Who gets listed
Any Washington company we can verify. Listings start from public state records — L&I electrical contractor licenses and contractor registrations — and each company’s own website. Only companies that work in homes are listed. National companies are listed only with a Washington office and a valid license, and are labelled “National company”. A company can’t pay to be added, and can’t pay to be removed. Every listing cites its sources and shows when it was last verified.
A listing only appears under a kind of work if the company holds the license that work needs: alarms, cameras, smart home, AV, audio, lighting control and access control need an electrical contractor license with a limited energy (06), residential (02) or general (01) specialty; networking also accepts a telecommunications (09) license; smart switches and hardwired smoke alarms need 01 or 02; gate operators need the doors and gates (10) specialty or an electrician; locksmiths need a contractor registration for locks and security hardware. Each license is checked with L&I before it’s published and again every week, including its bond and, for electrical licenses, an active administrator.
What a company says about monitoring, contracts and who controls your system (installer codes, local control, passwords) is shown as “The company says”, with a link to where it says it. We don’t test those claims: ask for them in writing.
The public record on each listing
Each listing with an L&I license shows that company’s Washington L&I record for the last 5 years, refreshed every week:
- Violations — infractions and citations L&I issued, such as using a worker without an electrician certificate, an unsupervised trainee, or electrical work without a permit, with the date, the rule, the fine and whether it was paid. The descriptions are our own plain wording; the rule number is L&I’s.
- Lawsuits against the bond — claims filed in court against the contractor’s bond, usually by a customer, supplier or worker who says they weren’t paid or the work was faulty. We show the date, county, case number, status and any amount paid from the bond. Dismissed lawsuits are shown but don’t count against a company.
- Tax warrants and suspensions of the license for an unpaid judgment or infraction.
Unpaid fines, open lawsuits and unpaid warrants are shown whatever their age. Routine paperwork lapses, like a late renewal, are left out. We never publish the names of the people involved — plaintiffs, owners or workers.
A Clean L&I record badge means none of the above in the last 5 years. A record isn’t proof of poor work: busy companies do more jobs and collect more records, and many fines are about paperwork or staff certificates. Read the details, ask the company, and check the full record on L&I’s Verify tool. L&I’s records don’t include complaints made only to the company, review sites or the Attorney General.
How search and lists are ordered
- Lists on city, county and service pages are in alphabetical order.
- Search shows companies that do the work you describe and serve the place you give, closest office first. “Best match” orders by how well a listing matches your words.
- Google ratings load only when you ask for them, live from Google, and “Top rated” weighs each rating by its number of reviews so a handful of five-star reviews doesn’t outrank hundreds.
- The public record never changes the order. You can choose to show only companies with a clean record.
There are no sponsored results, “featured” slots or affiliate links, and we don’t sell your details or your search to anyone. Analytics are cookieless and don’t follow you to other sites.
Corrections
If something here is wrong — including a public record that has since been resolved — email hello@pacwestconnect.com with a link to the page and a source we can check. Records come straight from L&I, so a record that’s wrong there needs correcting with L&I too.