Most people don’t call an electrician until something’s already gone sideways, and by then you’ve usually got more questions than answers. We put this page together to fix that. Below are the questions we hear most from homeowners and businesses around Southeast Iowa and West Central Illinois, answered the same way we’d answer them if you called the shop. No sales pitch, no runaround. If your question isn’t here, reach out and ask. We answer the phone, and we return calls.
Working with T.A.P. Electric
Are you licensed and insured?
Yes. T.A.P. Electric is licensed and insured in both Iowa and Illinois, and we’re BBB rated. That matters more than it sounds. A licensed electrician is trained to catch the things that cause fires and failures down the road, like a bad ground or an overloaded circuit. A handyman working off a video usually isn’t. If someone can’t show you a license, that’s your answer about whether to let them into your panel.
What area do you serve?
We’re based in West Burlington and cover about a 60-mile radius from there. That takes in Burlington, West Burlington, Fort Madison, Mount Pleasant, and Keokuk on the Iowa side, plus parts of West Central Illinois. If you’re not sure whether you’re in range, just ask.
Learn more: Our Service Area
Do you charge to come out, and how does your pricing work?
We try to price as much as we can before we ever get in the truck. On most residential jobs we can give you a range over the phone, or from a few good photos, or on a live video walk-through. That way you’re not surprised by the bill. We publish our pricing right on the site, and the price we publish is the price we quote. It’s the same across our whole service area.
Learn more: Our Pricing
Do you mark up materials?
On residential work, no. We’d rather earn the job with fair pricing and good work than pad the parts bill. It’s one of the ways we keep things straight with our customers.
How fast can you get to me?
We’ll be honest, we can’t always get there as fast as you’d like, especially on the busy days. What we can promise is that we’ll answer the phone or return your call quickly, usually within a day. The thing we hear most in the field is “you’re the first one who called me back.” We work hard to keep it that way.
Are you available after hours or in an emergency?
Yes. Electrical problems don’t keep business hours, and neither do we. If you’ve got a burning smell, sparking, or a section of the house down and you’re not sure it’s safe, call us. If it’s a true emergency, get everyone away from it first, then reach out.
Do you offer financing?
We do. Financing is available as low as 0 percent for those who qualify. It’s a pre-qualification offer, so checking your options doesn’t do a hard pull on your credit unless you decide to pre-qualify and agree to the terms. For a bigger job like a service or panel upgrade, it can make the timing a lot easier.
Do you handle permits and inspections?
On the work that requires it, yes. A new service or an upgrade means dealing with the National Electrical Code, the utility company’s rules, and the local authority having jurisdiction, plus scheduling the inspection. That’s a lot of moving parts, and we take care of all of it so you don’t have to chase paperwork.
What forms of payment do you take?
We take all the common forms of payment, and you’ll get your invoice and receipt on the spot when the work’s done. No waiting around wondering what you owe.
What Electrical Work Costs
How much does an electrician cost, and why does it cost what it does?
The honest answer is that it depends on the job, but we don’t make you guess. We publish real pricing on our site, and we’ll give you a number before we start the work. Electrical work runs what it runs because a licensed crew, the right materials, code-compliant methods, and the insurance behind it all cost money. What you’re paying for is the job done right the first time, and done safely.
Learn more: Our Pricing
Can you give me a price without coming out?
A lot of the time, yes. Send us a few clear photos of the job with some detail, or hop on a live video and walk it down with us, and we can usually get you a price over the phone. Some jobs need an in-person look to be accurate, and when that’s the case we’ll set up a time. The right number depends on what we find when we look, and we’ll show you what we find.
Why does a price sometimes change once you’re here?
Once in a while we open up a wall or a panel and find something we couldn’t see from the outside, like a hidden splice, brittle old wiring, or a problem the last person left behind. When that happens, we stop and talk it through with you before we do anything. You won’t get a surprise on the final bill. If the scope changes, you’ll know why before the work goes on.
Is My Home’s Electrical Safe?
How do I know if my electrical is safe, and should I have it inspected?
If something feels off, it’s worth a look. We can come out and check the things you can actually see and reach: the panel and service, loose or discolored connections, warm spots, tired receptacles, outdoor fixtures, anything you want us to look at. We’ll give you our honest opinion. One caveat we’re upfront about, we can’t guarantee what’s hidden behind walls or under insulation, because nobody can see through drywall. This is our own safety look, not the code inspection a city or state requires for a permit. Those are a different thing.
Why do my breakers keep tripping, or my fuses keep blowing?
A breaker that trips is doing its job, it’s telling you a circuit is pulling more than it should, or something’s wrong on that line. The dangerous move is replacing a blown fuse with a bigger one to make the problem stop. That doesn’t fix anything. It just removes the safety limit, and now the wiring can overheat before the fuse ever blows. The real fix is finding out why it’s tripping in the first place.
Learn more: Panel Upgrades
Why does an outlet feel hot, or spark when I plug something in?
That’s one to take seriously. A warm or sparking receptacle usually means a loose connection or a worn-out outlet, and loose connections are behind a lot of electrical fires. If an outlet is hot to the touch or you’ve seen it spark, stop using it and give us a call. It’s a small fix now and a much bigger problem if it’s left alone.
Why am I getting shocked by the dryer, the pool, or in the tub?
Getting shocked by an appliance or in water is a grounding and bonding problem, and it’s not one to wait on. When grounding and bonding aren’t done right, metal parts that should be safe, like a dryer, a washer, or the metal around a pool, can end up carrying current. That’s a genuine danger to you and your family. If you’re feeling any shock at all, call us and let us find it.
Why do my lights flicker when the A/C or the microwave kicks on?
A little dimming when a big motor starts up can be normal. Repeated flickering, or flickering that’s getting worse, can point to an overloaded circuit, a loose connection, or a panel that’s undersized for the house. It’s worth having looked at, especially in an older home.
Learn more: Panel Upgrades
Do I need smoke detectors?
Yes, and working ones. Smoke detectors are one of the cheapest pieces of safety in the whole house. If yours are old, painted over, or you’re not sure they work, replace them. We’re glad to help if you want them hardwired.
Panels, Fuse Boxes, and Your Electrical Service
What’s the difference between a panel upgrade and a service upgrade?
People use these to mean the same thing, but they’re two different jobs. A panel upgrade is replacing the panel itself, the breakers and the box that distribute power through your house. A service upgrade is bringing a bigger service into the home, the mast, meter, main, and feeders that carry power in from the utility, usually to raise your capacity. Sometimes you need one, sometimes both. We’ll tell you which.
Learn more: Panel Upgrades and Service Upgrades
Do I need a 200-amp panel? Is 100 amps enough?
Depends on the house and what you’re running. A hundred amps is fine for plenty of homes, but if you’re adding a garage, a hot tub, central air, an EV charger, or you just keep tripping breakers, you may be maxed out. We’ll look at what you’ve got and what you want to add, and give you a straight answer.
Learn more: Panel Upgrades
Should I replace my fuse box? My insurance company is asking about it.
This comes up a lot, especially when buying or insuring an older home. A lot of insurers won’t write a policy on an old fuse box, and honestly there are good safety reasons for that. Moving from fuses to a modern breaker panel makes the house safer and easier to live with. If your insurer is pushing for it, we can get it done and inspected.
Learn more: Panel Upgrades
Why does half my house go dark when one fuse blows?
That’s normal for how a lot of older homes were wired, several rooms sharing one circuit. It’s inconvenient, and it’s often a sign the electrical hasn’t kept up with how you actually use the house. A panel and circuit update spreads the load out the way it should be.
Learn more: Panel Upgrades
What’s the difference between overhead and underground service?
Overhead is the classic setup, the wires run from the pole to a mast and weatherhead on your roof. Underground runs the service line buried from the source to the house. Each has trade-offs on cost, looks, and how it holds up to storms. We install and repair both.
Learn more: Overhead vs. Underground Service
Older and Historic Homes
Want to identify what you have first? Read our guide on how to tell what kind of wiring is in your home.
I’ve got an older home. Do I need to rewire it?
Not always, but it’s worth knowing what you have. Homes wired decades ago were built for a fraction of the electrical load we put on them now. If you’ve got knob-and-tube, cloth-insulated wire, two-prong outlets everywhere, or a panel that can’t keep up, a rewire brings the house up to how you actually live. We can do it a section at a time or all at once.
Learn more: Whole-Home Rewire
Why does my old house only have two-prong outlets, and can I make them three-prong?
Two-prong outlets are from the days before a ground wire was run, common in older homes. Here’s the part a lot of people don’t know: swapping in a three-prong outlet does not make it grounded if there’s no ground wire behind it. It just looks grounded, which is worse, because now you trust it. The right fix is either a proper ground or a GFCI outlet installed correctly. And a warning, those older boxes are usually metal, so changing an outlet with the power on can give you a nasty flash or a shock. Leave that one to us.
Can you fish new wiring through plaster walls without tearing the house apart?
Most of the time, yes. Fishing wire through finished walls, attics, and crawl spaces is a big part of what we do in older homes, and we work to keep the mess and the wall damage to a minimum. We’ll walk you through what’s realistic for your house before we start.
Learn more: Whole-Home Rewire
Is knob-and-tube wiring safe?
Knob-and-tube can still be working, but it wasn’t built for modern loads, it has no ground, and the insulation gets brittle with age. Insurers are increasingly wary of it too. We don’t say rip it all out tomorrow, but if you’ve got it, you should know where it is and have a plan.
Learn more: Knob-and-Tube Replacement
Should I worry about aluminum wiring?
Aluminum branch wiring, common in homes wired in the 1960s and 70s, isn’t automatically a crisis, but the connections need the right treatment or they can loosen and overheat over time. It’s worth having a licensed electrician check the terminations and correct them properly.
Learn more: Aluminum Wiring Repair
Do you work on homes in my town?
If it’s in Southeast Iowa or West Central Illinois, almost certainly. We’ve done work across Burlington, West Burlington, Keokuk, Fort Madison, Mount Pleasant, and the smaller towns around them.
Learn more: Our Service Area
Specific Projects and Upgrades
Do you install and service generators?
We do, including standby generators that pick up automatically when the power drops. A generator is one of the better upgrades for peace of mind around here, especially if storms tend to leave you in the dark.
Learn more: Generators
Can you install an EV charger at my house?
Yes. A home charger usually means running a dedicated circuit, and sometimes it’s the thing that finally pushes an older panel over its limit, so we’ll check that your service can carry it. Send us the details and we’ll get you a price.
Learn more: Our Pricing
Can you wire a pool, hot tub, camper plug, or welder plug?
All of those, yes. Pools and hot tubs especially, because they carry a safety requirement a lot of people don’t know about. A permanent pool has to be bonded properly with a wire that ties the metal parts together, so there’s no dangerous difference in voltage when you’re standing there wet. Running an extension cord to a pool pump isn’t just against code, it can shorten the life of the pump and put you at risk. This is one to do right.
Learn more: Our Pricing
Can you add outlets, install ceiling fans, or swap out light fixtures?
Absolutely. No job is too small. Adding a receptacle, hanging a ceiling fan on a proper fan-rated box, putting in under-cabinet lighting, upgrading to LED, that’s bread-and-butter work for us, and a lot of it we can price over the phone.
Learn more: Our Pricing
Do you do smart-home wiring and smart switches?
We do. Smart switches, smart outlets, and the wiring behind a connected home are all things we can set up. Tell us what you’re trying to do and we’ll tell you what it takes.
Learn more: Our Pricing
Do you do commercial and industrial work?
Yes. Alongside residential, we handle light and heavy commercial and industrial electrical, everything from a storefront to more specialized environments. If you’ve got a commercial or industrial project, reach out and we’ll talk through it.
Learn more: Contact Us
Still Have a Question?
How do I get in touch?
If your question didn’t make the list, that’s what we’re here for. Call, text, email, or send a message, whatever’s easiest for you. We answer all of them, and we’ll give you a straight answer the same way we would if you were standing in the driveway with us. Licensed and insured in Iowa and Illinois, BBB rated, and trusted by more than 75 five-star customers across Southeast Iowa.