You're out of touch. Typical electrical costs in a kitchen redo are 2-4K. And that is if your panel has enough slots open, and juice to it. In an older house where that all has to be upgraded, you'd be looking at 10-15K.

Sophie, thanks for your input. The house is 18 yrs old. The under cab lighting is already there. I only have 6 outlets I want moved up under the cabs. No slots have to be added to the box. So for this job he wants over $3k. Sounds like a lot.

IMO -- way too much.

You should get a couple of more estimates. I used to use an electrician that was very expensive. I didn't realize it until I had him quote a job, and the quote seemed very high. I called in 2 more electricians whose quotes were both $1000 less than the first quote by my regular electrician.

Night owl, some restless, lily spider - thanks so much. I, too, thought that was very expensive. I basically already told him to take a walk. I'm getting other estimates. i have a plumber who is super expensive and I know he is. Why do I keep him? Because when I call him, he comes within 45 minutes. That included a Christmas morning one year. But I owe nothing to this electrician. I hint when people hear you're doing a remodel they just think you're made of money.

Check with other electrician. I'm in So Cal, a HCOL area and my rewiring thru the house, adding new lines and moving existing lines is about $5k.

re:plugmold. Please make very sure that is what you want. Our last kitchen we did plug mold and the dangling cords drove me nuts. This time around, we dropped them and are making them parallel to and just above the counter in the direction of the tile. I could possible see a combination of the two - plug mold in places I know will never be used and counter top in areas that are more likely players -- coffee, toaster, etc areas, but we are just putting them all low and calling it good.

As for the puck lights. You can easily do that yourself.

Those are pretty easy DIY projects. You might want to check with a handyman if you don't feel comfortable doing the work yourself.

Here's what I'm paying for my electrical costs in Baltimore (old house, blue collar neighborhood, no GC involved):

Cost to add / move 6 outlets; to change the locations of the range, washer/dryer, microwave, and dishwasher; to wire for two under-cabinet lights, to install new recessed lighting, and to pull permits: $2500.

Cost to upgrade our current electrical panel to meet code: $700 more.

I had entertained the idea of switching from a gas range to induction; we would have needed a service upgrade to support an induction cooktop + electric oven. This would have cost $1300 over the $700 upgrade.

My project and house will differ too much from yours to be a comparison point, but the gist of it is that doing a lot of the usual / basic things put us in the 2-3 k range, and recommended electrical upgrades put us in the 3-6k range, depending on what we wanted.

Your project sounds at lot less complicated but it's also true that adding items costs less when the professional is already coming out.

Is this an electrician you have used before? If not, how did you find him? Does he come with the "package" - as far as your GC is concerned?

We are lucky in that we have a great relationship with our electrician. He will be doing about double what you described (installing 1 new outlet for warming drawer, moving four outlets, removing a track light, adding 3 recessed lights, removing island chandelier, re-centering new one over an enlarged island)

He will charge me roughly $1500. But as I said, we've worked with him for years.

We are 30 minutes outside Chicago, so I think we are apples to apples, as far as regional comparison.

Get two more estimates. Don't tell them what the first guy is charging you. Ask them up front what their hourly rate is. Get estimates in writing.

Then go back to the first guy and ask him to match it.

For that first part of your plan -- assuming his hourly is $100 -- that job doesn't take 8 hours. Even with a trip charge of $150 -- that's perposterous. Since your using existing lights - there's nothing to purchase.

This just doesn't make sense to me.

Don't forget the GC's markup on top. Or else you are acting as the GC yourself with all of the ramifications regarding responsibility for scheduling and quality control that go along with that role.

If those 'papered-up' kitchen outlets are not dedicated GFCI, there will be a cost to change them above just moving them.

If you are coordinating the project and not a GC, you may need to keep in mind that if you are pulling permits for any part of the process, you might be required to pull them for electrical too. If it's been a while since anyone did that, you may find out something needs upgrading.

We found out that people had been adding to the box for years, with the result that everything worked, but we were not to code. The kitchen remodel turned out to be a good opportunity to clean things up.

Thank you all for your comments. I decided to leave the backsplash outlets alone and possibly just do this (see link) and ask the tile guy to cut around the tiles to inset these:

http://www.stonewallplates.com

I'll have the under cab lighting pulled but may not replace them right away until I can afford to get what I want (to be honest, I don't even know what I want).

im performing as my own GC. I've already GC'd 2 of my bathrooms and they turned out gorgeous.

Looks schmooks. Electrical isn't about looks. It's about function and safety. You hire an unlicensed hack, and you burn your house down. It's a highly regulated, education intensive, expensive trade.

Sophie, don't know what you mean by your post but I have no intention of having anyone but a fully licensed electrician perform any electrical work on my home. Just because I am GC'ing the job doesn't mean I'm doing any of the physical work. I'm hiring/coordinating all the professionals and making the purchases. That's it (and more than enough).