Electrical Services Intake Forms: Know What You're Walking Into
Electrical work is different from every other trade, and here's the blunt reason: a plumber who makes a mistake causes a leak. A roofer who makes a mistake causes a drip. An electrician who makes a mistake can cause a fire, an electrocution, or both. That's not drama — it's the reason electrical work is more heavily regulated than almost any other residential trade, and it's the reason your intake process needs to be better than a phone call and a sticky note.
Customer and Property Basics
Start with the standard customer info: name, address, phone, email. Then get into the property details, because they matter a lot for electrical work. Is this residential or commercial? Is the customer the homeowner, a tenant, or a property manager? (This affects who can authorize work and who's responsible for permits.) How old is the building? A house built in 1955 is a fundamentally different electrical job than one built in 2015, and your tech needs to know that before they show up.
Building age isn't just trivia. It tells you what you might find behind the walls. Pre-1960s homes might have knob-and-tube wiring. Homes from the 1960s and 70s might have aluminum wiring, which is a known fire hazard at connections. Homes built before major NEC code updates may have undersized panels, ungrounded outlets, or wiring methods that are no longer legal. Your intake form should ask: do you know what type of wiring is in the home? Has the electrical panel ever been updated or replaced? These questions don't require the customer to be an electrician — most homeowners know if they've had panel work done, and many know if their house has old wiring because a previous inspector flagged it.
Current Electrical System
Ask about the existing electrical panel: what's the amperage? Is it a breaker panel or a fuse box? (If it's still a fuse box, that's immediately relevant to scope.) Where is the panel located? For a lot of older homes, the panel is in a finished basement behind furniture, or in a crawl space, or on an exterior wall that's been landscaped over. Knowing where it is before your tech arrives saves time on site.
If the customer knows the panel brand, that's useful too. Certain panels — Federal Pacific Stab-Lok panels and Zinsco panels in particular — are known safety hazards and often need full replacement regardless of what the original service call was about. An intake form that captures the panel brand lets you flag those situations before you're standing in front of one.
Service Type and Problem Description
Your intake form needs checkboxes for the major categories of electrical work: repair, new installation, panel upgrade, inspection, code compliance, and emergency service. Then you need a structured symptom section, because "something's wrong with the electricity" tells your tech nothing.
Ask specific questions. Are any outlets or switches not working? Are lights flickering? Do breakers trip frequently, and if so, which ones? Are there any outlets that feel warm to the touch or show discoloration? Has anyone noticed a burning smell near any outlets, switches, or the panel? Is there any exposed wiring anywhere in the home?
That last set of questions — warm outlets, burning smell, discoloration — are safety flags. If a customer checks any of those boxes, that changes the urgency of the job. It might move from "schedule for next Thursday" to "we need someone out there today." The intake form is where those flags get raised, not during a casual phone conversation where they might get glossed over.
Permits: The Question Most Shops Don't Ask Early Enough
Electrical work is one of the most permit-heavy trades in residential construction. In most jurisdictions, anything beyond replacing a switch or outlet require