Business ProfileforBarrett Electric

Barrett Electrical performed very simple rewiring work and produced a bill much much much larger than reasonable for labor that was provably (PROVE-ABLY), never done. Even his EMPLOYEES were horrified by the "Labor Hours" he billed off when I announced to them what he billed us. At the start he told me he would just charge us for time for rewiring a control panel that was already wired, they were going to simply change out a couple of components which we BOUGHT and GAVE TO THEM and use ALL THE EXISTING PARTS, no thought or design was put into this panel because it was already wired. It took our electrical tech @1 day to perform all the wiring on the panel which we are not a UL Panel shop so we brought it to Barrett Electrical because they are UL Shop.

Such a simple project would require someone skilled in the trade @1-2 Days worth of wiring work for such a mundane project, @8-16 hours, billing out at the agreed upon rate of 85.00 per hour.
IN MY WILDEST IMAGINATION COULD I ENVISION SOMEONE being capable of billing out 92 HOURS for this work (2 WEEKS 2 DAYS of non stop labor hours), there are literally only 15-20 components in this box, many of which are just same components mounted next to each other wired exactly the same.

When I contested the charge with the Owner Chris thinking it was a joke I was quickly met with a, "You're not going anywhere with your panels till you pay this bill" threat. Then he claimed he had to "Look up every component on a website to verify they had a UL File", well that would take another 1-2 hours so we are up to 10-20 billable hours now.

With 5 times the legitimate billable hours presented on the invoice, I clearly state the hours billed to us and the AMOUNT he was billing us and the embarrassment on Barrett Employees faces was clear, and while Barrett WOULD NOT apologize his employees saw what was going on and shook their heads ashamed to have been part of this. The Barrett Employees were so shocked by what Barrett was attempting they murmured their apologies under their breath and said, "I don't know what is going on or why he did this".

It would be like dropping your car off for an oil change and the two days later picking it up and getting a bill for 8500.00 because he "claims" he worked for 48 straight hours and had to verify all the components in the system were industry listed. Changing your oil was all he did (and YES it was that bad if not WORSE, what Barrett did). Then, to childishly try and prove his point he will print out a piece of paper that has the number 48 on it with next to the hourly rate and say.

There really is no words for company to do such a thing to a customer or produce such a wildly fantastic bill, and that is being kind. I work in a world of ethics and morals and was truly disgusted by the actions of Barrett, and to the credit of his employees so were they.

Sorry I just reread what I typed and there were 2 panels 1 large and 1 small which is why I doubled the totals of 1 day per panel for a skilled technician, even though someone working 8 hours that knows what they are doing is more than enough time per panel to rewire such a simple product. The employees even lamented how simple it was, hoping for a challenging product when I brought it in, I laughed and apologized for it being such a FUNDAMENTAL design.

A pair of electrical control panels were delivered to us for very time sensitive UL approval. The panels were completely substandard due to materials and methods completed by inexperienced designers. The client instructed us to rework the panels, correct wiring and material deficiencies as soon as possible as his customer was waiting. We research the parts, redesigned the panels, provided CAD drawings vs the hand drawings we received and delivered the product in less than 2 weeks. For $85/hr. Lack of understanding does not mean a discount in cost. A new unproven client does not get an open credit line from us, work is COD, with no up front payment. The order was subsequently discounted $1500.00.