How to Choose the Right Electrical Contractor for Your Business

Choosing an electrician for a commercial building comes down to a handful of questions, asked before any work starts. The checks below apply to any contractor you are considering, us included. They cover the licence, insurance, how the job is quoted, how it fits around your hours, and what happens after it is finished. Our commercial electrical services page lists the work we do for businesses.

Check the ESA Licence

In Ontario, a contractor may legally take on electrical work for hire only with a licence that the Electrical Safety Authority (ESA) has issued. The licence comes with a seven-digit number, which should be printed on the estimate. You can look the number up yourself on ESA's public Contractor Locator Tool, and our ESA licence check guide walks through the steps, with our own record as the example. The record gives the licence status and lists the work types it includes. It confirms the licence and nothing more, so it is no guide to the quality of anyone's work.

Ask About Insurance

ESA licenses a contractor only if it is insured for public liability and property damage. Ask for proof of it anyway, and check that the coverage suits your building and the size of the job. For the record, we hold ESA licence 7018179 and carry liability insurance.

Expect a Site Visit and a Written Quote

A contractor who prices commercial work without seeing the building is guessing at the load, the distribution and the access. Ask for a visit first, then a written quote that fixes the scope, lists the permits and inspections, and says how changes will be handled. That is how we work: we visit the site or work from your drawings, then put the scope and price in writing, and any change is agreed in writing too. Load calculations, utility applications and the ESA permit should be in the quote as line items, so nothing turns up later as an extra.

Ask How the Work Fits Around Your Hours

Closing a store or stopping a production line for a day costs money, so ask when the work will happen and how long any outage will last. A good contractor names the dates, says which areas are affected and agrees any planned shutdown with you ahead of time. We schedule retrofits, fit-outs and service work by area or after close, and a service change is booked with the local utility so the downtime is planned.

Ask About Experience With Your Kind of Work

Commercial jobs vary, so ask questions that fit yours. Have you installed a three-phase service and scheduled the changeover with the utility? Who sizes the feeder, breaker and disconnect for our new equipment, and who handles its controls? Will you take care of the load calculation, the ESA permit and the inspection, and will we receive the certificate our landlord or insurer asks for?

Ask About Maintenance and Infrared Scans

The job does not end when the lights come on, so ask what the contractor offers to keep the system running. A planned maintenance program sets a fixed scope of checks, done monthly, quarterly or once a year, covering panels, distribution, lighting and the emergency lights. An infrared inspection scans panels and connections with a thermal camera while they run under normal load, so a loose or overloaded connection shows up as heat before it fails. Ask whether the report comes with thermal images and a priority for each finding, so repairs can be planned into a budget. For the upgrades a commercial building most often needs, see our guide to electrical upgrades every business should consider.

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➡ Commercial Electrical Maintenance & Service