Cote Electric LLC

I had these guys out to look at my generator, which while running fine, was not charging the battery. An «electrician» came out and poked around my generator, and poked around my junction box, then said that he’d need to have a new wire whip made at a cost of a couple of hundred dollars. I questioned him about using the existing one and he responded «yeah, I guess we can still use that one.» The whole visit, which lasted about 40 minutes felt shoddy. In fact, the «electrician» removed a ground wire… just yanked it out of the panel, while he was there. I later found out that was a necessary ground wire. I got a call back from the shop a couple of hours later with an extortionate quote (nearly $ 600, but they said it could go up dramatically from there). I told them that I would hold off on having the work done.
Two months later, I receive a bill. Keep in mind, they have done zero work. No diagnostic equipment was used to check anything. Any work in preparation for the quote was visual only. I was at no time informed that giving a price for the job would be a billed service. Receiving a bill was a complete surprise to me.
I called the shop to question the invoice and was told that when calling them, I would be billed for their time from the time they leave the shop until they return. I was billed for 1 ½ hours when he was at my house for less than 40 minutes. I guess the stop for lunch on the way back was on me. I don’t know if that is standard, but if it is, I need to get that deal at my job.
These guys are looking to take your money, and as much of it as possible. Look elsewhere, there are plenty of honest electricians out there.
By the way, I did the job myself, it took maybe 20 minutes for me, a novice, and cost me $ 5.85 in supplies. It would have taken less time if I didn’t have to replace the ground wire that was pulled out during Cote’s «troubleshooting». Generator runs like a champ now.
AVOID THESE GUYS!!!

Our standby generator stopped working during the Thanksgiving 2014 storm. It both had an «under voltage» alarm and oil leak. After trying to (like many people) figure it out ourselves and (like many people) getting no where, I searched online and found Cote Electric to be highly recommended. When I called them for service, Chris came out that very same afternoon, explained the problems to me, fixed both the cause of the alarm and the leak, then test-​ran the generator to make sure it worked. He even showed me the parts of the generator that caused the annoying but simple-​fix problems. He said all the repairs should be covered by the warranty so we needn’t worry. Then he wiped the oil splatters from inside the generator, even cleared the snow from its sides, before tactfully going. Extremely professional, efficient and reliable. Highly recommend.