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Hiring an Electrician in New Jersey: What I’d Want to Know Before Someone Starts Opening My Walls
By Tiffany Slowinski There are certain home projects I am perfectly willing to fake my way through. Electrical work is not one of them. If a light fixture needs to be changed, an outlet suddenly stops working or half the kitchen goes dark every time someone uses the toaster and the air fryer at the same time, I do not want to become an electrician. I want to know who to call. The problem is that most of us do not have an electrician until we suddenly need one. Then you Google. You ask in a Facebook group. You text a neighbor. You get three names and very quickly realize you have almost no idea how to compare them. That is where I would start.First, are they actually licensed?
This seems like a ridiculously basic question. It is also one I would check before letting anyone do electrical work in my house. New Jersey regulates electrical contractors through the state. There is a business permit tied to the electrical contracting company and a licensed electrical contractor of record attached to it. I do not expect homeowners to memorize license numbers. I do think we should know that there is a state record and that we can check it. That is one of the reasons we built this guide around the licensing records instead of simply pulling together the companies that appear first on Google. Because here is what surprised me: a lot of legitimate electricians are barely online at all. In Frenchtown, Garden State Circle found 85 electrical companies that met our criteria. Seventy of them had no website we could find. That does not mean they are less qualified. It means Google is showing you the businesses that are easiest for Google to find. Those are not always the same thing.What kind of electrical work do you actually do?
This would probably be my next question because “electrician” covers a lot. Maybe I need a dead outlet fixed. Maybe I am renovating a kitchen and need new lighting everywhere. Maybe we are adding an EV charger. Maybe I want landscape lighting, a generator or a new electrical panel because the house was built when nobody owned six televisions, three laptops and an air fryer. Those are very different jobs. I would tell the electrician exactly what I am trying to accomplish and ask how often they do that kind of work. I am not looking for the person who technically can do everything. I want the person who regularly does the thing I need done.Do I need a permit for this?
This is one of those questions I would rather ask before the job starts than after someone has already opened a wall. Some electrical work requires permits and inspections. The exact process runs through the local construction office. I do not expect to know which form gets filed with which town department. That is why I am hiring a professional. What I do want is a very clear answer: Does this job require a permit? Who is pulling it? Who schedules the inspection? Is that included in the quote? If the answer is some version of “we usually just skip that,” I would have more questions.What exactly am I paying for?
Electrical estimates can get confusing quickly because the part you can see is often the smallest part of the job. You may think you are paying for six recessed lights. The electrician may be looking at wiring, the panel, switches, dimmers, access above the ceiling, permits and three other things you did not know existed. That is fine. Just explain it to me. I do not need to understand every wire in my house. I do want to understand why the job costs what it costs and whether the quote includes everything needed to finish it. If opening the wall could uncover additional problems, tell me what those might be before we start. Nobody likes a surprise invoice. Especially one that arrives after there are holes in the ceiling.Are you going to solve the problem or just fix the symptom?
This matters more to me than whether someone has the fanciest truck. If an outlet keeps tripping or the lights keep flickering, I do not want someone to make it stop for three days. I want to know why it is happening. The same goes when you are renovating. A good conversation is not just “Where do you want the outlets?” It is also: How do you actually use this room? Where are the lamps going? Are you mounting a television? Do you need outlets inside the bathroom vanity? Are the kitchen appliances changing? Are you going to regret not adding the EV charger while everything is already open? I appreciate anyone who can see the problem I am about to create for myself before I create it.What if my house is older?
A lot of beautiful New Jersey homes were built long before our current relationship with electricity. We have older houses with additions, renovations, finished basements and decades of previous homeowners making decisions behind the walls. If I owned one of those homes, I would specifically ask whether the electrician regularly works on houses of a similar age. Old does not automatically mean unsafe. It does mean I want someone who understands what they may find when they start looking. And if the electrician tells me something needs to be upgraded, I want to understand whether we are talking about a code requirement, a safety issue, something needed for the project I am doing or simply something they would recommend. Those are not all the same thing.What should I do before an emergency happens?
This is the part none of us thinks about until the power is out. If you already have an electrician you trust, save the number. If you do not, finding one before you have an actual electrical problem is not the worst idea. Ask whether they handle emergency calls. Ask what their service area is. Ask whether existing customers get priority. Because the worst possible time to investigate electricians is when something smells like it is burning. And if something genuinely seems dangerous, I am not crowdsourcing it on Facebook first.Pay attention to how they explain things
This may be my biggest filter with anyone working in my house. Do they answer the question you asked? Can they explain the problem without making you feel stupid? Do they tell you what needs to happen now and what can wait? If there are two reasonable ways to solve something, do they explain both? I am completely comfortable paying a professional for expertise. I am considerably less comfortable paying someone who acts like asking what they are doing is an inconvenience. It is my house. I am allowed to understand the plan.So how do you actually find the right electrician?
This is exactly why we built this guide differently. Garden State Circle did not start with Google rankings or online reviews. We started with the New Jersey licensing record. For Frenchtown, we looked for companies with active New Jersey electrical business permits based in these towns, along with companies that specifically say they work here. We checked the business permit and the licensed electrical contractor of record attached to it. Then we published what we could actually verify. Some companies have detailed websites. Some have almost no online presence at all. That does not make this a ranking. It gives you a better starting point. Because when someone is working on the electrical system inside my house, I care a lot less about who has the best website. I care whether they are qualified, whether they know the kind of work I need done and whether I trust them to tell me what actually needs to happen. That is the electrician I want in my phone before I need one.The Guide: Electricians Near Frenchtown, NJ
New Jersey licenses electrical work twice over. The company that wires your panel, hangs your fixtures or installs your car charger has to hold a business permit from the State Board of Examiners of Electrical Contractors, and that permit is issued on the license of a named person — the licensed electrical contractor of record — whose name, number and status sit in the state register for anyone to look up in about ninety seconds. No company holds its electrical permit at an address in Frenchtown and the towns around it. The nearest companies are listed under Nearby options. This guide reports, for every company, exactly what it publishes about its own license and exactly what the state record says: both numbers, and the person behind them.How We Selected These Companies
A company appears here if it does residential electrical work — wiring, panels, service upgrades, lighting, generators, car chargers, repairs — for homeowners in Frenchtown, Milford, Holland Township, Kingwood Township, Bethlehem Township or Union Township. In practice that means one of two things. Either the state holds an active electrical business permit for the company at an address in those towns — no company here does — or the company works from Hunterdon County and names one of these towns as an area it serves. Electrical work travels to the customer, so where a company keeps its office is a fact in the table rather than a reason to leave it out. The license is not the gate. It is the first column. Making it a condition of entry would delete companies from the page on the strength of what their websites do not say. Where we cannot tell, we say so rather than guess. If you run one of these companies and want more than the state record on this page, the address at the foot of it is all it takes.About This Guide
The register files a company under whatever town its paperwork carries, and it matches that field on the opening letters rather than on the whole name. We have run every name the post office and the municipalities use for the towns in this guide, and the count now stands at none. The same sweep has been run against our other guides. This guide is produced by Garden State Circle. Companies appear here because they meet the criterion described above — they do residential electrical work for homeowners in Frenchtown, Milford, Holland Township, Kingwood Township, Bethlehem Township or Union Township. That is a test, not a judgment, and it is the only route onto this page. No company can pay to be included in this guide, to be listed higher, or to change what the comparison table says about it. Companies are listed alphabetically, and every detail in the table was verified against each company’s own website and against the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs licensee register — both the business search and the person search — in September 2026. Everything under the heading that begins this guide is governed by the rules above, on every guide we publish. Where a sponsor’s message appears above that heading, it is paid for and labelled, and it buys nothing in the guide. Garden State Circle is supported by the businesses that participate in it. Participation pays for our ongoing work: keeping a business’s entry accurate, re-checking its record, and publishing a page of its own details that the business maintains. There is no paid placement in this guide. Participation does not buy a place here, a position here, or anything the comparison table says. Every detail here was verified on the date shown on this page. Garden State Circle is published in New Jersey by Tiffany and Jake Slowinski and covers Frenchtown, Milford, Holland Township, Kingwood Township, Bethlehem Township and Union Township. Contact the publisher at jake@gardenstatecircle.com. How every guide is made, in one place: how every guide is made.Which of These Companies Is Actually Nearby
Most homeowners asking whether an electrician is “local” are really asking one question: will they come out for my small job? That is worth separating from geography, because the two are not the same thing. No company holds its permit inside the guide’s towns. The nearest work from Pittstown and Asbury and are listed under Nearby options, nearest first. On the second question — whether a company will take a single repair call rather than only quoting projects — the table reports what each company says on its own site, and for most of this market the honest answer is that it says nothing. We are asking every company on this list directly, and their answers will be published here as they come in.The Companies, Compared
Listed alphabetically. The three right-hand columns are three different things and the difference is the point: the first reports what the company puts on its own website, the second is the business permit the state holds under the company’s name, and the third is the person the state issued that permit on. State register checked September 3, 2026, in both the business search and the person search at the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs.Nearby options
| Company | Based in | License, as published on their own site | Business permit (state register) | Licensed electrical contractor of record (state register) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fusco Electric LLC | Pittstown | License #13290 | 34EB01329000 · active | John Fusco Jr · active |
| H W Eckert Electrical Contractors LLC | Pittstown (state record) | No website found | 34EB00635200 · active | Harold W Eckert · active |
| Hoff’s Electrical Services II LLC | Pittstown | Not published | 34EB01855700 · active | Douglas C Hoff IV · active |
| J M Kriegl Electr Contr | Pittstown (state record) | No website found | 34EB01074100 · active | James M Kriegl · active |
| Jerry Barrick Electrical Contractor LLC | Pittstown (state record) | No website found | 34EB01124500 · active | Jerry Barrick · active |
| Red Oak Electric LLC | Pittstown (state record) | No website found | 34EB01773000 · active | Kevin J Sferra · active |
| Tryton Electric Llc | Pittstown | permit #34EB01732200 | 34EB01732200 · active | Wesley P Smith · active |
| Plesh Electric LLC | Asbury | 34EI01414900 | 34EB01414900 · active | Anthony Plesh · active |
A Note on Reading the License Columns
The two state numbers are two different things. The business permit, beginning 34EB, belongs to the company. The electrical contractor license, beginning 34EI, belongs to a person, and the state issues the company’s permit on that person’s license — which is why the two share their digits, and why the right-hand column is a name rather than a number. A company can hold a permit only through a licensed contractor, and one licensed contractor can qualify only one company. Every permit on this page resolved to a named, active contractor of record. Plesh Electric, under Nearby options, publishes 34EI01414900, which is the contractor’s license rather than the company’s permit. Because the two numbers share their digits it resolves cleanly either way — but it is the only company in any of our markets to publish the person’s number instead of the company’s, and it is worth knowing that both forms are real. A register search of your own is worth two warnings. The name search matches the opening words of a registered name only, so a distinctive word in the middle of a company’s name returns nothing. And a town search returns forty rows at a time with no notice that there are more. If your result set is exactly forty, it is not finished. It is also worth separating credentials that look alike. A number beginning 13VH is a New Jersey Home Improvement Contractor registration and one beginning 19HC is a heating and cooling license. Both are real and neither tells you who holds the electrical license behind the work.The Companies
Plesh Electric LLC, Asbury
Plesh Electric describes more than fifty years in the trade, works from Asbury just over the Hunterdon line, and names Whitehouse Station among the places it serves. It is the only company on this page that publishes the contractor’s license number rather than the company’s permit — “34EI01414900” — which is the person’s credential. Because the two numbers share their digits it resolves cleanly to the business permit in the middle column, active, on the license of Anthony Plesh.Common Questions
How do I check whether a New Jersey electrician is licensed?
Go to the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs license verification system at newjersey.mylicense.com and run two searches. In the Business Search, set the profession to Electrical Contractors and the license type to Electrical Business Permit, and search by company name or town; the result gives you the company’s permit number and whether it is active. Then take the six digits in the middle of that number, switch to the Person Search, set the license type to Electrical Contractor, and search by license number 34EI followed by those digits and 00; the result gives you the name of the licensed contractor the permit was issued on, and whether their license is active. Both searches are free and take about a minute together.The register returns nothing for the company I am looking at. What does that mean?
Usually that the name you typed is not the name the state holds. The register stores the registered legal name, which is often not the name on the van — it drops ampersands, abbreviates words, and in neighbouring markets contains outright spelling mistakes. It also matches on the opening words of a name rather than anywhere inside it. Try the shortest distinctive opening words of the company name, and try the owner’s surname in the person search. A company you cannot find is not the same thing as a company that is not licensed.Which town’s construction office do I actually call?
Not necessarily the one on your envelope. In this part of Hunterdon the postal town and the municipality are frequently different things, and they have different construction offices. Each of the six towns this guide covers has its own construction office, found on the town’s own website; if you are not certain which one is yours, your property tax bill names the municipality.What is the difference between the license and the business permit?
The electrical contractor license is issued to a person who has passed the state examination, and the business permit is issued to a company on that person’s license. New Jersey requires an electrical contracting company to hold both. The person is the qualifier; the company cannot operate without one, and one licensed contractor can qualify only one company at a time.Does New Jersey license journeyman electricians?
No. New Jersey registers journeyman electricians and apprentices through the same board, and licenses electrical contractors. A journeyman on the job is registered, not licensed, and the license behind the work belongs to the contractor of record in the table above. The state does not issue a “master electrician” credential at all.Does an electrician here need a permit for the job?
That depends on the job, and it is your own municipality’s construction office that decides, not us. Each town’s office is found on its own website, as the section below explains. Ask before the work starts; a licensed contractor will already know the answer.Who Governs Electrical Work in Frenchtown
Electrical work in New Jersey answers to two state agencies with confusingly similar names, and they do different things. The license belongs to the Board of Examiners of Electrical Contractors, part of the Division of Consumer Affairs — (973) 504-6410 — which issues the electrical contractor license and the business permit in the table above. The permit for the job belongs to the Uniform Construction Code, N.J.A.C. 5:23, written by the Department of Community Affairs, Division of Codes and Standards — (609) 292-7899 — and enforced by each municipality’s own construction office. New Jersey adopted new editions of its construction subcodes on August 17, 2026; the electrical subcode is the National Electrical Code, NFPA 70, 2023 edition (N.J.A.C. 5:23-3.16) — the one subcode in the set that is not a 2024 code — per the Division’s current-codes table, read September 2, 2026. This guide covers Frenchtown, Milford, Holland Township, Kingwood Township, Bethlehem Township and Union Township, and each is its own municipality with its own construction office. We have not yet opened those offices and do not list them here; the state search above works in every one of them, and the permit office is found on each town’s own website. Fee schedules are adopted by ordinance and change. Whether a particular job needs a permit is interpreted by the town’s own construction office, not by us. We publish what each municipality published, with the date we checked it — confirm with the office before you rely on it, and if any of it has changed, the correction address at the foot of this page is the fastest way to tell us.More Garden State Circle Guides
The same guide for other markets- Electricians in Bridgewater
- Electricians in Basking Ridge and Bernardsville
- Electricians in Somerville
- Electricians in Long Branch and Red Bank
- Electricians in Belle Mead, Skillman and Montgomery Township
- Electricians in Warren, Watchung and Green Brook
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Something out of date?
This guide is maintained. If anything here is wrong or has changed — a name, an address, a permit number, or whether a business has closed — tell us and we will check it. Businesses listed here are welcome to write in directly, and a company that publishes a license number we have recorded as absent, or that we could not find in the register under the name it uses, is exactly the kind of correction we want. And if you run an electrical company that should be on this list and is not, write to us. We would rather be told than be incomplete. The test is the same one every company here cleared: that you do residential electrical work for homeowners in Frenchtown, Milford, Holland Township, Kingwood Township, Bethlehem Township or Union Township. A permit pulled in one of those municipalities, a completed job, or your business permit will do it. Show us that and you go on the page. admin@gardenstatecircle.comAdditional Resources
NJ Division of Consumer Affairs license verification This is not a ranking.Part of Frenchtown - River West Guides