How to Know Your Electrician Is Legitimate
Most people never check. You find a name, you call, someone shows up in a van, and you assume the rest.
We would rather you check. Here is exactly what to look for in the Capital Region, what each thing actually means, and where Colonial Electric stands on it.
New York does not license electricians. Your city does.
This surprises almost everyone. There is no statewide electrician license in New York, and no license reciprocity with other states, so every rule about who may touch your wiring is written by your city or town. In the City of Albany, contracting for permit work without a master electrician’s license is illegal under City Code § 171-33. Schenectady, Troy and Colonie each handle it differently, and we work in all four: here is the city-by-city guide to who has to be licensed.
Permits are not paperwork. They are the outside check.
Any time we run a wire six feet or longer in a permit jurisdiction, we pull a permit. That means an inspector who does not work for us looks at our work before the job closes.
In the City of Albany that process runs about two weeks. If your problem is urgent we will make the repair the same day and get you working. We simply cannot finalize the job or take final payment until the inspection is done.
An electrician who offers to skip the permit is offering to skip the only independent review of the work. That should cost them the job, not win it.
What we require of our own technicians
A license covers the company. It tells you nothing about who is standing in your kitchen. Here is who we send, and what they were screened for.
- Every technician on our residential team is background checked and drug tested.
- That team is two people, on purpose. Finding someone we would send into your mother's house is the hardest part of running this company, and we would rather stay small than lower the bar.
- A new technician rides with an existing tech for roughly eighty hours before running a call alone.
- The team starts every morning with training from 7:15 to 7:45.
- We schedule one or two calls per technician per day, not six, so whoever shows up has time to actually finish.
Voluntary industry certifications
Beyond what the law requires, we take part in three industry programs. Two have their own page explaining what the mark covers and, just as importantly, what it does not.
Excellent Electrician®
Our pricing promise: the price before the tools come out, guaranteed, in a must, should, could proposal.
Technician Seal of Safety™
Who we send into your home: background checked, drug tested, and two weeks in the van before a solo call.
We also carry the Green Screened® mark, from the same family of contractor standards programs. Why we carry all three, in our own words.
One note on all three: these are voluntary industry marks, not government licenses or independent accreditations. They tell you a company has committed to a standard. Your city’s license tells you a company met one. Read both and weigh them accordingly.
Excellent Electrician®, Technician Seal of Safety™ and Green Screened® are trademarks of Aquila Investment Group. Contractors displaying these marks are independent contractors and are neither agents nor affiliates of Aquila Investment Group, which is not responsible for the acts, obligations or liabilities of any contractor displaying them.
Five questions that work on any electrician, including us
- Which municipalities are you licensed in, and what is the license number? Then call that city’s building department and confirm it.
- Can your insurance carrier send me a certificate of insurance directly? Not a PDF forwarded from the contractor.
- Does this job need a permit, and who is pulling it? If the answer is no permit, ask why.
- Is the price you quoted the price on the invoice? What happens if you find something unexpected behind the wall?
- Who specifically is coming to my house, and what were they screened for?
If an electrician gets defensive at any of those five, you have learned something useful for free.
Questions homeowners ask us first
Are you licensed and insured?
Yes. New York licenses electricians city by city, not statewide, and we hold licenses in the municipalities we work in, with the insurance those cities require to issue them. Ask for a certificate of insurance and we will have it sent to you.
Do you pull permits?
Yes, wherever the work requires one, and we do not take final payment on a permitted job until the inspector signs off.
Are your technicians background checked?
Every technician on our residential team is background checked and drug tested before they set foot in a customer’s home, and they arrive in uniform with a name badge so the person we said is coming is the person who shows up. More on who we send.
What area do you serve?
Albany, Schenectady and Saratoga counties, roughly a 40-mile radius of our shop on Central Avenue. Albany and Schenectady are our biggest cities and we are licensed in Troy as well. Further out is case by case; call and ask.
Is the price you quote the price I pay?
Yes. It comes from our straightforward pricing guide, it is written on the proposal before we get the tools out, and if we got the estimate wrong we absorb the difference. How the pricing promise works.
Straight answers, before we start.
Call us, or look over our services before you pick up the phone.