Located at 400 W. Burlington Avenue
We live here, we work here, you’ve probably seen our van! T.A.P. Electric is based at 400 W. Burlington Avenue in West Burlington — same town as Great River Medical Center, Southeastern Community College, and Westland Mall. West Burlington has a different housing profile than its older neighbors across the river-town corridor. The median West Burlington home was built around 1961, and most of the city is postwar tract neighborhoods built between 1950 and 1980. That means the wiring conversation here is usually about service upgrades, aluminum branch wiring in homes from the late 1960s and early 1970s, and bringing 60-amp panels up to 200 amps to handle modern HVAC and EV chargers. All of it is fixable.
Licensed electricians serving West Burlington and Des Moines County, Iowa — we’re based right here on West Burlington Avenue.
★★★★★ More than 80 five-star Google reviews · BBB Rated · Licensed IA + IL · Available 24/7
We work across Southeast Iowa
Most of West Burlington is postwar tract housing — different from the historic homes in Burlington proper, Keokuk, and Fort Madison. But the work we do here ranges across the whole region. Heritage Hill in Burlington, the older neighborhoods in Keokuk and Fort Madison, the postwar streets here in West Burlington, the newer subdivisions out toward Highway 34 — we have 20+ years experience across the whole range. Whether it’s a knob-and-tube rewire in a 1900s home or an aluminum-branch-wiring remediation in a 1968 ranch, we know what we’re looking at.
What we do for West Burlington homeowners
Most of what we do in West Burlington is a mix of residential and commercial work. The residential side is mostly panel upgrades, aluminum-wiring remediation in postwar homes, service entrance rebuilds, and EV charger installs in the newer subdivisions. The commercial side reflects what West Burlington actually is — a regional service hub with Great River Medical Center, Southeastern Community College, Westland Mall, and a corridor of retail and restaurants along Gear Avenue and Agency Road. We do service calls, small-commercial panel work, restaurant electrical maintenance, and medical-office wiring for that whole footprint. A few of the calls we take most often:
- Whole-home rewires — replacing old or unsafe wiring throughout the house, including knob-and-tube
- Electrical panel upgrades — fuse box to modern breaker panel, 100-amp service to 200-amp
- Ungrounded outlet replacement — bringing 2-prong outlets up to current code, including GFCI where needed
- Service upgrades — for homes with electrical service rated for a different era
- EV charger installation — Level 2 chargers at home, even for older homes that need a service upgrade first
- Generator installation — we’re a Generac dealer
- Smart-home wiring and lighting — when you want your historic home to keep up with modern demands
- Commercial and industrial work — about 20% of what we do; if it’s electrical, we can handle it!
24/7 Emergency Electrician
For the calls that can’t wait until Monday morning.
Don’t See What You Need?
Call us! Every electrical need is unique. We will walk through your exact issue and find a solution.
Same transparent pricing across all of Southeast Iowa
Most electricians in this part of Iowa won’t show you a number until they’re already at your door. We do it the other way around. Our pricing page lists the prices for the work we do most often — service calls, panel upgrades, rewires, EV chargers, generators — and the price we publish is the price we quote. The only thing that changes a quote after that is something we couldn’t see from the outside (the kind of thing nobody can quote sight-unseen, like asbestos in old plaster). If we find something like that on a West Burlington job, we stop, show you what we found, and update the quote before we keep working. Same way we’d want it if it were our house.
The houses around West Burlington aren’t all the same
West Burlington’s housing isn’t one thing. The older streets near the rail corridor and downtown have a smaller pocket of pre-1940 homes — knob-and-tube still in the walls, fuse panels from a different era. Most of the city is postwar tract growth from 1950 to 1980 — cloth-insulated copper wiring with 60-amp panels, aluminum branch wiring in the 1965–1973 homes, the work is service upgrades and aluminum-wiring remediation more than full rewires. The newer subdivisions out toward Highway 34 and the medical campus are modern panels with grounding and AFCI/GFCI protection, where the work is EV chargers, generator interlock, or smart-home additions. We’ve worked in all three — and we don’t have to travel to get here.
What sets us apart from a typical Southeast Iowa electrician
Most electricians in this part of Iowa work the same way: you call, they come out, they tell you the price at your kitchen table, you decide on the spot. That works if you have time and the patience to compare three quotes that all arrived at your door. We do it differently. Our pricing is published before you ever pick up the phone, our 24-hour callback promise is on every call, and we tell you what we’d want to know if it were our house — including when we’d recommend a different approach than the one you called about.
What West Burlington Customers Say
★★★★★
“They are very nice and understanding. They do great work and the electrician was very kind and very good at what he was doing, and understood that I had no idea what he was talking about and explained everything to me. Thank you.”
— Roberta M. · Google review · November 2024
A note about being your local team
West Burlington isn’t a big city, but it punches well above its weight. Great River Medical Center anchors a regional health system that serves Southeast Iowa, west-central Illinois, and northeast Missouri. Southeastern Community College trains the welders, nurses, and tradespeople who keep the region running. Westland Mall is the retail anchor for the whole area. We’re proud to call this town home, and we’re proud to keep the power flowing safely into West Burlington homes and businesses.
Licensed, insured, and easy to call
- Licensed and insured in Iowa and Illinois (IA Contractor Registration #C143094)
- BBB Rated
- More than 80 five-star Google reviews at a 5.0 average
- Available 24/7 — call, text, or use our quote form
- 24-hour callback promise — every call gets a response inside one business day
- No surprises — we stop and check in before any scope or price changes
Common questions from West Burlington homeowners
My home was built in the 1920s and still has the original wiring. Do I need to rewire?
Not every old home needs a full rewire, but most homes built before 1950 have at least some wiring that wouldn’t pass a modern inspection. The most common safety issues are knob-and-tube wiring with no grounding wire, brittle insulation, and undersized service for today’s appliances. The honest answer is we’d need to take a look to tell you for sure — and we can usually do that with photos and a phone call before anyone comes out.
What’s the difference between a fuse box and a breaker panel? Do I need to upgrade?
Fuse boxes were standard until the 1960s. They work, but they were designed for the electrical loads of that era — a refrigerator, a few lamps, a radio. Modern homes pull a lot more current, and a 60-amp fuse box can be a fire risk under that load. Upgrading to a 100-amp or 200-amp breaker panel brings the house up to current code and gives you the headroom for everything from a new HVAC unit to an EV charger.
How long does a whole-home rewire take in an older home?
It depends on the size of the home and how the walls and ceilings are built — plaster-and-lath takes longer than drywall. Most rewires we do in older West Burlington-area homes run between three days and two weeks. You don’t usually have to move out; we work room by room and keep power running where we can.
What does a panel upgrade cost in West Burlington?
Our pricing page lists the prices for panel upgrades, and those prices are the same across our whole service area. The final number depends on what we find when we look — every panel upgrade is a little different. If we need to do anything beyond the standard scope, we tell you before we do it.
Are you really 24/7, or is that marketing?
Real 24/7 for emergencies. If you’ve got sparks, smoke, a panel that’s hot to the touch, or a power loss that isn’t a utility outage, call (309) 333-3912 — you’ll get a person. Routine work happens during business hours like anyone else.
Need an electrician in West Burlington? Let’s talk.
We’d rather answer a quick question on the phone than have you wonder. Call or text (309) 333-3912 — we’ll get back to you within 24 hours. Or use the quote form below, and we’ll come back with a real number, not a sales pitch.