What USB outlets involves

Homeowners usually call us after something stops working twice. The work starts with finding out what is actually there. With USB outlets, that means looking at the existing wiring, the panel capacity and whatever the last person left behind.

We tell you what we find before we tell you what it costs. If the scope is smaller than you expected, it gets smaller. That happens more often than people assume.

Where this comes up

Panels, rewires, outlets, lighting and the circuits behind everything in a house. Most of these calls come from Des Plaines and the surrounding suburbs, but we take them anywhere in our service area.

New load on old wiring is the most common version. A heat pump or a charger for the car goes in, the circuits that were fine until then start complaining, and the real question becomes whether the existing service can carry it at all.

How we do it

Licensed and insured on every call. No job is too small to do properly, and no shortcut is worth an inspector’s red tag. We would rather do it once.

Why this is worth doing properly

Cheap electrical work usually gets paid for twice. The first time is the low price. The second is when an inspector, a buyer’s home inspection or a failed device finds what was skipped, and somebody has to open the walls back up to fix it. Doing it right the first time is the less expensive path, even when the first number is higher.

The cost of doing it right the first time is almost always lower than the cost of doing it twice. We would rather tell you the job is bigger than you hoped than come back in two years.

Scheduling and how long it takes

Same-day for emergencies, any day of the week. For scheduled work, plan on a few days of lead time, longer only when a permit has to be issued or ComEd has to cut and restore power.

A small repair is usually one visit. A service upgrade has several moving parts: our install, the village inspection and ComEd restoring power. We tell you which step you are waiting on at every point, so the date never goes quiet.

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.

Grounding and bonding

Grounding is the part nobody sees and the part that decides whether a fault clears safely. The ground path has to be continuous and low-impedance from every device back to the service, and the neutral and ground can only be bonded together in one place.

A neutral bonded to ground in a subpanel is one of the most common defects we find. It works right up until it does not, and then it puts current on metal that people touch.

The warning signs people ignore

The signs that get ignored are the quiet ones. A faint smell of warm plastic near the panel that comes and goes. An outlet so loose the plugs fall out. Discoloration on a receptacle face. None of these stop the house from working, which is exactly why they get put off.

Intermittent is not minor. An intermittent connection is usually a loose one, and loose connections are the ones that heat up.