SJ Rios Electric

leann w.

I was looking to do a whole house rewire so I looked on yelp to find an electrician and found Sonny at SJ Rios. He came out and gave me a free estimate. His price was very fair. He discussed with me what exactly he was going to do. The house is about 80 years old and it didn't have an outlet in the bathroom and only one in each bedroom so he explained how he could install one more in each room. The kitchen also had a switch to turn the dishwasher on and off so he removed that and made me another outlet by the sink. He finished the job right on schedule as promised. I am so happy I went with Sonny at SJ Rios and I will recommend him to anyone I know. He was very professional and he cleaned up any mess when he was done. In fact I have a couple of rental houses and I'm going to call him back to take a look at some issues with the electrical at those houses too. This company deserves its 5 stars. Thanks Sonny

John L.

Sonny came highly recommended by many of my neighbors in the Midtown / Rose Garden part of San Jose, and he's local to the area so it was an easy choice to enlist his help for our upgrades. Of four electricians called, he was also the first to return my call, and one of the others had done work at our place previously!

I can say now, after completing this project, working with him has been a pleasure. Sonny is prompt to return calls, straight up about the work, his approach to it, and the expected cost. Most importantly, his work is well done and on schedule.

We appreciated his ability to fit us into his schedule, his familiarity with older home wiring (knob and tube for our 1940's home), plus his thorough knowledge of the building/electric code, City of San Jose requirements, and what it takes to upgrade our system safely and correctly.

When setting up the job, we laid out a clear scope of work which made it easier for him to price. He helped us finalize our specifications so we knew exactly what we were going to get and would be happy with the result:

--Laundry room: hang new ceiling light fixture (we provided fixture)
--Bathroom: ventilation fan/light: Cut out and install in ceiling over shower; New GFCI and switch. New home run to panel; duct as necessary to attic vent. (we provided vent fan and duct.)
--Bedrooms: New electrical outlet and dedicated run to panel in each room. Adjust depressed outlet in northwest bedroom closest to bathroom.
--Living room: Fix 3-way outlet with new switch (we provided replacement switch). Install new outlet in corner opposite front door with new home run to panel.
--In old exterior panel box remove old doorbell transformer. Install GFCI outlet to support front yard sprinkler control.
--Backyard: New run to panel for new exterior GFCI outlet and light on exterior wall; install 3-way light switch underneath fixture and in laundry room at existing switch. (we provided light fixture.)

He also spotted a few unsafe conditions left by a previous electrician that could have resulted in electric problems or even a fire, and he helped correct those issues immediately. (Specifically a 40 amp breaker was installed by the other guys on a 30 amp wire, which could have resulted in burning wire long before a breaker tripped, the whole reason circuit breakers exist in the first place!)

I give Sonny my highest recommendation and will hire him again -- there's a lot of work to do around this place.

Joe D.

Based on Yelp I decided to call Rios Electric for installing ceiling fans in my house. I submitted my request at 8pm and they called me back the next day morning at 8:30 and were willing to be at my house within an hour!!! That was by far the fastest turn around on any such kind of service I have ever received.

Once they arrived (Sonny and Matt), they were quick in getting to work and had the two fans installed and working extremely quickly. And the quality of workmanship and professionalism they showed was top notch! They even troubleshooted some wiring issues that was due to bad wiring by the builders and sorted it out properly for me and ensured the fans were working as they should.

I would highly recommend them to all my friends and family. As some of the other yelpers have already said they are the BEST electricians you can find out there, no doubt! And as proof, I made an account with yelp just to post this review and I'm usually too lazy to do that for other places I might have liked to recommend (I've only always been using yelp without an account until now).

Karisa N.

Just moved into a house last month in San Jose. We had everything gutted and renovated but when we plugged in our computers, everything would shut off. We couldn't figure out why, but we called in some electricians to give us bids on resolving the issue. Sonny gave us a really fair bid. Apparently the electrical box we had was so old it couldn't support the amount of electricity we needed to use. We had to have a larger, updated- to-current-code, electrical box installed.

Sonny finished the job in one day and was very professional from start to finish. He was also nice to our household pets (3 dogs and a fat cat) and they didn't mind him after the initial meeting. We even had the hidden nanny cameras on and were watching him (we've come across too many service providers that haven't been nice to the dogs). No problem whatsoever. We also had my brother come check the work - he was a licensed commercial electrician but went into another field - Sonny's work passed his inspection too.

Our computers and other electronic devices are all working simultaneously now and this is an enormous relief because my husband and I both work from home via computer/internet.

Without hesitation, I recommend Sonny and SJ Rios Electric for electrical work.

Joe k.

My first time calling for an Electrician. I called a few other Electricians before Sonny picked up and said he's available to be at my house within 2 hours. It's on.

Sonny and Matt showed up within the estimated 2 hours. Awesome! I had an intermittent issue in a section of my house that the power would go out. I explained some history of using a space heater there and how the breaker tripped before.

Sonny and Matt went to work and quickly identified the ""cooked"" wire in the circuit breaker closet. I was extremely happy they were able to hit the nail on the head. They quickly changed the cables and my house was back in good order.

Thanks!

Karina Y.

I called SJ Rios Electric (they were referred by our neighbor) because we moved into a home where some of the light switches seemed to do absolutely nothing. Not sure how the damn building passed city inspection but something was terribly wrong. In addition, some of our lights would randomly flicker or just go out without explanation. Changing the bulbs didn't work. Then sometimes the lights would randomly come back on. Ridiculous!

Sonny came out and inspected the problem. He gave us a reasonable quote and said that he could get the job done the following week because he was working on a large project he was under a deadline to finish, and asked us if this was acceptable to us. Since we had already lived with the electrical irritation for months, we figured a week isn't going to make much of a difference.

Sonny was very professional and did the job in one day. He didn't even leave a mess! How's that for awesome service?! Most contractors leave a pile or more of garbage and dust behind. He cleaned everything up, gave us tips on how to save energy and was very efficient at repairing our wiring and now everything works great!

We will be calling on Sonny again to help us plan out part of a renovation we plan on doing in the coming months.

I highly recommend Sonny and SJ Rios Electric!

Christy F.

We Used Rios Electric on my rental in Willow Glen. Sonny was on time and professional. His pricing was very fair and I will be sure to tell my friends and family about this company.

Thank you Sonny for your work.

S F.

Sonny is hands down the BEST electrician that I have come across!!! Very professional and on time. My mom needed some electrical work done on her home and I needed someone that would take their time and do the job right.

Thank you again Sonny for your great work.

al t.

AVOID Sonny and SJ Rios Electric at ALL COSTS! I was quoted $170 for him to come to my residence and diagnose my problem with my kitchen and hall way lights. Unfortunately, I was called into the office, so I had my wife stay home to let Sonny and his crew in. I get a call from Sonny telling me how old my house is and how bad the electrical wiring is in the entire house, blah blah blah, and how they don't have time to address the hall way lights, but they will make sure that I have sufficient lighting in the kitchen in order for me to prepare my Thanksgiving dinner for my family who will be staying with us. The final phone call I get from Sonny before he leaves my residence is ""Al...we had to leave your microwave unplugged and we are only able to get 2 of your kitchen lights to work. The other 2 are shorted out. This is the best we can do. We will need to come back after the holidays to repair all your outdated wires.""

No problem. I pay over the phone via credit card as he asks for $212.50. I didn't want to argue with him at that time as I was dealing with clients, so I just paid the $212.50.

Now we get to the good stuff. I get home, turn on the kitchen lights, and only 1 light turns on. Didn't Sonny just tell me that 2 lights would be working out of the 4? Also, he informed my wife that he left the microwave unplugged, however, if we needed to use it, all we had to do is plug it back in. I plugged the microwave in, and the microwave was non-functional. This is when I started doubting Sonny's work.

I then pulled the 1 working light's bulb out, and screwed it into the 3 other lights that were not working. Guess what? All 4 lights turned on, one by one! I then drove to Lowes and purchased 4 new bulbs, installed them, and all 4 lights work, which leads me to believe that Sonny did absolutely nothing to rewire anything or repair anything.

His words to me were that only 2 lights would be working, and that the other 2 he disconnected, as there was a short somewhere. How could he have disconnected those other 2 lights, if all I did was install new bulbs and they start working?

Sonny had no answer for that. All he could say over the phone was ""well, I don't know....there could have been dust...electricity does some weird things....""

This answer did not sit well with me. I am not questioning the time he spent at my home. I am questioning the work that he supposedly did, which was pretty much absolutely nothing! I never authorized $212.50 worth of work. I authorized $170 over the phone.

Bottom line is STAY AWAY FROM SONNY and SJ RIOS ELECTRIC unless you want to get scammed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Janet R.

I needed some electrical repairs done on my condo and called Rios Electric yesterday. Sonny came out first thing this morning and had everything repaired/replaced in no time. He had all the equipment needed (unlike another electrician awhile back), cleaned up behind himself, and gave me a fair price. I plan to use Sonny in the future and highly recommend Rios Electric.

5 STARS ALL THE WAY!