D.R.Peters electrical service Dale R peters overcharged york, Pennsylvania

I am an electrician also, and I do primarily repair work, but I am licensed and capable of doing many things. I go behind people who claim to be electricians all the time and get to see what a cut priced electrical installation really misses. Me, I charge between 65 and 85 an hour. You do not pay for what I do, so much as what I know how to do. If you get some unlicensed guy to do your for you and you think you are saving money ...It’s like they say if you defend yourself in court "you have a fool for a lawyer". Well, You are a fool if you let unlicensed people work on your home, and you have only yourself to blame.

If you knew anything about electrical work you would have done it yourself. That being said you’re not an electrician, and you have not been to school for it as we have. We take 8 hours of continuing education every year to keep up with constantly changing regulations on electrical work. Even this is just the tip of the iceberg for keeping up with all the changing codes. Many of us are in electrical associations who meet at least once a month to discuss changing codes, and local requirements. We not only have to know how to wire your piddley little outlets in your home but also how to figure the calculated loads for you entire premises both "standard and optional methods".

We are required to know commercial and residential wiring. How to make your electrical components work safely in areas like, welders, 3 phase and single phase transformers, swimming pools, commercial aircraft hangers, bulk storage plants, motor fuel dispensing facilities, health care facilities, hazardous locations (classes 1 2 & 3 divisions 1 & 2), electric motors, shopping stores, machine controls, restaurants and any other location with wires. We as electricians are constantly working to make anything you use with electricity safe so you do not get hurt by its use. Weather that’s an industrial motor running a commercial generator on 4160 volts, or a 120 volt battery charger you plug into your garage outlet. It is our job to make sure you are not hurt by whatever it is you come in contact with.

We also have to learn osha rules for doing our work safely. We are trained how to work on live parts with protective gear. We have to furnish out own tools and equipment to do these things. Just go buy an electrical code book and see how much one costs. Our NEC handbook is 130.00. How about price a harness and lanyard. They start at 100.00. I myself have probably 100 thousand dollars in tools alone for one person “myself” to do work.

Allow me to fill you in on “some” business expenses as an electrical contractor:
As a legitimate business we are required to keep personal Liability insurance usually in the neighborhood of 1 to 2 million dollars. We have to update our State Contractors license's yearly at a cost. We have to buy each City business/privilege license separately every year. We keep automobile insurance on our working vehicles same as our personal ones, liability and collision. We additionally have to carry 1 to 2 million dollar liability on our work vehicles. As a self employed person, we pay both the employers and the employees payroll taxes. So we are tax at a higher rate than someone employed by a company. We have to furnish our own medical insurances now. Since we are not part of a group we again are charged more than the average person.

Did you really think you bought all the materials for your job? Did you buy stakon grounding sleeves, wire nuts, electrical tape, staples, duct seal, fire caulking, drill bits, saw blades, etc. What about  ...TOOLS, the drill he used to drill holes, the saw he had to have to cut in boxes, hand tools that get worn out like wire strippers and pliers and screw drivers. What about gas to go to and from your home with a loaded work truck. If you had a guy work for 35 to 45 an hour I would be asking myself how this guy did it so cheap and what am I missing safety wise he left out. Did he staple my wiring? Did he ground my outlets with ground sleeves or just twist them. Are my outlets stabbed in the back the fast way, or are my wires securely on the screw terminals?

Yes we as electricians may be a little arrogant and as you say, and have a “God complex” but we earned it. We went to school to learn what we know, and passed the State Board of Electrical Contractors test. I can’t stand when an idiot tells me he wired his own house. Yes and how safe do you feel in it. Let’s talk arc fault circuit breakers, GFCI protection on outlets by moisture, tamper-proof and water resistant outlets. Did you put in both your small appliance circuits in your kitchen? Which way did you install those general purpose outlets? Did you seal your outlet boxes for an energy efficient installation? How safe is your grounding system? Did you ground back to your waterline or just use ground rod(s)? Were there any steel structural supports used in your home? This is all stuff we have to know, and know what to do about.

He may have offered to provide the labor for free but yes there was still a cost for him to be there. It sounds like to me, your work was easily to be well over what he charged for what you got. I hate residential work myself. You are always crawling underneath someone’s floor or wet basement, or in a filled attic full of junk and blown in insulation “itchy as hell when ya get out”. So if you had asked me for an estimate it would have been well over 500.00 for me to even consider it. Plus the idea I have got to retrace my steps afterwards and staple up wires and try not to drag dirt and insulation back into your home. I would clean up the saw and sheetrock dirt as well. Its just part of the professional job we do. If you had offered to done that hand helped him with your work I am sure you would not have complained about the cost. But you chose to be elsewhere while your friend worked by his self, trying to do his best to provide you a quality job, working for free.

All I can say to you is. The next time you have work done you work alongside your electrician, and you will have a different opinion of what you get for your money. It will make you happy you do whatever it is you do for a living. I could go on and on but I will stop there.  I hope you have learned something from all this. We all have bad days. Sometimes I think, “I should have stayed in bed as well as got up” for all the things that go wrong doing a day’s construction.  Your job was not all Dale had on his mind that day. He had that and many other things going on. Ten thousand reasons for him to need a cigarette break, to cough out insulation or dust off or possibly to cool off from smacking his hand with a hammer or pinching his finger in a pliers.

Whatever the reason for not completing the work that day was, he was there and was trying to get your outlets and switches done while you added more things to the list. He did not invent the medallions; someone bought them for him to put on the light. So you had to have mentioned it previous to him doing the other work. I am sorry you were displeased with the work, but you should have understood the concept of what you were asking him to do, and known a little of what was in involved in him accomplishing it. We often get involved in jobs and things wind up taking 10 times longer than we anticipated. We get a calculation wrong when fishing a wire down a wall and cut a hole larger than what we intended. It is all part of work. Ya got to break a few eggs to make a cake. But we do repair our mistakes, and work the job as professional as possible in spite of aggravations and injuries.

We do the best we can dealing with the public. Some people just cannot be pleased no matter what you do for them. I find the people with the most money are always the ones who complain the loudest about what something costs. People who work for a living appreciate what it takes to get something done and willingly pay us accordingly for it. God bless the working man!

P.S.
Quality work lasts long after cheap work is gone. I am not in business to make friends, I am in business to make money. If I am not making any money working, I might as well be home watching TV. Never mix business with friendship, someone always winds up feeling like there being cheated “valuing their friendship with a monetary value”. Had you been a real true friend you would have paid him and still had that friendship.

I am William Kellner, I put my name out there since it has already been done for me twice.  I would never entertain the idea of such a website as this one.  Receiving a phone call from Dale's wife is how i learned this site even exsisted.  If the person filing a complaint on my behalf happens to read this please delete this profile for Dale and I are adults and can sort out our own problems.

both articles has the truth buried under what i call a pissing contest.  True dale did some work for me, as a favor for me putting in 60 hours in his rental property. Which i didn't ask for a dime and received nothing for.  I did it out of friendship and would mention that someday I would need his help.

There was a misunderstanding along the way whether it was free or 350.00 so i was a man about it and offered him well over half to settle this dispute.  he excepted the 200.00 and we both decided the friendship as been damaged beyond repair.  Having 4 other people working for me anyone of them who knew Dale and the problem we had, feeling the way they do towards him could have enter such a plea.  I for one don't have time to sit and type my problems on a website.

Yes the original quote the first was 50.00 and he did ask for 150.00.  The words triple the estimate just sounds worse.  yes we were friends, but that had little to do with the deal we made for trading work to each other.  I remember the phone conversation that Dale spoke"no problem buddy, you buy the materials and I'll put it in for you buddy"  I understood it was a free offer giving me credit for the time i put in for him.  Then over beers he shook my hand and said" If you want it for free you got it"  that was enough for me. 

Yes had he been a regular contracted i would insisted on getting his insurance, which looking back i still should at least talk to his insurance so please forward that information asap.  everything else stated in the first complaint in near enough to the truth without going over every word.  There was unfinished work, but it was free so who could complain. 

He may have given me a deal at 45/hour but my other electrian charges much less and not hiring a friend is the lesson i take away from this.  Furthermore, they have streets named after Dale's and my friendship.  "One way"  My time was worth nothing but his time was always worth more.  that descibes that in a nutshell, no matter what i ever did for him was free, what ever he did for me had a price tag attached.

Generally my only other comment is Dale is the best electrian even though i think he charges higher then he should but i don't run his business.  My only complaint here is that what started to be a friend helping me for free ended up teaching me that he is still just my electrian and there's no friends in business.  perhaps we were never friends if 150.00 can ruin a 13 year otherwise decent relationship.

I urge you all to look up the average hourly rate in your area, I've seen anywhere from 35/an hour to 85/an hour.  Then see if the job is worth the hourly rate.  if your replacing a light switch which is easier then putting in 220 for a hot tub, then do it yourself or get a lower rate.  If you have friend that will give you a break on the price then make sure they are your friend first and an electrian second. 

Allow me to set the record straight with this absurd allegation.
 
First of all, the anonymous poster of this claim is named William Kellner and the property is located at 943 E. King St. in York, PA.  Its a property I used to own and Bill was my tenant for about 8 years or so.  I sold him my house about 4 years ago.
 
Bill then rented the house, and by mid summer of 2012, he evicted his tenant and asked me for my help with cleaning and remodeling the place, since it had fallen into disrepair and was roach infested.  Being the friend that I was to him, I agreed to help him pick up the material, and even hang new dry wall on the kitchen ceiling.  I even loaned him several tools to help him with his project.  I did tell Bill that if he wanted me to do any electrical repairs, there would be a charge, since this is my business.  Every thing else was done out of friendship to a guy Ive known and hung out with for about 13 years

Now to address this guys false allegations:
 
First of all, he makes it sound like he just picked my name out of the phone book to give him an estimate.  The truth is, we have known each other for 13 plus years.
 
Bill asked me how much I would charge to correct and replace the kitchen receptacles and switches.  I gave him a very, very low flat price of $150.00, since we were good friends.  I even wrote the list of material for him to purchase.  While performing my duties and bringing all devices to a safe and code worthy condition, there were several unforeseen problems that were encountered.  First of all, the guys he had help him hang new dry wall, did a very shabby job and I had to either extend every box or replace them due to the boxes being too loose to secure and the dry wall opening being too big to make a new receptacle fit properly.  I also found one receptacle with bare wires due to a mouse problem he had.  That repair alone took a lot of extra time to ensure his safety and prevent a fire. With that being said, I corrected all that we spoke about and even extended the device box for the ceiling light.  I also always use a shop-vac to clean the dirt and dust from any device box, as well as clean any mess that I make in doing my job.  Even though the job took much longer than what I thought it would, I only charged him $150.00, the price I told him it would be.  I did let Bill know that if he wanted me to do the rest of the house, I would have to charge him more, but would still give him a very low cash price of $45.00/hr. and he could still purchase the material at his cost.
 
A few weeks later, Bill and his part time carpenter buddies were finished with the rest of the dry wall and ready to have me back to replace the rest of the receptacles and switches in the house.  I met with him and we went through the house making a list of material.  I then went with him to Home Depot and told him everything to purchase.  I did this as a friend and never charged him for the several hours of time involved that evening.  We never spoke about an estimate for me doing the work, but I told Bill this would be charged as time and material. 
 
I came back a day or two later to make all the repairs we spoke about.  The rooms involved were both second floor bedrooms and the second floor bathroom, as well as the first floor living room.  Every device box had to be extended to match the new surface of the dry wall.  All receptacles and switches were replaced and one receptacle that was in the Master Bedroom was found to not have any device box at all.  I had to install a surface mount wire mold box due to the wall being too shallow for anything else.  In the bathroom, the receptacle box was just hanging in the wall and once again, his buddies had the dry wall hole cut so large that there was no way to correct it.  Here is where I had to cut over to the joist and install a 2-gang box in order to resolve the problem.  There was a small gap to the left side of this box that he needed to patch.  There was no other way to correct this, and Bill seemed happy with everything I did for him.  We did speak about the receptacle in the cellar, and I told him that the old GFCI feeding the kitchen counter was no longer needed there.  It was now a junction box for the kitchen counter circuits.  We never spoke about doing anything in the back room or the enclosed porch. 
 
After I was finished with everything we went over, Bill was very pleased with all that was done and I explained to him what was found and the corrective action taken.  He was so pleased he invited to buy me a beer afterwards.  I was glad to have helped a friend at a good price and agreed to join him.  Bill then asked how much he owed me and I told him the hours I was there and of some of the material I pulled from my truck to finish the job.  Once again, I gave this man a great price of $350.00.  That was for a days labor plus some material. 
 
Now, heres where our friendship of 13 plus years ends.  He got very loud and started yelling that he wanted this all done for free.  My reply was that I found out how much my friendship cost, then left.  I never sent Bill harassing or threatening mail or messages.  I figured lesson learned and the mans true self came out.  He did send me several text messages about how he misses our friendship and hanging out with my wife and I.  He never asked me for my insurance information as he claims, and I did finally get the tools  back that I loaned him.
 
On December 2, 2012, Bill contacted me saying that he wanted to make this right and take care of what he owes me.  My reply was great!  The cost is still $350.00.  He said he was willing to give me $200.00 and I figured thats better than not getting anything from him.  We met and he paid what he said he would.  At this point, he thought we were now friends again, and got upset when I told him never to contact me or my wife again.  The next day, heres his posting and twisted story for all to see.
 
This will be my only response to this allegation.
References can be provided upon request.
My reputation for doing quality work stands strong with those who know me. 
 
Regards,
Dale R. Peters II
D.R. Peters Electrical Service, LLC