Forum Archive

I thought I’d share my experience rewiring a four unit four story brownstone. Two months ago I learned the tenants on the third floor of my four unit four story building would be moving out and I decided it was time I finally rewired it because the wiring was so old that there were still some pull chain type ceiling lights. I also decided as I would be rewiring the third floor I should consider adding power to the second and fourth floor apartments which desperately needed it, especially dedicated AC lines. The apartments are huge and each one had different needs.

I ended up calling 5 licensed electricians for quotes, all praised by previous brownstoner posts. One person never showed up so that was the end of him. Two showed up, we walked through the four units which took about an hour, and then they never even gave me an estimate. One electrician decided he could just give me a quote by listening to what I needed over the phone. The company I decided to go with was Detore. To make a long story short, Detore, perhaps deliberately, made a mistake in the contract and the price went up by $6,000 the day before the job was supposed to start. Now I was in a terrible bind because I didn’t want the apartment to sit vacant for more than 30 days and I had to get new quotes because I obviously no longer trusted Detore.

I called 2 more electricians, one being M&N High Tech. Mohamed from M&N, showed up the day after I called him, we walked through the apartments and he had some excellent ideas on how to minimize the work in such a way that could not only bring down the cost of wiring but also the inevitable dstruction that rewiring causes. During our walk through he asked me how I got his number – Brownstoner of course I said.

The next day he gave me an estimate that was 30% lower than any other estimate and he told me he could start this massive job in just two days time and still get it done in time for me to rent it out. So far his team has been showing up every morning, six days a week, and he’s been incredibly flexible about working out the inevitable kinks. I won’t lie, the destruction required by rewiring is pretty massive, the dust is a real pain, but his crew makes a real effort to clean up. When the job is completed I’ll give a final appraisal but so far I am very happy with M&N and I would definitely recommend them over any of the seven other places I called, especially Detore.

If anyone thinks I’m just a shill working for M&N check out my previous posts where I requested advice on this months ago.