I can't say for areas too far outside of the Chico area as I rarely work too far from home.
In town resi service seems to average 65 or 70. I don't know for sure cause I haven't had to call for any electrical service lately
In the larger cities I'd bet it's higher. Same for emergency or night work.
I believe some companies use a slightly higher show up fee with a reduced hourly after that.
I keep it simple with a standard hourly and usually a one hour minimum. If I show up and don't accually do anything. (reset GFI, breaker tripped by user overload, etc..) I might reduce it to a half hour or even comp it. It depends on how far out of my way I went to stop by.
My rate is considerably lower than what I hear others are charging for two reasons.
1 I like to sleep at night.
2 The resi market is getting tighter due to less work and a flood of newer C10s (myself included) probably generated by the new certification law in CA. If others start dropping service rates I'm hoping people will remember that I was reasonable all along.
I'm pretty sure both not knowing for sure my competitor's rates and my policies make me a poor businessman by most standards and if the economy doesn't totally tank as I suspect it will I may raise my rates a bit. Time will tell.
Vince
