Before You Hire an Electrician, Check These 4 Things
Hiring an electrician means trusting someone with the wiring hidden inside your walls. Most contractors are honest professionals. But how do you tell the difference before the work starts?
You check their credentials. Not the badges on their website, the organizations behind the badges. Here are four memberships and licences we hold, what each one actually requires of us, and what it means for you.
1. Licensed by Technical Safety BC
Technical Safety BC is the regulator for electrical work in this province. In BC, a licence is legally required to perform regulated electrical work. It is not optional, and it is not just paperwork.
What it takes: licensed contractors work under qualified personnel, pull permits where required, and have their work subject to inspection. The licence can be taken away if the rules are not followed.
What it means for you: accountability. If something goes wrong, there is a regulator involved, not just a handshake. And you do not have to take our word for it. Technical Safety BC has a public lookup tool where you can search any contractor by company name and see exactly what they are licensed to do.
2. Covered by WorkSafeBC
WorkSafeBC is BC's workplace insurance system. Every legitimate contractor with workers should be covered.
What it means for you: if a worker is injured while working on your property, the coverage sits with WorkSafeBC, not with you. Hiring someone without coverage can leave a homeowner exposed in ways most people never think about until it is too late. It is a fair question to ask any contractor: are you covered?
3. A+ rated and accredited by the Better Business Bureau
The Better Business Bureau tracks how businesses handle complaints, and accreditation means a company has committed to the BBB's Standards for Trust. The A+ rating reflects our complaint history and how we respond when something needs fixing.
What it means for you: a public record you can check yourself. Anyone can look up our profile and see exactly what customers have said and how we handled it. That kind of transparency is worth more than any testimonial we could write about ourselves.
4. Member of CHOA
CHOA is the Condominium Home Owners Association of BC, the organization that supports strata owners and strata communities across the province. We are a business member.
Why does an electrical contractor join a strata owners association? Because strata and multi-family buildings are a big part of the work we do, and we believe in being directly accountable to the communities we serve. Membership connects us with strata councils and property managers, and it holds us to the standards of the people whose buildings we work in.
What it means for you: if you sit on a strata council or manage properties, this is a signal. Strata work is not a sideline for us. We chose it, and we chose to answer to the community that depends on it.
How to check any electrician
You do not need to memorize any of this. Before you hire anyone, run these three checks:
- Search the contractor on Technical Safety BC's licensed contractor lookup.
- Look up their BBB profile and read the complaint history.
- For strata work, check whether they are connected to the strata community through organizations like CHOA.
None of these memberships come free. Each one takes applications, inspections, ongoing fees, and the willingness to be checked on. We keep them current because that is the standard we would want for our own homes.
If you would like work done by a contractor who holds to that standard, request a quote and we will take it from there.
