Darien Contractor Provides Power to the People, Even in Stormy Weather

Jim Broton’s cousin, Bobby, was tired of sharing a room with his four brothers. So the two of them decided to build Bobby a bedroom in the corner of the basement.

“We just started,” said Broton. “My uncle came home from work that night and we had a wall up already.”

At the time, Broton was 13 years old, and his uncle had had no knowledge of their plans.

He didn’t know it at the time, but Broton had just launched his career in construction.

The bedroom project was a huge success, and other large projects followed.

“All my relatives started asking me to do something for them,” he said. “A year or two later, (another) aunt and uncle in the city had a two-flat and the interior burned. They asked me to do all the electrical work. So from the electrical panel on down, I rewired their entire house in conduit. That apartment is still standing with the piping I did.”

Broton had found his niche.

“I kept going back to construction,” he said. “I’ve had my own big businesses. I’ve built many homes, hundreds of additions, and kitchen and bathroom remodeling.”

A basement-remodeling project six years ago took his business down a new path.

“A gentleman in Clarendon Hills had bought a brand-new home with an unfinished basement, about 3,000 (square) feet,” he said. “I finished the basement for him. About six months later, the power went out, and he had a flood. We had to repair all the damage in the basement. Then it happened a second time, about a year later, and he said, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’”

Broton suggested a generator for the home. Since he’d never installed one before, he worked with someone who had. That person then began recommending Broton to others who needed generators.

Broton named his new business Tru-Power Generator Service. In his first year, he installed 30 generators.

“A generator can be installed in one day,” he said. “We get in the house 8 in the morning, and we’re done by 3 or 4. But it’s a two-man job.”

They install a 32” x 55” concrete pad. The generator itself is 44” long, 24” deep, and 29” high. “It looks like a plastic storage container you might have on your patio,” Broton said.

Broton is an authorized dealer for Generac, Kohler, Briggs & Stratton, and GE generators. He is certified by each of those manufacturers and is qualified to do warranty work.

“They’re all good quality,” he said. “They’re all putting out the same clean electrical power, and they’re all reliable.”

According to Broton, a generator can last 2,000 hours of run-time or 20 years.

“The generators run on a natural-gas engine,” he explained. “It’s a regular engine like in a motorcycle or a lawnmower. They are rebuilt to run on natural gas instead of gasoline. You hook them up to your natural gas, so you have an infinite supply of fuel. Clean fuel, all the time. The engine has to run once a week to keep it in good physical shape. So the generator is designed to go on automatically once a week, at the time and date that you set, for 15 minutes. That doesn’t affect your electricity, it doesn’t switch your electricity, it just runs the engine and keeps the engine exercised, so when it needs to start, it starts.”

Broton has clients in Darien and the surrounding suburbs. He’s even gone as far as New, Buffalo, MI, to install generators in clients’ summer homes.

“It’s all about trust,” he said. “They see that we go above and beyond to get the installation done correctly, even if it costs me a little more money. We clean up after ourselves. We even bring a vacuum cleaner. We leave the place clean and neat, and people really respect that.”

For more information on Tru-Power Generator Service or to schedule service, contact Jim Broton at 630-235-2397, email him at jjbroton@gmail.com or go to www.trupowerelectric.com.