Five Or Free Electrical Heating & Air Solutions — Attraction in Oakland

I recently had an amazing experience with Five or Free Electrical and I just had to share it.

I called them because half of the lights in my home went out unexpectedly one night. With two children 5 and under, having no lights was a big problem. I called them first because I saw they offer free consultations.

Within two hours of calling, Elvin and Carlos visited my home. They called me when they were 15 minutes out and when they arrived. They promptly checked all the outlets and told me that I had dropped voltage in each, a sign that something serious was going on, likely needing extensive repairs.

This is where the interaction took a slight turn. They proceeded to tell me that the free consultation was only to determine if there was preliminary an issue but that I needed to schedule an in depth assessment that cost $475. What’s worse was that the first assessment available was 4 days away. My jaw dropped when I heard that. What was the point of advertising a free consultation if it wasn’t actually free? Especially when on the phone no one mentioned it would be a two-tiered visit. With young children, I couldn’t wait 4 days to get the lights back. I needed repairs asap. I explained to them that I thought their policy was misleading and had I known it would take 2 visits to get my lights on, I wouldn’t have wasted their time and my time by calling them. I suggested to them that the company should explain the inspection approach upfront. If they had done this I wouldn’t have been shocked when they couldn’t help that day. Elvin and Carlos listened without getting defensive and profusely apologized for the unclear information. Still apologizing, they left.

I thought that was the end of that until I got a call from Carlos who said that he had been thinking about our interaction and how it ended hadn’t sat well with him. He said that the company’s first promise to customers, from the 5, is 100% satisfaction. His visit with me had ended with me being very dissatisfied. So Carlos called the owner and explained the situation. The owner of the company authorized his return to my house so that he could fix the most pressing issue, getting the lights back on. I was flabbergasted by what he said. I’ve never worked with a company who has ever cared that much about customer service.

Carlos came back that day and worked diligently for almost 2 hours to get my lights back on. Carlos showed true dedication to customer satisfaction, going out of his way to make sure I was completely satisfied.

It's rare to see a company take that level of pride in their work and customer care, especially after the job is "done." I’m incredibly grateful for Carlos and Elvin’s professionalism, honesty, and commitment to doing right by their customers. They will be back this week to do a more thorough assessment of all the work needed, but at least the lights will be on in the meantime.

If you need any electrical work, I highly recommend Five or Free, they’re a team that genuinely cares about their clients and will always make sure you’re happy with...

It is hard to say just how much we appreciate Five or Free. We have been working with them on the absolute saga that is our house for eight months. We purchased our first home last year and decided to upgrade the subpanel. We also scheduled a different appointment to add a grounded wire/plug for the dryer. For all of this work, they were on time, incredibly patient in explaining the work or answering questions and very clear on what would happen, including cost. It was a great experience.

After all this happened we started to have our dryer breaker trip randomly. The dryer might not have been on, but at times the breaker would still trip. And it wouldn't even always be the same breaker. It was a literal mystery that baffled nearly every technician that came to the house. But the thing I loved is they all looked at it like a puzzle to solve and they went above and beyond to try and fix it. They checked suspect outlets, dug around in the attic, reviewed all the recent work. They tried a slew of different things and wouldn't forget, sometimes even texting in off hours to see how things were going. The last suggestion involved moving the breaker to the main panel and replacing the line and three weeks later, we are still free and clear of breakers tripping (knock on wood).

To reiterate how much we like them, at one point we decided to try and replace the main panel. Our home warranty wanted to use their contractor to get the work done. After nearly a month of frustration in trying to work with their contractor, we opted to take a payout instead and just have Five or Free do the work, cause we knew we could trust them.

They will always be our first call for electrical problems going forward. Though many of their employees did work on our house (it was eight months after all), I want to especially call out Gilbert, Eric and Allen, as they probably did the most. Their communication is great and their dedication is unmatched. I highly...

Five or Free wrapped up a job for my Mom yesterday, and she and I felt our standards were met and then some. There was exceptional communication and sound/fair expectation-setting throughout the entire process. I've yet to confirm the final price, but their quote was extremely competitive in price and seeing as one of their "Five or Free" promises is to not raise your bill once your job is underway (at least I think it is), then they weren't just price-competitive but possibly the best price of any of the quotes I had put in. Our exceptional experience was most and most frequently embodied by our primary point of contact, Alex Gonzalez. Alex was the technician who came to quote my Mom at the outset, as well as to install the job by himself once they'd won her business. All our interactions with him came well into the New Year 2021Covid-19 Pandemic surge (as if working on peoples homes wasn't already challenging enough, ha) just for the record. And Mom is both elderly and likely to experience the more severe effects of CV19 given infection. So having a 'stranger' in her home wasn't a decision taken lightly...and yet, here we are at the job's close having spent maybe 6-8 hours around Alex all while in my Mom's house, and I can't think of a single moment I caught him with his mask off, or not socially distancing, or not diligently (but key point safely) working...he was a genuine, welcome pleasure to have around..esp. in these times of distancing and quarantine, I think that says a lot about the young man and the head on his shoulders. You got the sense beginning to end that these guys were the right call, that wasn't in doubt much if at all for us at least and believe they come highly...