Talbot Electric Inc.

Talbot Electric has leaned on the same handful of jobs for a long time: rewiring old North Shore houses, chasing down a short in a wall sconce, splicing a bad wire before it fails outright. The company says on its own site that it has served the Salem area for more than 30 years and calls itself a knob-and-tube specialist, work suited to the older housing stock around Essex County. Recent reviewers keep landing on the same points. One customer this spring credited Kevin's crew with keeping both inside and outside work "neat and timely, with no surprises" on estimates; another said a bad splice got tracked down and fixed quickly; a third called the price reasonable and said they'd call again for future work. That sits on top of a broader run of 26 Google ratings averaging 4.5 stars, and a similar pattern on Checkbook.org, where about four in five raters called the company "superior." BestProsInTown reviewers separately point to the same traits — flexibility and fair pricing. One thing worth knowing before calling: a smaller directory, local.us-info.com, lists just 3.7 stars from nine ratings, noticeably lower than the reputation Talbot carries on Google and Checkbook.org. There's no way to tell if that reflects an older or different set of reviewers, but it's a real outlier worth weighing against the more consistent numbers elsewhere. For routine residential work — an outlet repair, a wiring issue in an older home, tracking down a short — reviewers describe a company that responds quickly and gives a straight estimate up front. If the job involves knob-and-tube wiring, it's worth mentioning that specifically, since that's the specialty the company highlights itself.