My Mother hired a licensed electrician to install 1 ethernet drop in her home office. She already had a preexisting tp-link setup in the basement. She showed me the invoice today which totaled $958.00! I’m shocked and disgusted. Feels like they took advantage of my Mother.
I told my Mother to call them first thing tomorrow morning to see if they possibly made a mistake. If not, I advised her to never do business with that company again. This seems like highway robbery. Is there anything else she can do?
Paid a fair price don’t call the business.
Yes, you’re right it’s a steep price, but that’s the cost for a professional.
What city are you in? I’m not too surprised for electricians especially in pricey states. Unfortunately it is a bit of work to run cable between floors, and worse when digging out drywall.
I feel an AV company might be a better help
Field nation seems like it’s geared towards commercial? Maybe can find someone on there to do a residential job though.
It’s definitely a commercial driven platform, but you might be surprised as to how many commercial companies outsource residential work on here 💫
Looks cost seems excessively high for a simple Ethernet drop installation, and it might be worth seeking a detailed breakdown of the charges
The problem is that there’s a minimum amount someone like that will charge to do a job. She probably would have paid the same amount if she’d had him put 4 drops in that room. He just wasn’t going to waste his time going out there without making a certain amount of money.
LV guy here. Sorry,but your mom got F’d by that sparky. Show a pic of the actual cable he ran. A clear shot of the jack at the wall and the end at the rack.
CAT5e thru drop ceiling, no certification just working test, $150 - $200 tops depending on area.
Did she already pay him ?
I did ethernet myself earlier this month. 2 60 foot cat6 runs, through a wall, down outside the house, then back up and in at the other end, cable running through the crawl space. It was about 40$ in material and took me and my father an hour with full termination on both ends and so far stable gigabit. Ethernet is not something that needs an electrician (no notable current) to install, although some of the same skills apply.
Overall, a single ~25 foot cat5e run? Based on information in the posts and comments, if you paid more than 100$ you got ripped off, and I would probably have done it for 75.
hence the old rule get 3 quotes.
While its overpriced, I’d love for someone to point me to someone that can do this for less, NC Durham area. I need two drops done for access points that I dont feel like doing myself. A little more complex and longer but yeah 1k a visit minimum is the best ive gotten so far.
Why is anyone installing anything less than CAT6 today??
Why is anyone even doing anything less than cat 7
Before I even saw the price, I said 1k per run in my head. Learn how to pull cable yourself if you don’t like it. Shit can be challenging sometimes. You charge 1k per run because some runs should cost 2k and some should be 500. When you only want 1 run done, you pay the premium then. Having said that, probably should have adjusted this one after the fact and said “Hey that was a pretty easy one, here’s 30% back”.
Look on the bright side. It works! I’ve run into many many many electricians, licensed and not, who have no idea how data works. They’d splice stuff together all day long, leave twisted pairs exposed for like a foot and so on and so forth.
She got way over charged. Shouldn’t have been over $300.
Given what you have said, the high end this should have cost no more than $250.
licensed electrician
She hired a plastic surgeon to pop a zit when a nurse would have been more than qualified. The electrician probably has a minimum hourly rate as well as a minimum number of hours that they bill to make any job worth it to them.