The owners of Lowther Electric Ltd. opened their doors in Keremeos on Aug. 1.
Krystina Lowther, who co-owns the company with her husband Chris Lowther, said they decided to open up their shop in the village because they found the community to be so friendly. The company is based in Osoyoos and now services many communities in the South Okanagan and Similkameen, including Cawston and Hedley.
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“The community is just so amazing. After we decided to move down there, we drove down all the roads. There was not a single person that we drove by that we waved to who did not wave back or that we talked to in the grocery store and wanted to keep talking. The people there are just genuinely interested in everybody else’s lives.”
“We never had walk-ins and people just talk about things,” she added. “In Osoyoos, we still don’t have that. There’s an elderly gentleman who comes down every day just to talk to the guys in the shop. It’s a different feel. It’s so happy and positive.”
Lowther Electric is the FortisBC approved contractor company that installed roughly 140 street lights with energy-efficient LED bulbs in the spring. It is an electrical contracting company so it also services new houses and makes lighting upgrades.
The company is also currently one of the only suppliers and installers of Lutron’s motorized shades, which helps save energy by controlling heat leaving and coming into a house through windows. The company offers free consultations with the designer.
But Lowther said no job is too small, so if someone isn’t comfortable installing a fan or a small task like that, Lowther electricians can do it.
In fact, environmentally sustainable electrical services are the company’s specialty.
“We have a young family and have been focused on doing what we can big or small to improve not only our future, but especially theirs,” she said.
The response from the community has been amazing, she added.
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“We’ve got more work than we can handle and moving into a new town and nobody knowing us, it was surprising to us how fast we were accepted,” she said, adding they will likely increase their numbers of employees at the village location.
So far, in the village, the company has been responding to many requests for service upgrades.
“Keremeos is on a bit of a turnaround. A lot of the houses haven’t been updated in quite a while. It’s been really good to see,” she said. “Even just seeing the difference that exterior LED lights make. It makes the streets a little bit lighter and gives them life back.”
The Lowthers say they have loved their experience so much they are thinking of moving to Keremeos.
“We love it so much.”
