbs
Questions we get
Straight answers
My breaker trips every time I run the space heater. Can you put in a bigger one?
No, and no electrician should. Breaker size is matched to the wire behind it. A bigger breaker lets that wire carry more current than it is rated for, inside walls where you will never see it overheat. The fix is a circuit sized for the heater, or moving that load to a circuit with room.
Half my outlets went dead but no breaker is tripped. What happened?
Usually a GFCI upstream tripped and it is protecting everything downstream. Check the bathrooms, garage, basement, kitchen counters, and outside for a receptacle with test and reset buttons, then press reset. If it will not reset, or trips right back, something on that circuit is faulting.
Do I need a panel upgrade, or just more circuits?
It comes down to capacity against space. If the service handles the load and the panel is just full, a subpanel or a cleanup gets you what you need. If the main trips under load or the demand calculation says the service is undersized, an upgrade is the honest answer.
My AFCI breaker keeps tripping. Is that normal?
AFCI breakers can trip on certain motors and older electronics, but do not accept that until the circuit has been checked. Repeated trips can also mean a real arcing fault at a loose connection, a damaged cable, or a failing device. Catching that is why the breaker is there.
Do you install ceiling fans and light fixtures?
Yes. Fixtures, recessed lighting, vanity lights, exterior lights, and ceiling fans. If a fan is going where a light used to be, the box usually has to be swapped for one rated to carry the weight and the movement.
Can you do the electrical when you install my furnace or water heater?
Yes. That is the point of heating, cooling, plumbing, and electrical under one company. Whatever the new equipment needs electrically gets handled on the same job by the same people.
There is a $125 service charge to come out. That pays for the trip and the diagnosis, which means finding what is actually wrong and telling you what it costs to fix. It is a separate charge and is not credited toward the repair. Once you have the repair price, nothing happens until you approve it.
Tell us what the house is doing.
A breaker that will not hold, an outlet that quit, a panel with no room left. If anything smells hot or feels warm, shut that breaker off first, then call and ask how soon we can be out.