What we get asked on site, written down: what a panel upgrade involves, when a house can take an EV charger as it stands, what a rewire costs in disruption, and how to choose between a generator and a battery. Written by the crew doing the work across the Portland metro.
Vitaliy Borkin 7 min read
The insurer wants the knob-and-tube gone, or the inspection report on the house you're buying says the wiring is original. The picture that follows is bare studs in every room and a family in a hotel for a month. In most houses, that is not how a rewire goes. The walls mostly stay where they are, and so do you.
Dave Gackle 7 min read
Six new recessed lights went into the living room, then four more. The floor is bright now, the ceiling is speckled with fixtures, and the room still feels dim and flat by evening. That is not a wattage problem. It is a question of where the light lands — and adding more of the same light only repeats the mistake.
Vitaliy Borkin 9 min read
Downstairs the speed test looks fine. Upstairs the video call freezes, and the bedroom TV buffers at the same point every evening. The usual answer is a faster router. The usual cause is not the router at all — it is where the router sits, and what is between it and the second floor.
Dave Gackle 9 min read
Charging at home is the cheapest way to run an electric car, and most of the time it lives up to that. The costs that catch people out are not on the charger's price tag. They show up later — on the power bill, in the panel, and in a receptacle that was never meant to work this hard.
Vitaliy Borkin 9 min read
Most people shop for a generator the week after an outage, with the cold house still fresh in mind. That is exactly when the expensive decisions get made in the wrong order — the unit first, and everything it depends on afterwards.
Vitaliy Borkin 9 min read
Rent starts on a date. Staff are hired for a date. The opening is announced for a date. And the electrical work is usually the last trade anyone looks at closely — right up until it is the reason the doors stay shut.
Dave Gackle 10 min read
A panel does not usually fail all at once. It tells you first — with heat, with noise, with breakers that stop holding — and most of the signs are visible to anyone willing to open the cover and look.
Vitaliy Borkin 9 min read
Almost every expensive home charging install starts the same way: the charger was chosen first, and the electrician was called last. By then the decision that sets the price has already been made.
Dave Gackle 9 min read
Most Portland houses built before the mid-eighties came with a 100-amp service, and for a gas range, a gas furnace and one television it was generous. Three modern upgrades change that arithmetic, and they rarely arrive one at a time.
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