Christopher Franklin Service

I usually don’t write reviews, especially bad ones, but WOW.

My family and I were replacing 12 old lighting fixtures with preassembled new ones. We usually try to do as much work around the house as possible, but we said since this is electrical work and we want everything done properly, let’s hire someone…

I chose CF Services because they were somewhere in the middle in terms of price, and during the consultation, Clem (adolescent worker) guaranteed that he could handle the whole job when prompted by Chris (owner).

When first calling to hire him, I asked if was speaking with Chris—he responded “It depends on who’s looking for him.” Although we set a date over a week away, he never contacted me to confirm the appointment—I had to be the one to call him the night before. When I asked who would be doing the installations and emphasized that we wanted the job handled properly, all he said was “One of my employees will be coming out.”

Morning came and Clem arrived half an hour late at 9:30 without communication. Then, the real fun began. We had him start with a medium-sized chandelier. He struggled to just remove the existing standard flushmount light and had to be instructed by us on how to do so. Then he hurriedly put together the chandelier chain and hanging pieces, in the wrong order, and spent literally an HOUR climbing up and down the ladder experimentally screwing and unscrewing things.

In the meantime, my nearly 60 year old father had to be his assistant the entire duration, lifting up the chandelier for him and climbing his own step stool to hand him parts/accessories. This didn’t stop him from dropping things and knocking into parts of a CRYSTAL chandelier. After several failed attempts, we were the ones who had to explain the written directions to him—which he barely looked at because he kept insisting he knew what to do. As if that was not bad enough, he had a temper tantrum while working and started banging parts together.

I ran off and called Chris, explained all the issues, and asked if someone else could at least come assist him. Chris said no, and to have Clem put in all but the two chandeliers, which he would come later in the week to install. I relayed this message to Clem and directed him to start working on a vanity light. He removed the old fixture and found that the electrical box needed to be centered in the wall for the new fixture—which was something we had discussed in the consultation. When asked if he could do this, he said “Yeah, but I’m not 100% confident there won’t be any problems, so maybe you want to wait for Chris.”

We said okay, moved on, and directed him to install a simple flushmount light in the closet. Again, he took the old one off, didn’t read any instructions, began trying to install the new one, couldn’t accomplish anything, and started banging it to the ceiling. We told him it was alright, and that we would contact Chris to arrange everything else.

Over two hours and we were left with nothing but a huge headache, disconnected lights, and damaged light fixtures… needless to say, we did not go with CF Services for this job.