Residential Electrical Repairs Across the Bay Area
Breakers that will not stay on, outlets that died without warning, lights that dim when the dryer starts. Bellows has been fixing residential wiring in the Bay Area since 1984, and we answer the phone at any hour.
What a Visit Costs
Most electrical faults announce themselves in the evening, when the house is fully loaded and everybody is home. A diagnostic visit is $189 during normal hours, and we waive it if you go ahead with the repair. Replacement estimates are free.
We answer the phone at any hour. Evenings and weekends cost more than a weekday visit, and we tell you the after hours rate when you call rather than after we arrive. Members of our Annual Home Protection Plan pay no after hours charge at all, and nothing for the diagnostic, at any hour. Membership is $300 a year and also covers maintenance on your plumbing, heating and cooling equipment, including an electrical safety inspection normally priced at $350.
Some faults should not wait for morning. A burning smell at a panel or an outlet, a faceplate that is warm to the touch, scorch marks, a breaker that trips again the moment it is reset, or any sparking, are all reasons to shut that circuit off and call instead of waiting. If the smell is coming from the panel itself and you are not sure, leave the main alone and call from outside the house.
While you wait, the useful thing you can do is narrow it down. Note which rooms and which outlets are affected, whether anything was running when it happened, and whether a GFCI in a bathroom, garage or outside wall has tripped. If one circuit is clearly the problem, leave its breaker off. If you smell burning and cannot place it, leave everything alone. Any of that shortens the search once a technician is in the house, which is the part you are paying for.
What a Diagnostic Actually Buys You
An electrical fault is a search problem. A dead outlet can be the outlet, the device upstream of it, a loose neutral in a junction box, a failed breaker, or a nail someone put through a cable when they hung a shelf in 2003. Nobody can price that over the phone honestly.
So the diagnostic visit is the search. A licensed technician traces the circuit, finds the fault, and gives you a written price for the repair before any work starts. Go ahead that day and the $189 comes off the invoice. We do not bill by the hour. You see the repair price first and decide.
Breakers That Trip Repeatedly
Occasionally this is a failing breaker. More often it is a circuit carrying more than it was designed for, or a fault somewhere on it. A breaker that trips is doing its job; the question is what it is protecting you from. Resetting it repeatedly answers nothing and removes the protection while you do.
Dead Outlets and Dead Circuits
Frequently a tripped GFCI somewhere else entirely, sometimes in a garage or a bathroom nobody thinks to check. Sometimes a back stabbed connection that has worked itself loose behind a receptacle, which is a five minute fix once it is found and an afternoon of guessing if it is not.
Lights That Flicker or Dim Under Load
Worth taking seriously. If lights dim when a large appliance starts, the wiring or the service may be undersized for what the house now runs. If they flicker for no reason at all, there may be a loose connection heating up somewhere, and heat at a connection is how electrical fires start.
Warm Faceplates, Buzzing Switches, Discolored Outlets
These point at a connection that is failing rather than a device that is broken. They do not fix themselves, and swapping the device without finding out why the old one cooked just resets the clock.
Switches, Dimmers, New Circuits and GFCI Work
Dimmers often stop behaving after an LED retrofit, because most older dimmers were built for the load of an incandescent bulb. The fix is usually a dimmer rated for LED rather than a rewire. New appliances, home offices and workshop benches usually want a circuit of their own rather than a share of one. And GFCI or AFCI protection may need adding where the code now expects it, replacing at the end of its life, or diagnosing when it will not reset. A GFCI that trips the moment you reset it is reporting a real fault downstream, not failing.
Older Houses, and What Is Behind the Wall
A lot of our service area was built between 1950 and 1975, and two things from that era change the conversation.
Aluminum Branch Circuit Wiring
A national survey conducted for the Consumer Product Safety Commission found that homes built before 1972 and wired with aluminum are 55 times more likely to have one or more wire connections at outlets reach what the survey called Fire Hazard Conditions than homes wired with copper. That survey looked only at connections at outlets, so treat 55 times as a floor. The failure happens at the connections, not in the wire itself: aluminum expands, contracts and oxidizes differently from copper, and connections loosen over decades.
What matters more is what counts as a fix, and CPSC Publication 516, dated June 2011, is specific. It approves three methods for a permanent repair: complete replacement with copper cable, the COPALUM crimp method, or the AlumiConn connector, which its staff describes as the next best alternative where COPALUM is not available. CPSC staff does not accept pigtailing with twist on connectors as a permanent repair, and considers CO/ALR rated devices, in its own words, at best an incomplete repair. Both are allowed as an emergency temporary fix for a failed termination, with a proper repair to follow as soon as possible.
That distinction matters on a real house. If a previous owner had the receptacles swapped for CO/ALR devices and called it handled, what they bought was a stopgap, not a permanent repair. If you have aluminum branch wiring, we will tell you what you have and what the real options are, instead of swapping a device and moving on.
Federal Pacific and Zinsco Panels
Both turn up regularly in houses of this age, and both get flagged by home inspectors. The history is more specific than the rumors that travel with it. The CPSC closed a two year investigation into Federal Pacific Stab-Lok residential circuit breakers in March 1983, release 83-008. Its testing confirmed that the breakers failed certain UL calibration requirements, but it said the data available did not establish that they posed a serious risk of injury to consumers, and that it was unable to link those calibration failures to a hazardous situation. It also said that settling the question properly would cost several million dollars against a total agency budget of $34 million that year, and chose not to spend it. So the file was closed without a determination either way.
That is neither an all clear nor a condemnation, and it is why we assess the panel in front of us rather than reason from the label on the door. We have a separate guide on Zinsco panel replacement if that is what you are looking at.
When a Repair Is Really a Panel Problem
Sometimes the call comes in as a repair and the answer is upstream. The tells: a panel with no spare breaker spaces, a fuse box instead of breakers, double tapped breakers where two conductors share one lug, a 100 amp service in a house that has added air conditioning and an electric range since it was built, or rust and corrosion inside the enclosure.
We will still fix the immediate fault. But if the panel is the reason the fault keeps coming back, you deserve to be told. Our electrical panel upgrades page covers what that work involves, including subpanels where a full service upgrade is not necessary.
Safety Inspections
If nothing is broken but something feels wrong, or you have just bought the house and want to know what you bought, a safety inspection is the right call, not a repair visit. It is a whole house look at the panel, the grounding and bonding, GFCI and AFCI coverage, the condition of devices and any visible wiring, with a written report at the end.
It is normally $350, and it is included in the Annual Home Protection Plan. We have written separately about why regular home electrical inspections matter and what they cover.
Who Turns Up
The technician who arrives is a Bellows employee. Bellows has been in business since 1984 and holds California contractor license 483881, carrying C-36 plumbing, C-20 heating and air conditioning, and C-10 electrical. The C-10 is the one that matters on this page, and it is the classification an electrical contractor is required to hold in California.
Technicians are background checked, licensed, and arrive in a stocked truck. We work across Santa Cruz, Santa Clara, Marin and Sonoma counties from branches in Soquel, Campbell and Novato, and we answer the phone around the clock.
This is residential and light commercial building wiring. We do not work on vehicles.
Frequently
Asked Questions
Here are answers to the questions we get asked most:
What does an electrical repair visit cost?
The diagnostic visit is $189 during normal hours and we waive it if you go ahead with the repair. Replacement estimates are free. We give you a written price for the repair before any work starts, and we do not bill by the hour.
What do you charge after hours?
We answer the phone at any hour. Evenings and weekends cost more than a weekday visit, and we tell you the after hours rate when you call rather than after we arrive. Members of the Annual Home Protection Plan pay no after hours charge at all, and pay nothing for the diagnostic, at any hour.
My breaker keeps tripping. Is that an emergency?
Reset it once. If it trips again immediately, leave it off and call. A breaker that trips repeatedly is interrupting a fault, and resetting it over and over removes the protection without removing the problem. Treat a burning smell, a warm faceplate, scorch marks or any sparking as a reason to call straight away whatever the hour.
Do you work on aluminum wiring?
Yes, and we will tell you what the real repair options are. A survey conducted for the Consumer Product Safety Commission found homes built before 1972 and wired with aluminum were 55 times more likely to have a wire connection at an outlet reach Fire Hazard Conditions than copper wired homes. CPSC Publication 516 approves three permanent repairs: complete replacement with copper, the COPALUM crimp method, or the AlumiConn connector where COPALUM is not available. Twist on connectors and CO/ALR devices are accepted only as an emergency temporary fix, not as the repair itself.
Why do my lights dim when an appliance starts?
A brief dip when a large motor starts can be normal. A persistent dim, or dimming that has appeared recently, can mean an undersized circuit, a loose connection, or a service that is no longer big enough for the house. Have it traced. It rarely improves on its own.
Can you fix my electrical panel?
Sometimes a panel problem is a repair and sometimes it is a replacement. A panel with no spare spaces, a fuse box, double tapped breakers or corrosion inside the enclosure is usually telling you something. Our electrical panel upgrades page covers that work, including subpanels where a full service upgrade is not needed.
Do I need a repair or a safety inspection?
If something is broken, book the repair. If nothing is broken but you want to know the condition of the wiring, or you have just bought the house, book the safety inspection instead. It covers the panel, grounding and bonding, GFCI and AFCI coverage and device condition, with a written report. It is normally $350 and is included in the Annual Home Protection Plan.
