Who We Send Into Your Home
Hiring an electrician is not really a purchasing decision. It is a decision about who you let past your front door while your kids are home.
Here is our actual standard, and then the industry mark that goes with it, in that order.
Every residential technician is background checked and drug tested
Not available on request. Not for some of them. Every technician on the residential team, before they set foot in a customer’s home.
The residential team is two people, on purpose
The owner’s rule is simple: he will not send someone to your house that he would not send to his own mother’s. People who clear that bar are hard to find, harder than the electrical work itself, and the ones who are any good already have jobs. So the team stays small.
There is a real cost to that, and we would rather say it out loud than have you discover it. We are not the biggest crew in the Capital Region, and we are usually not the cheapest. Our technicians came to us because they believed they were worth more, and we pay them that. It shows up in the invoice. We would rather explain that number than dilute the team to lower it.
Two weeks in the van before a solo call
A new technician spends roughly eighty hours riding with an existing tech before running a call on their own. That is training, but it is also the second look. Two weeks beside someone in a work van tells you who a person actually is in a way no interview can.
What we hire for
- Trade school, or the ambition to go
- Comfortable talking to customers, because half this job is explaining what you found and why it matters
- Wants the work, not just a job
- Honest in the interview. The truth surfaces inside two weeks either way.
The culture is safe, friendly and professional. Nobody gets yelled at here. If a technician has to be forced to do the job, we hired the wrong person and that is on us, not on you.
What the visit actually looks like
When you book with us we hold an hour for the technician to be with you. Not to pad the bill. A proper service call includes walking you through what we found and what your options are before anything gets decided, and that takes time. Some visits run longer, and whoever books your visit will tell you what to expect.
It does mean we need you there. It happens often enough that a customer lets us in and heads back to work, and we finish the evaluation with nobody to talk to. Then we are calling you for a card number and trying to explain a panel over the phone. That is a worse conversation for both of us, and you end up making a decision about your house from a parking lot.
Plan to be home for the walkthrough. In some cases you may not need to be, so ask whoever books your visit.
About the Technician Seal of Safety™
The Technician Seal of Safety is an industry mark carried by home service contractors who commit to pre-employment background checks and regular drug testing for their technicians. At participating companies, technicians wear the yellow seal on the uniform sleeve.
One thing worth being straight about. The seal represents a company’s own commitment to those practices. It is not an independent audit, and no outside organization screens our technicians for us. We do the screening. The seal says we have publicly committed to doing it. Everything above this box is the actual claim, and it is the one we would rather be held to. How to verify any electrician, including us.
The Technician Seal of Safety is a trademark of Aquila Investment Group. Contractors bearing the Technician Seal of Safety are independent contractors and are neither agents nor affiliates of Aquila Investment Group. Therefore, Aquila Investment Group is not responsible for the acts, obligations or liabilities of any contractor bearing the Technician Seal of Safety.
Questions about the visit
Will I know who is coming?
Yes. When your technician is on the way, you get a text and an email telling you who is coming, and he arrives in uniform with a name badge, so you know the person at the door is the person we sent.
Do I need to be home?
Yes, we need you home to let us in, and you should plan on about an hour. The visit ends with the technician walking you through what he found and what your options are, with the prices, before anything is decided. That conversation does not work over the phone from a parking lot. Some visits run longer, and in certain cases you may not need to be home, so ask whoever books your visit.
Where will the van park?
In the street, so your driveway stays open for whoever comes home. He walks up, does not cut across the grass, and puts shoe covers on at the door.
Are the technicians employees or subcontractors?
Employees, on our residential team, screened the same way: background checked, drug tested, and two weeks in a van with an existing technician before running a call alone.
Know who is coming.
Ask us who is on the truck, what they were screened for, and what the price is before we start.