The electrician Seattle can call on for circuit trouble

THE CIRCUIT DETECTIVE

The Electrician Seattle Uses for Troubleshooting

I am Larry Dimock, The Circuit Detective. Seattle is virtually my home town -- I attended Alki Elementary and graduated from West Seattle High and the UW. A residential electrician since 1979, I first became a licensed electrical contractor in 1982. Since 1997 I have specialized entirely in home electrical troubleshooting. KOMO TV listed me as one of the best electricians in the greater Seattle area. For more about me go here.
What kind of electrical work do I do exactly? This chart will give you an idea:

Larry will help if:	Use another electrical contractor for:
Several items are not working - reason unknown There is abnormal blinking going on There are strange fluctuations of voltage (dimming, brightening) A shock was experienced
A circuit breaker has tripped and won't reset A ground-fault outlet (GFCI) keeps tripping An arc-fault breaker (AFCI) keeps tripping A fuse blows immediately	A breaker is known to trip when heavy loads are used Replacing standard receptacles with GFCIs Replacing an AFCI when it won't trip for pushing button A fuse is known to trip when heavy laods are used
Wires have not been (re)connected correctly An outlet tester shows incorrect (open or reversed) wiring Electric heaters are not working right You want to consult about a wiring project Receptacles are worn (don't hold cords)	Finishing the work of a no longer available electrician An outlet tester showing "open ground" in most outlets Replacing one heater known to be shot Wiring a new panel, circuits, outlets, switches, or lights Replacing receptacles or switches for a new look Changing range or dryer outlet Replacing a light because it is old or ugly TV, phone, CAT5, ethernet, X-10
Not Sure? Call and Ask.

The kind of work I do is described more fully in my page called Eastside, which is the home territory for this special electrician Seattle can use too.

Your Cost

By its nature troubleshooting can't be bid accurately, unless the problem is investigated long enough to see that the repair will only take 10 or 15 minutes more, which is usually the case. Maybe I could bid that way, but all my customers are glad to just pay me for my time. I am efficient enough at this special skill that 40 minutes is the average time it takes me to solve and fix an electrical malfunction. If I were not done within an hour, I would want to talk with you about the complication. Would you rather have a "firm bid," padded to cover worst-case and advertising?
Getting me to Seattle takes $100. But I cost you only $1.00 per minute while working at your home. Doing the math, you can see that, on average, your bill will tend to be around $140, plus any tax (parts are rarely much).

Am I Able to Come Soon?

Although I don't make myself available 24 hours a day, I can usually get to your problem within a day or two, because I don't take on wiring jobs, which will tie many electrical contractors up. If you are concerned about your safety while the problem exists, talk with me to see if urgency is in order or not. I am available by phone 7am-9pm, Mon.-Sat. My working hours are 9am-5pm, Mon.-Fri., but I prefer times between 10am and 2pm (traffic, you know). Call 425-260-4250.

Help For the Do-It-Yourselfer

If you like to tackle problems yourself, but you don't have a good resource for this regarding electrical, My main website was designed with you in mind. 1500 vistors a day go there from around the country for just such guidance.

Detective Electrician - Seattle Stories

     South Seattle Strangeness. Arturo's son needed to translate between my total Anglo mouth and ears and his father's total Spanish. It seemed that several items on more than one circuit in the house had been going dim or bright at odd times and one or two electronic appliances had even been hurt by this. Yet when City Light had been called out, they found no problem on their overhead line to the house or at the meter. When I came, I was able to confirm at the panel that the main wires there were not delivering power right. The main neutral was not well connected somewhere, and it wasn't in the panel. So where? If there were something visibly obvious behind the meter outside, City Light would probably have noticed. So I decided to go up on the roof (where they had not actually gone), where there are connections from the overhead line to the wires that go down to the meter. Testing voltage across the neutral connection there, I did find three or four volts. It should have been close to zero. Under a heavier load, the voltage being dropped would be even more. This main neutral connection was quite poor, even though a person couldn't be sure just from looking at it. I called City Light for the family and heard later that their fix had done the trick.

     Greenwood Glitch. Nancy's house must have been wired in the '60s. But just before she bought it five years ago, the seller had replaced a number of receptacles. Anyway, she called me because she had overloaded a kitchen outlet circuit, but when she reset breakers, the main breaker tripped off immediately. What I suspected proved to be the case: two kitchen outlet circuits were originally run together to dining and kitchen outlets, one circuit to serve the top half of each receptacle and the other to serve the bottom. This only works if the top and bottom halves of these receptacles are isolated from each other (on the live side) by breaking away a little connecting tab of metal on the side of each receptacle. The seller had not done this. So why had Nancy gone so long without a problem? Because when the breakers were first put on after the replacement of receptacles, one of them would have tripped (a short between the two circuits), but no one was the wiser because all the outlets in question still worked. Why? Because whichever breaker of the two did not trip would have extended its power to all the other halves of the receptacles through the tabs that weren't broken off. All those years it was one circuit running all the outlets meant to be served by two, with the other circuit just sitting tripped in the panel until the day she was resetting it because some kitchen loads had finally been too much (understandably) for the operating circuit. When I broke away enough of those tabs, another case was closed by the troubleshooting electrician, Seattle.

     For some more stories of my troubleshooting see Electrical cases and Mystery stories.

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