In writing. Parts and labor. Stays with the house.

What's covered

• Parts and labor. Both the part we installed and the labor to put it in (or replace it under warranty) are included. No surprise labor charges if something goes wrong.
• Stays with the house. The warranty isn't tied to you personally, it's tied to the address. If you sell the home, the next owner inherits the same coverage with no transfer paperwork.
• Lifetime = as long as the home stands. When we say "lifetime" on panelboxes, surge protection, and grounding, we mean for the lifetime of the structure. If the home is still standing, the warranty is still valid.

Exclusions and limitations

• Customer-provided materials aren't covered under the parts portion of the warranty, only the labor and install. If you bring your own fixture, we'll install it correctly, but if it fails because the part is faulty, that's between you and the manufacturer.
• Specific item warranties (breakers and panelboxes) only apply when we install Keil Electric preferred brands and types. For example, lifetime panelbox coverage applies on CH Copper Systems and other approved makes. We'll tell you the brand we recommend before we install.
• Surge events without surge protection may void coverage. If the home has no Type 1 or Type 2 surge protection device, electrical components we installed that are damaged in a surge event may not be covered. We strongly recommend whole-home surge protection. It is lifetime-warrantied itself.
• Warranty work must be performed by Keil Electric. If anyone else (another electrician, a handyman, you) touches the work we did, the warranty on that work is void in full. This protects the integrity of the install.
• Warranty periods start on the date of completion for the relevant electrical work, not the date you signed the quote.

A warranty only matters if the claim path is real. Most contractor warranties read clean on the brochure and fall apart when something fails. Ours runs on a straightforward sequence: you call, we visit, we fix. The customer file we built when we did the original install is the start of the claim, we have the install date, the parts list, the photos, and the inspection close-out.

The four-step claim path

1. You call the same shop that did the install. San Diego work calls the San Diego shop, Austin work calls the Austin shop. Both numbers are listed below.
2. We pull the file. Original install date, parts, scope, and any prior service notes come up on the call. We confirm the warranty is still in force and that the failure is in the covered scope.
3. We schedule a visit. Warranty visits are prioritized but not emergency-flagged unless the failure is also a hazard. Typical scheduling: same-week for non-urgent, same-day for active issues.
4. We make the fix. Parts and labor under warranty mean no charge for the warranty repair. Anything we recommend that's outside the warranty (related upgrades, scope changes) is quoted separately for you to decide.

Why we put it in writing

Most warranty disputes happen when the original scope is ambiguous. The customer remembers one thing, the contractor remembers another, and the paper trail is missing. We avoid that by documenting at install: the quote you signed, the parts we installed (brand, model, install location), the inspection close-out, and the warranty terms attached to that specific work. If the property changes hands, the next owner inherits both the warranty and the documentation.

What about new owners?

The warranty is tied to the address, not the original buyer. When you sell the home, the next owner inherits the same coverage with no transfer paperwork required. We sometimes get warranty calls from new owners who closed on a property six months ago, they describe a failure, we pull up the original install for that address, and the work runs the same way it would have for the original customer.

What's not covered (most common questions)

Manufacturer defects on customer-provided fixtures (those are between you and the manufacturer; our labor is still covered). Wiring or panel work touched by another electrician or handyman after our original install (warranty voids on the affected work). Damage from a surge event when no surge protection device is installed at the panel (we recommend an SPD on every install for this reason). Acts of God, flood damage, fire damage from a non-electrical cause, we'll work with insurance but those aren't warranty-covered electrical failures.

The warranty in plain English

If we put it in, and it fails because of how we put it in, we come back and fix it for free. That's the substance. The matrix above is the spelled-out version with timeframes and exclusions, but the principle is one sentence. Most of the time we never need it, most of our warranty visits are minor adjustments after a major install rather than full failures.