What government lighting involves

Most lighting complaints are about the wrong light in the wrong place, not the bulb. The work starts with finding out what is actually there. With government lighting, that means looking at the existing wiring, the panel capacity and whatever the last person left behind.

Honest answer first. If what you have is fine, we say it is fine. If it needs work, we tell you how much and why, with the urgent parts separated from the ones that can wait.

Where this comes up

Interior, exterior, parking lots, athletic fields and the controls that run them. Most of these calls come from Des Plaines and the surrounding suburbs, but we take them anywhere in our service area.

Ungrounded two-wire circuits are still common, along with three-prong outlets installed on top of them with no ground behind the plate. The outlet looks right. The tester says otherwise, and that changes how the job is planned.

How we do it

Straight to the point: we find the problem, fix it to code and leave the space as clean as we found it. Anything that needs a permit gets one, and gets inspected.

Why it usually cannot wait

Electrical problems do not stay the same size. A loose connection heats up, the heat oxidizes the metal, the oxidized metal raises the resistance, and the resistance makes more heat. That loop runs in one direction only and it ends at a scorched box.

If something is tripping, buzzing, warm to the touch or smells like hot plastic, that is the system telling you where the problem is while it is still cheap to fix.

How we quote it

Pricing a job means knowing what the service can carry, what shape the existing wiring is in and what the permit will require. None of that can be answered without somebody standing in front of the equipment.

The quote spells out what we will do, item by item, and what it costs. If we open up a box or a panel and find the job is different, we pause and walk you through it before any more work happens.

The inspection is the point

An inspection is an independent check that what went behind the drywall matches what was supposed to. Work that passes has been verified by somebody with no stake in the invoice.

That is also why we would rather you hire a licensed contractor than the cheapest number you can find. Unpermitted electrical work is a problem you inherit, and it usually surfaces at the worst moment.

Copper, aluminum and what is in your walls

Aluminum branch wiring went into a lot of houses in the late sixties and early seventies. It is not automatically dangerous, but it expands and contracts more than copper, which loosens terminations over time, and it needs devices and connectors rated for it.

The repair is usually not a full rewire. Proper connectors at every termination, done thoroughly, solves most of it. Anybody quoting you a whole-house rewire on sight has not looked.

When to stop and call

Any time a device or the panel runs warm, buzzes or leaves a scorch mark, stop using that circuit. Leave it off and call us. We answer 24/7 for exactly this.

Smoke from an outlet, a fixture or the panel is not a wait-and-see problem. Kill power at the main if you can reach it safely, get out, and call the fire department first. Call us after, so the cause gets found and fixed.

Lighting is a wiring problem first

Most lighting complaints are not about the fixture. They are about how many circuits are available, where the switches are, whether the dimmer matches the driver in the lamp, and whether the boxes can carry the weight of what is going on them.

Retrofitting LED into fittings designed for incandescent introduces its own issues, usually flicker or buzz from a dimmer that was never meant for an electronic load.