Electrical questions.
Straight answers.
Troubleshooting and guides for your home or building, from the team doing the work.
Find your guideUnderstand what is happening.
Know what comes next.
Straight answers to the electrical questions that come up most across Santa Clara County, for homeowners and for the building owners and property managers we work with. Each guide walks the same order our team does on site: what the situation usually means, what you can establish yourself, and the point where it stops being something to work out on your own.
Find your answer.
17 guides
- For your building28 min read
What a landlord must fix, electrically, in California
The habitability statute contains a two-part test that most summaries flatten into one. What is frozen at the year your building was wired, what stays a live duty forever, and what San Jose inspectors actually write up.
Updated August 2026Read guide - For your building27 min read
Your new equipment needs three-phase power
The machine is bought and the shop is single phase. The dealer says get a phase converter, an electrician says you need a service upgrade, and both are right for different shops. Where each path stops working, and what the utility route really costs and takes.
Updated August 2026Read guide - For your building16 min read
Why your standby generator failed to start
Three different failures get described the same way, and they have different causes. What California actually requires (the fire code gives no interval of its own), and the air district rule that limits how much you are allowed to test.
Updated August 2026Read guide - For your building8 min read
How often must exit and emergency lights be tested?
Monthly for 30 seconds, annually for 90 minutes. What catches property managers is which code section applies, what a self-testing fixture does not excuse, and the fact that every unit passing does not mean the building passes.
Updated July 2026Read guide - For your home7 min read
Your carrier flagged aluminum wiring
A letter about your wiring is not a deadline to rewire your house. California gives you 75 days, not the 45 most advice online still cites, and the paperwork matters as much as the repair.
Updated July 2026Read guide - For your home8 min read
Can you run your house on a portable generator?
Partly, and safely, if you avoid two specific mistakes. They are worth separating because they have different victims: one kills the people inside the house, the other kills the crew restoring your power.
Updated July 2026Read guide - For your building9 min read
How long does a commercial electrical permit take?
Not a number of weeks. Which of two review lanes your scope lands in, and then how many times the package goes back. The over-the-counter option most people have heard about turns out to be a residential one.
Updated July 2026Read guide - For your building9 min read
Does your building need arc flash labels?
Two rulebooks decide this and they have different triggers. One stopped applying the day the equipment went in, the other applies every day someone works on it. What changed in January 2026, and why most published guidance describes a code California has not adopted.
Updated July 2026Read guide - For your building9 min read
Who pays for electrical upgrades, landlord or tenant?
The physical boundary between base building and tenant premises is not the same as the financial one. Which provisions decide each item, and the code trigger that surprises both sides.
Updated July 2026Read guide - For your building8 min read
Can you stay open during an electrical upgrade?
Most of the work happens with the building running. What each scope means for your operation, and how the one window where power must be off gets made short and moved somewhere it costs nothing.
Updated July 2026Read guide - For your building9 min read
Does your building have enough power for a new tenant?
Why the amp rating on your switchboard is not your available capacity, the demand data that often proves you have more room than a paper calculation says, and the utility timeline that breaks lease dates.
Updated July 2026Read guide - For your home8 min read
Why your EV charger keeps tripping
Three separate things can stop a charging session and people call all of them tripping. Which one acted tells you whether it is circuit sizing, a fault, or just the car.
Updated July 2026Read guide - For your home7 min read
You smell burning near an outlet
What to do in the next five minutes, what hot plastic, fishy, and ozone smells each tell you, and why a smell that faded on its own is not an all-clear.
Updated July 2026Read guide - For your home8 min read
Why your lights keep flickering
Usually a dimmer arguing with an LED bulb, which is harmless. Sometimes a connection arcing, which is not. What flickers and when tells you which one you have.
Updated July 2026Read guide - For your home8 min read
Half your outlets are dead and the breaker looks fine
How much of the house is out tells you what failed: a GFCI hiding in the garage, a broken connection partway down the run, or a lost leg at the service.
Updated July 2026Read guide - For your home7 min read
Why your breaker keeps tripping
The three reasons a breaker will not stay on, which one you can clear yourself in five minutes, and the one homeowner fix that turns a nuisance into a fire risk.
Updated July 2026Read guide - For your home6 min read
Why your GFCI outlet won't reset
The four causes behind a GFCI that will not hold, which two you can usually clear yourself in a few minutes, and the signs that mean stop pressing reset.
Updated July 2026Read guide
Past the point
of troubleshooting?
Our team works every city in Santa Clara County, finds the actual cause instead of just swapping the part, and answers after hours when something cannot wait until morning. If there is no heat, no odor, and no arcing, book it as a scheduled repair instead and skip the after-hours premium.