If you need an electrician Call R.S. Electrical Services in Katy

A several weeks back, the main breaker for our home tripped and started tripping more often after that. A guy from the power company told us that the main circuit breaker itself was probably bad. I thought this made sense since we had not added anything for the past year or so that would have increased the load. Also, even after we started to be careful not to use appliances and AC units at the same time, it still happened.

I have done some electrical work around the house before and did install a new breaker one time also but it was not a "main breaker". I know that in thoery that I could do the job without getting electrocuted but I didn't want to test that thoery in practice. The problem is that when I changed out a breaker before, I just shut off the main breaker and the wires were no longer "hot". There was still a live wire coming into the electrical box but as long as I didn't touch it, I was safe. This time, The actual wires going in to the circuit breaker would be "hot" since it was as it is called the "main breaker". The way to deal with that (in thoery) is just to make sure that I don't touch the exposed part of the wire while I am working on it and also when I use the screwdrive, just make sure not to touch the metal part. The problem is that I am not an Electrician and I didn't think I wanted to test the theory and find out that as I was getting shocked that I was wrong. Also, I didn't want to take the chance of the screwdriver slipping or me loosing my concentration for even the briefest moment and end up fried so I decided I needed to call an elelctrician.

I didn't know an electrician off hand so I looked on the BBB web site for houston and found the guy that was located closest to my home. I found R.S. Electrical Services which is owned and operated by Richard Simmons. He is located less than a mile from my home and had an "A" rating and no complaints. My thinking is that if I could find someone close then it would be an easy quick job that they could do on the way home as thier last stop. My other thinking is that I would be doing business with someone in my "community" and since the economy is slow right now, I would be happy to give them some work also.

I called Richard the morning of June 28th and he said he would come by. I asked him if he had the main breaker I needed on his truck and he said probably not. I asked him if it would be OK if I picked up the breaker just to save time and an extra service call charge and he had no problem with that. In the process of looking for the breaker, I found an electrical supply house here in Houston and the guy quoted me $249 for the part. I called Richard and asked him about this and he said it was "a little high". With Richard's direction, I went over to Home Depot and found a GE brand circuit breaker that was the right part. I had previously been under the impression that I had to have a Siemans brand circuit breaker but Richard told me that the GEs were interchagable so to go ahead and pick it up and he would make sure it was the right part when he got there but he was pretty sure it would work. I went to Home Depot and paid $61.

Later that day, Richard showed up at my house, installed the circuit breaker, used his electrical testing equipment to check things out and also moved the circuit breaker I had previously installed to the other side of the box to balance the load and all he charged was the cost of the service call exactly as he quoted on the phone.

If you need electrical work call R.S. Electrical Services at 713-202-7619. Please be sure to tell him Marc Twyman gave you his number.

On behalf of Marc Twyman's One Man Contractor Referral service, Thank you for letting us help.