Something happened. You’re not exactly sure what, but suddenly you find yourself without any power. Maybe there was a loud unfamiliar Electricians Coventry sizzling noise from somewhere behind a wall and a faint scent of smoke lingering in the air after all the lights went out.
Your best guess is that there’s a blown fuse in the box in the basement but you are, and rightfully so, a little leery of simply replacing it. They informed you when you purchased the place that the wiring was outdated and would almost certainly need replacing but that failed to deter you, since it trimmed thousands off of the asking price. Now, here it is four years down the road, and you regret not having had the wiring looked at sooner.
Obviously, you now require an electrician as quickly as possible. You suspect it might be a big job.
However, this is no time to freak out and let the unexpected nature of the situation cloud your better judgment.
Hiring a competent electrician is going to be important. A well-informed choice of contractor will be an important first step to solving the problem. While a rash, impulsive decision could very well compound it.
So, how do you choose the right contractor?
## Plan to take the time to make an informed choice.
Simply because you have guests coming over in a handful of hours, or a deep freeze full of meat you don’t want to go bad, should not influence your resolve to make the best choice. Call your guests and inform them of the situation. Ask your next door neighbors if you they have extra space in their freezers. The more you rush your choice of contractors the more you are trusting to the luck of the draw.
## Know what you expect before you even start to look.
Needless to say, you cannot know everything about fixing the problem (if you did you wouldn’t need to hire someone in the first place) but you need to know what to expect from the person you plan on hiring:
– They ought to be a licensed electrical contractor. (That is absolutely non-negotiable)
– They should be prepared to give you a written estimate before they start work
– They ought to be capable of giving you a definite and acceptable start date
– They ought to offer guarantees on their work
## Go online and find the best.
These days there is absolutely no need to restrict yourself to purely relying on the Yellow Pages. Use the internet (if you’re without power, go somewhere where you can go online) and do some quick local searches for example “Electrician North providence” or “Rhode Island Electricians” or “Electrical Service RI”. You can certainly get a great deal more data from a website than you could ever expect to from a Yellow Pages ad. Evaluate the top ranking sites and really go over their claims and credentials