Safety First Electric

Tatiana P.

The electrician arrived on time, thoroughly explained the problem, and provided a detailed estimate before starting the work.""
""They were very knowledgeable and addressed all my concerns about the electrical project, making sure I understood the process.""

Renee ..

My experience is similar to that of Hotel M. First and foremost, Chris is a habitual liar and should be avoided at all costs.

My kitchen contractor sent Safety First to my home when they were short-handed and could not respond to an urgent request that my electricity kept tripping and I was unable to work. Chris arrived and immediately pointed out various problems with the electrical work performed by my contractor, and I must assume that what he said was correct. He told me that he would deal with my contractor directly and have them pay for the work that needed to be fixed.

As these things happen, more work was purportedly needed than initially expected, resulting in a complete rewiring of my home and the installation of a new panel. Chris advised that they would need to pull permits with the city building department and then ""open a ticket"" with PG&E so that PG&E would come out and, I believe, shut off power from their lines. I WAS THEN WITHOUT ELECTRICITY FOR AN ENTIRE WEEK!!! Chris kept telling me that the city building department had not yet issued the required permit and Safety First was ""at the mercy"" of the building department. After several days of this and as my damages from loss of power accrued, I contacted the building department only to learn that Safety First had not even contacted the building department to seek a permit and that these types of permits are granted within an hour of request. Chris then began blaming PG&E for the delay.

Chris also made me sign a contract and pay over $20k before they would start work. I expected to pay for the work that was not the fault of my contractor, but this was never parsed out and I was in a desperate situation and signed the contract and paid the requested amount. Chris assured me that Safety First would perform some other, small jobs at the house like installing a new doorbell and fixing a light in my bedroom that was supposed to be controlled by a dedicated switch. I suspected he did not include these items in his contract, which I signed without verifying due to the desperate situation and knowing that I might not get the additional work.

When the main (contracted for) work was finally completed, I asked the young worker who was there about the additional items. He then left the room and called Chris and because Chris is so loud, I could actually hear him from the other room and on the other side of the phone telling the worker to just leave without saying anything to me, which the worker did.

I was not planning to follow up on the additional work as it was not in the contract. But I did contact Safety First when I discovered that the outlets in one corner of my home did not work, as this was part of the work they performed. When I contacted Safety First about the nonfunctioning outlets I also mentioned the few additional items that Chris had represented they would do and, while I hoped they would honor his representations, I was really only planning to insist that they fix the electricity in the corner of my home as this was a part of their contracted work.

SF employee Robert was sent to my house yesterday, and I have no complaints about this employee. However, Chris sent me a contract for $3,000 (!) to fix the outlets in the corner of my home, even though this was part of their original contract. And, again, because he is such a loud mouth I heard him through Robert's phone (when Robert was upstairs and I was downstairs, no less) telling him to leave the house and admonishing him strongly not to fix the electricity in the corner of my home.

In addition to being a liar, Chris was also very unprofessional both in his dealings with my contractor (raising his voice and acting in a threatening manner with them), and in general being a braggart (according to him, his wife has a job with PGE and makes $800k per year, and he owns several homes). He is just very, very creepy.

Hotel M.

It has been a whirlwind! My 1st experience right off the bat was being told I could not ask the technician any questions until I paid $99. An owner got on the phone with me to smooth this over & apologized saying I absolutely could speak to the technician before paying money. Spoke to Chris who said he would come in, trace all the lines & even replace a few bad circuits to make up for things. I left a nice review & was really cool with them. Chris & Robert came, traced lines but didn't replace circuits. They recommended a much more comprehensive project on all 3 panels that would cost $1500 more. We agreed. Chris mentioned his wife could go into labor any day & that would be the only reason they would cancel. 11/27 morning of our appt, he called to say he was on his way to the Hospital & we rescheduled. 12/4 they came back & I asked about his new baby- he answered all the new baby stuff. No bad circuits were replaced. The panel sheets that tells you what circuit controls what had things like ""B"" ""Well"" ""From"" which doesn't tell me what they control & the 3rd panel sheet was virtually blank. The kitchen ceiling tile was left open. I called to get clarifications on the sheets highlighting all of the incomplete or confusing items, to schedule the closing of the ceiling tile & replacement of the bad circuits promised since the 1st appointment. I was told Chris had just left on Paternity leave as his wife was due any day now. I did call Martin a liar because I believed Chris who said the baby was already born a week earlier & since Martin was the one who said I couldn't talk to anyone without paying 1st so I already didn't trust him. I spoke with someone else who confirmed that Chris' wife didn't have a baby yet. I called Martin back to apologize for calling the wrong person a liar. Today Ronnie (Owner) & Robert came. They closed the ceiling tile. Ronnie told me that we had to accept the panel sheet as is, they wouldn't be replacing any circuits as the whole panel needed updating. I started to get upset because of the ""splaining"" that was happening. He told me it was just my misunderstanding & that Martin didn't tell me I had to pay before talking to someone but that I was rude for calling him a liar. I reminded him that I apologized. He said he would be washing his hands of this project. I asked him to let me know when they closed the circuit panels so I could come to lock up the restaurant. They left without notice leaving it wide open. I don't understand how suddenly I'm the bad guy for spotting the inconsistencies & calling them out, for wanting the circuit sheets to be complete after paying $600 & for the bad circuits to be replaced as they had been promising to do from the beginning. I could even understand if they couldn't replace the circuits for safety reasons but there was no reason not to complete the panel sheets. The service date on these sheets weren't even right. But I'm the jerk & they don't want to do business with me. They should add ""Gaslighting"" to services offered.

UPDATE: 1 Hour after posting this review (with receipts) they left a bad review for my Hotel claiming we have rats in retaliation from a fake name ""Mike Gaines"" forgetting that they emailed me from that very address during the bad work experience. Attaching receipts.

Steven C.

My first and only experience with this company was unpleasant.

I used their website to initiate a request.

I got an email... Feb 15. It contained a link for ""Request A Quote"" https://www.mysafetyfirstelectric.com/get-a-quote
which I filled out with lots of detail on Sat, February 24th.

On the following Monday I got a call from John Lee at 9:06 AN saying ""looks like you put in a web submission so please give us a call when you have a moment.""

I called that number at 3:07 PM the next day (Tuesday), asked for John Lee, explained I was calling back and provided my name (and repeated it 2 times carefully)

The woman who answered offered to take down all my information including what I wanted service on. I explained I had filled out a form on the web with all the details and was calling back John Lee in response to his call to me. Where did you fill out the form? she asked. I asked ""Can I speak to John Lee? He apparently knows what I've filled out.""

She insisted that she needed to collect all the information. At that point, I told her that it seemed like there was a significant inefficiency in their business.

I thought the point of filling out the form was to prevent having to provide all the details again.

It pains me to write this, but perhaps they have a problem with their website or the person answering the phone is not aware. Some training could probably fix this problem. Perhaps the solution for now is to only speak with a live person and not use their website.

I followed up with an email to one of the principles of the company about this and got no response.

I chose another company and the difference in contact efficiency was obvious.

Mark F.

I enlisted the services of Safety First to help me knock off a list of electrical issues around my home. They told me between 8am and 10am and two electricians showed up exactly at 8am to begin the work. Here are the items I had them address: Installed three GFCI outdoor outlets, Installed a Ring Light Pro fixture and relocated the existing Ring Light to the back of the home. They diagnosed and fixed a pendent light in the master bedroom that was not working. Safety First installed a 80K whole house home surge protector and installed a 60AMP EV Charger. The estimate I received was fair for the sound to f work I had done. The work was professional done with attention to quality, the workers who did the job kept me informed on when the power would be off and cleaned the work site after the job was completed. I would recommend Safety First to any homeowner looking to bring outdated electrical work up to code.

Susan M.

They rewired my house, awesome job! I would recommend them to everyone. I'm so happy with how professional they are. Polite, hard workers and they left everything clean. They showed up on time.

Carrie J.

I wish I could give two different ratings - one for the electrician and one for the company.

I give Joseph a 5 star rating. He was pleasant, extremely professional, gave me my options, and was done with the work in about 5 minutes. This rating in no way reflects his work and professionalism.

I give the company 3 stars because of their pricing policy. I paid a dispatch fee upfront to schedule the appointment and was told it would be deducted from the fee for the work should I move forward with them. I was fine with paying for the dispatch fee ahead of time, especially because they'd deduct it from the total. However, when Joseph came to look at the issue and give me an estimate, he said that the lowest rate he could charge me was $199. And this minimum rate didn't allow for the dispatch fee to be deducted from the total. I know I could have gotten another electrician to come out, but Joseph was there and said he could take care of the work that day, and I wanted it taken care of. So yes, all my choice. However, I wish the lady I spoke to when scheduling the appointment would have been upfront with me and said that the minimum rate for any job is $199 and the dispatch fee would not be applied to this rate. If that had been disclosed upfront, I probably would not have scheduled an appointment with them. I believe I paid way too much for the 5 minutes of work that was done. I had no idea what the job would entail, so live and learn is the lesson here.

If you have a bigger job, then I would recommend checking this company out. I have no problem hiring them for big jobs and would consider them in the future. Joseph was professional and knowledgeable. However, because of the dispatch fee, you should probably schedule them for an estimate after you've already gathered other estimates and only if you're not satisfied with ones you got. I don't know if charging an upfront dispatch fee is standard practice. If it is, then this is a non-issue. I also don't know if the dispatch fee is refundable if you cancel the appointment.

Barbara P.

It is my pleasure to write a review for Safety First Electric. They just completed a rewire of my house and garage. I primarily did this for safety reasons since other than the kitchen, was aluminum wiring which had seen better days. I am confident in their work which was done by Joseph and Jorge. Joseph really knows his stuff. He is very professional and communicative. Once the job was started, Jorge joined Joseph's team. He was very knowledgeable and communicative as well.

Thank you so much and keep up the good work.

Steve S.

Let there be light. After a PG&E transformer blew up and messed up my home's fuse box, Ronnie came and immediately got to work. Everything that needed to be replaced was done quickly and safely. Completely satisfied with the work and cost. Please don't be a Fire Marshall Bill and attempt electrical projects on your own; be safe and get a licensed professional.

Ronnie told me some improvements that could be done which could protect my home in the future if a similar incident would occur. Will hire again!

David S.

Very thorough, very helpful

We had Safety-First install two 220V circuits in our garage (one for an EV charger and one for a heat pump water heater - they coordinated the installation of the water heater with their sister company Bailey Plumbing). We also had them install lights and a switch in a closet, add a 110V outlet in our hallway, install a hardwired camera/light on the side of our house, and run Cat 5 cable into our attic so we could put our whole house fan on the network.

The job took several days; they were here at the promised time every day and kept us informed about anything that would disrupt us (for example, having to turn off some breakers to make room for the 220V circuits in our panel). They were happy to answer my questions. They kept things neat and cleaned up properly before leaving every day.

I'm very happy with the work they did and would happily call on them again.