Landscape lighting
The house after dark
Uplight on the brick, path light down the walk, and the roofline picked out rather than washed flat. Twenty-five years of putting beams where they belong.
Winston-Salem, NC . Family owned since 1990
Bretco Electric has kept Winston-Salem wired and lit since 1990.
Licensed and insured, working out of the shop on Thurston Street. Panels, faults, generators and lighting, for houses and businesses across the Triad.
Thirty-five years on the same street
A local shop, three vans, and a phone somebody answers.
Bretco started in 1990 and has been locally owned and family operated ever since. That is the whole reason the response times read the way they do: there is no call centre between you and the electrician, and the shop is eight minutes from most of Winston-Salem.
We work houses and businesses alike. New wiring, panel and service upgrades, faults nobody else could find, recessed and landscape lighting, and standby generators sized to the building rather than to a catalogue page.
- In business since
- 1990
- Google rating
- 4.8from 128 reviews
- Towns covered
- 10across the Triad
The archive
Thirty-five years of finished work, one still at a time
Not a gallery grid. These are jobs off Bretco's own camera roll, in the order you would walk them.
Fixture hanging
Two storeys up, dead level
A foyer chandelier under an arched window. The hard part isn't the wiring, it's getting the drop, the level and the chain length right from a ladder nobody enjoys.
Feature lighting
Light built into the racking
LED runs set into a wine cellar's shelving so the bottles read and the fittings disappear. Low heat, low draw, no visible source.
Interior lighting
Sconces down a stair run
Globe sconces spaced along a staircase, boxes set before the drywall closed, heights matched to the rise so the line reads straight from the bottom step.
Kitchen
Puck light under live edge
Floating shelves over a counter with the lighting fed through the timber. Work light where you chop, nothing hanging in the sightline.
Service work
Conductors dressed clean
This is what the inside of a panel should look like when the cover comes off. Neat runs aren't vanity. They're what makes the next fault a ten minute job.
Troubleshooting
Every breaker labelled by hand
The sticker goes on and the directory gets written out. When something trips at 6am, you want to know which one it is without walking the house flipping switches.
What we do
Eight trades' worth of electrical work, under one licence
Every job below is work Bretco does week in and week out. Pick the one that sounds like yours, or just call and describe what the power is doing.
Homes
Residential electrical
Wiring, fixtures, outlets, repairs and maintenance for homes across Winston-Salem, brought up to modern code for generators, HVAC, ranges, dryers and home offices. Senior and military discounts.
Residential details- Electrical service upgradesMost upgrades land at 200 amp service. We will tell you first whether you need the whole service or just the one circuit that keeps tripping.Upgrades
- Electrical troubleshootingThirty years of reading faults in residential and commercial wiring, with test equipment instead of guesswork, and repairs that meet code when we leave.Faults
- Recessed lighting installationEnergy efficient LED set flush with the ceiling, laid out before anything gets cut. Kitchens, bathrooms, bedrooms, basements, home offices and commercial spaces.Recessed
- Landscape lighting installationOver twenty-five years of accent and path lighting that doubles as security light. Design, product and installation from one place, and the estimate is free.Landscape
- Commercial electricalKeeping appliances and equipment running for Triad businesses, at low service call rates, scheduled around a shop floor that cannot simply close for the day.Commercial
301 Thurston St
Three vans, one shop, and the number painted on the wall.
Who turns up
You get the same crew, not whoever the app sent.
The vans carry the tools, so the diagnosis and the repair usually happen on the same visit instead of turning into a second appointment and a second call-out. Customers name the electricians in their reviews, which only happens when the same people keep coming back.
“We found out our meter was burned on the inside at 4:30am in the summer while having a newborn. We called Bretco first thing in the morning and they had Steve and Luis at our house by 11:30am and my meter was fixed and power restored by 4:30pm... we are forever grateful for the quick response and how kind and communicative the technicians were.”
Before you book anything
Is it one circuit, or is it the whole service?
This is the question that decides whether you are spending a few hundred dollars or a few thousand, and plenty of homeowners get sold the big version of it when they did not need to. Here is how we sort it out.
One circuit misbehaving
A breaker that trips on the same appliance, outlets dead in one room, a switch that stopped working. That is branch-circuit work. It is a service call, not a service upgrade, and it usually gets fixed the day we look at it.
The house has run out
Adding central air or electric heat, building an addition, wiring a pool or a spa, or still living with an old fuse panel. Those are the real triggers for a service upgrade, and most of them land at 200 amp service.
What upgrade day costs you
Plan on roughly six hours without power. Afterwards, some old circuits may retrip once correctly sized breakers sit behind them. That is the new panel finding faults the old one was quietly carrying.
Straight answers
The things people ask before they call.
If yours is not here, the shop is open Monday to Friday, 8:00 AM to 4:30 PM, and somebody will talk it through with you on the phone.
The shop works Monday to Friday, 8:00 AM to 4:30 PM. Customers who write reviews describe calls answered the same morning and an electrician on site by late morning, and a request submitted online answered inside twenty minutes. Call (336) 774-1223 and you will get a straight answer about the day, not a booking window three weeks out.
Winston-Salem first, then Kernersville, Colfax, Advance, Walkertown, Lewisville, Pfafftown, High Point, Clemmons and Oak Ridge.
Often just a repair. A service upgrade is the right call when the whole house is short of capacity: adding central air or electric heat, putting on an addition, wiring a pool or spa, or replacing an old fuse panel. If one circuit keeps tripping, that is a branch-circuit problem and a much smaller job. We will tell you which one you have before you spend anything.
Plan on roughly six hours without power while the new service goes in, and expect that some old, overprotected circuits may retrip once they are behind correctly sized breakers. That is the panel doing its job and finding faults the old one was hiding. We would rather you hear that up front than on the day.
Standby generator prices have come down a long way. We size the unit to the house or the business, install it, then service and maintain it afterwards. The survey and the price quote at your house are free, so you can find out what yours would take without committing to anything.
Landscape lighting estimates are free, and the in-home survey and quote for a backup generator are free. For service work, call the shop. Bretco keeps service call rates low on purpose, because a homeowner who is worried about the call-out fee waits too long to call about a burning smell.
Yes. Bretco offers senior citizen and military discounts on residential work. Mention it when you call.
American Express, Visa, MasterCard, Discover, cash, check and money order.
Winston-Salem, Clemmons, Lewisville and the rest of the Triad
Tell us what the power is doing.
A dead room, a breaker that will not stay in, a quote for a generator, or a plan for the front of the house after dark. Call the shop and you will get a real answer about when we can be there.
301 Thurston St, Winston-Salem, NC 27103 . bretco1@bretcoelectric.com