So I was quoted $1150 today to install an electrical outlet...

[romulus90]

What is going on with cost of home services?

Wife and I just bought a house without a garbage disposal.. She took the kids out of town for a few days so I installed a disposal and was going to run electrics (kitchen wasn't built with an outlet under the sink, so need an outlet + switch), but got lazy and figured I'd have an electrician do it.

After some research on yelp, I emailed the top rated local companies and only 1 responded. So the guy comes out and after poking around, says he needs to run a dedicated circuit b/c of the high amp disposal and it was going to cost $1,150... but it'd be done today and I wouldn't have to worry about it. I almost fell over. I had ~$300 in my head as a *high* figure, but was willing to do it at that cost. To be clear, we're talking running 50ft of line from the box, through crawl space, up in wall to switch behind the sink, then down to outlet 4' away. Not cosmic...



Ironically, I was talking to my dad recently about how technicians (plumbing, heating/air, electricians, etc) seem to just charge insane prices and enough people bite that it's worth the easy work over doing every job for a reasonable fee. For example, a heating/air tech quoted my parents $2,500 to replace ONE vent line from the air handler because the insulation was damaged. My dad bought supplies from lowes and spent 2 hours doing it himself.. Ridiculous.