Commercial Maintenance Companies - Electrician Talk - Professional Electrical Contractors Forum

emfman · 05-18-2009, 01:37 PM

Does any one know of some national commercial maintenance companies that I could look into to get some work rolling in as quickly as possible.

I am aprentacing with my father currently and I have been tasked with developing some new business for his electrical contracting business. We operate in Virginia and have a Class A license.

Right now we do mostly Comercial Service work on a small scale ($500 - 4k jobs). We are currently signed up with a comercial maintenance company that sends us some jobs ocasionally. My first thought was to find some more of these companies to get some more work and then focus on finding the work on our own and cut out the middleman.

Any sugestions are apreciated.

MDShunk · 05-18-2009, 03:57 PM

You can have that work. Those maintenance companies are notoriously slow payers. I've tried, with great hope, one after the other. I more or less have "fired" them all so far as customers.

wirenut1110 · 05-18-2009, 05:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MDShunk

You can have that work. Those maintenance companies are notoriously slow payers. I've tried, with great hope, one after the other. I more or less have "fired" them all so far as customers.

X2.

Here's a couple you can call if this is what you want:

1st Choice Facilities Services Corp
2041 Whitfield Park Loop
Sarasota, FL. 34243 PH 866 241 0070

N.E.C. Building Services
5416 Huron Rd.
Lyndhurst, OH 44124 PH 800 591-8244

BDB · 05-18-2009, 07:13 PM

We were going to do some work for a "service company". Until we got the first call from them, and they tried to tell me WHEN I could start charging, when I had to stop my time, how long it was to take and we had to call them when we pulled up to the job site. Ended up not even doing the first job, told the guy on the phone (in an around about way) where to stick it.

MDShunk · 05-18-2009, 08:06 PM

So many of these maintenance companies...

do not want to pay for travel time
give you a list of what they pay for a certain service
mail you the parts to install, so you can't markup parts
won't pay you at all if you don't get their paperwork 100% exactly right
are slow payers
never pay

You can have all that maintenance work from national companies. It's never really worked out for me.

bobelectric · 05-18-2009, 08:57 PM

Servicemaster?

emfman · 05-18-2009, 10:02 PM

Yeah I know its crap but beggars can't be chosers right? The one company we do work for already makes us sign in and its like pulling teeth to charge for travel. But the good news is we can always turn the work down if we don't like it. I just need to get enough work for us both coming in an then I can focus on our marketing needs.

My Father s basically close to retiring and only working cause his investments tanked so he has to go at it a little longer. He really does not have the energy to get things fired up the way he used to have them going so i am trying to breath some life into his company and hopefully build something worth taking over once he retires.

We have some clients but not enough to keep us both busy. I do part time work installing garage door openers and flat panel TVs and I really want to stop that work and do nothing but electrical work so i can learn the biz. So basically I am trying to just get us some busy work so i can learn more and market us more effectively.

Jim Port · 05-20-2009, 08:05 AM

From my limited exposure to commercial service work it seems that the chains always go through the clearinghouse to get the work done. The clearinghouse finds the contractors to do the work.

I don't know what they base their do not exceed price on. Never seems to be enough money.

user5941 · 05-22-2009, 10:26 AM

We work with three companies they were up front that payment would be 45 days from invoicing they send you the forms to fill out and have signed. I have never had one not pay.

electricguy · 05-23-2009, 07:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rewire

We work with three companies they were up front that payment would be 45 days from invoicing they send you the forms to fill out and have signed. I have never had one not pay.

Wish I could say the Same.

http://www.eretailmaintenance.com/

MDShunk · 05-23-2009, 07:58 PM

I've had some of these maintenance companies send the parts that I was to install before they even asked me to do the work. I got a couple cases of lamps and ballasts delivered one day before they even asked me to do the work. "Thanks for the free lamps and ballasts!". I didn't do that particular job.

blueheels2 · 05-23-2009, 10:51 PM

My boss does these for DWM and another company that I can't think of the name of. I do know that they have a maximum bill amount. He submits that amount every time.

JohnJ0906 · 05-24-2009, 10:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MDShunk

I've had some of these maintenance companies send the parts that I was to install before they even asked me to do the work. I got a couple cases of lamps and ballasts delivered one day before they even asked me to do the work. "Thanks for the free lamps and ballasts!". I didn't do that particular job.

What did they say when you told them you weren't going to do the work, but were keeping the material?

emfman · 05-28-2009, 08:59 AM

Thanks for all the info. Is that it though? Any other companies out there I can contact?