Service Call (Trip Fee)
The base charge for getting an electrician to your door, typically $100 – $250, usually covering the first 30 – 60 minutes of diagnosis. After-hours and emergency calls bill at a premium.
The service call exists because the truck, the licensed person in it and the drive are most of the cost of small jobs. Shops structure it differently (flat trip fee plus hourly, fee waived if work proceeds, or flat-rate task pricing from a book), and asking which model applies is a fair, normal question before booking. Diagnostic time counts as work: finding the loose neutral is the skill, even when the repair takes four minutes.
Emergency and after-hours calls run 1.5 – 2× standard rates with higher minimums, which is exactly the calculation behind "can it wait until morning": a sparking panel cannot, a dead bedroom circuit usually can. Describing symptoms precisely on the phone (what died, what tripped, what you smelled) sometimes resolves the question without the truck.
Talking to a contractor about this?
Run the project past a licensed electrical pro first. Calls are answered around the clock and routed to a pro serving your area.
- NEC (National Electrical Code) : The rulebook for safe electrical installation in the US, revised every three years and adopted state by state.
- Electrical Permit : The local authorization required for significant electrical work (panels, new circuits, services, generators), with an inspection at the end.
- Rough-In : The first phase of electrical construction: boxes mounted, cables pulled and stapled, everything ready inside open walls, inspected before insulation and drywall close it in.
- UL Listed : Certification that a product was tested against safety standards by UL or an equivalent lab (ETL, CSA).