Of all the trades a homeowner hires, electrical work carries some of the highest stakes for the lowest visibility — a bad wiring job might work fine for months before it causes a fire, a nuisance trip, or a shock hazard nobody notices until it's serious. You can't inspect the quality of someone's electrical work the way you can eyeball a paint job or a tiled floor. That's exactly why a few honest questions before you agree to anything matter more here than almost anywhere else.
On GigsDex, look for the "GigsDex Verified Professional" badge directly on their profile — it means their identity has already been checked against a government-issued document by our admin team, not self-declared. If you're hiring through a different channel entirely, ask to see a photo ID and, where relevant, any trade licence or electrical contractor's certificate for your state. A professional with nothing to hide will show you this without hesitation.
"I've been in construction for fifteen years" is not the same claim as "I've been doing electrical work for fifteen years" — a general contractor and a licensed electrician are different skill sets, even if they overlap on a job site. Experience years shown on a GigsDex profile are tied to the professional's primary trade category, so a carpenter and an electrician aren't competing on the same number. Ask directly if you're unsure, and don't be shy about asking what proportion of their work is genuinely electrical versus adjacent trades.
A professional's portfolio on GigsDex can include photos and short videos of completed jobs, uploaded directly by them. Ask them to walk you through two or three that are similar in scope to what you need — a rewiring job is a very different undertaking from swapping out a ceiling fan, and a portfolio full of small fixture installs doesn't necessarily tell you much about how they'd handle a full board upgrade.
A 4.6 average built from three reviews tells you far less than a 4.2 average built from forty. Read a handful of the written comments, specifically looking for mentions of punctuality, whether the final price matched what was quoted, and whether the work passed any follow-up inspection or continued working weeks later. GigsDex reviews are moderated before they go live, which filters out spam and abuse, but it's still worth reading the actual sentences rather than skimming the star count.
Every GigsDex profile shows the professional's state and district, and the app's "Nearby" search only surfaces professionals within the radius you've set. Confirming coverage before a call saves both sides a wasted conversation — and it's a fair early test of how straightforward someone is: a professional who says "that's a bit far, but I can do it for an extra visit charge" upfront is telling you something useful about how they'll communicate later too.
None of these questions take more than a minute to ask, and a professional who's confident in their own work will answer all five without getting defensive. Once you're comfortable, the rest is simple: call or WhatsApp them directly from their profile, agree on scope and price before work starts, and get anything unusual — like a change in scope mid-job — confirmed again before it happens rather than after.