The trade counter
Electrical Supplies
Boxes, breakers, conduit, wire and the fittings a job actually needs, stocked across three buildings and special ordered when they are not, for homeowners and licensed electricians both.
Chapter 01
What is actually on the shelf, across three buildings
Arrow runs three counters, in Bel Air, Aberdeen and Elkton, and each one carries its own stock. Bel Air is the main location and the biggest run of shelving, but Aberdeen and Elkton are not backup rooms. They are full counters with their own inventory, and between the three of them the odds of finding a part go up considerably. If Bel Air is out, the next call is usually to the other two before anyone drives anywhere.
On the panel and breaker side that means Square D, Siemens, Cutler-Hammer, ITE, General Electric and Bryant/Westinghouse, along with the older FPE stock that keeps a lot of Harford County homes running long after the brand stopped making new gear. Boxes and fittings come from Carlon, T&B, Arlington, Steel City, Killark, Crouse-Hinds and Mulberry, and the conduit and flex side runs Greenfield, LiquidTite and Carflex.
An aisle inside Arrow Electrical Supply, steel shelving racked with breaker panels, boxed fittings, coils of wire and lengths of conduit.
The rest of the counter: devices, raceway, heat and safety
Wiring devices and controls run through Lutron, Pass & Seymour, Intermatic and Tork, and the raceway and enclosure side is Wiremold and Hoffman. For heat, the shelves carry Easy Heat, NuHeat, Q-Mark and Warmup, and for safety and alarms it is BRK, Firex and Littelfuse.
Tools and batteries sit at the same counter, not a separate aisle: Makita, 3M, IDEAL, Duracell and Energizer, because a job that needs a breaker usually needs a driver bit or a fresh battery in the same trip. None of this is the full line card, it is a representative one. If a brand is not listed here, ask. There is a good chance it is on a shelf in one of the three buildings.
Chapter 03
When it is not on the shelf, we special order it
A supply house that only sold what happened to be sitting on its own shelves would be a home centre with better lighting. Arrow special orders items that are not already in stock, which is a routine part of the counter, not an exception. Bring the part number, the old fixture, or the breaker itself, and the counter will tell you honestly whether it is coming from Bel Air, Aberdeen, Elkton or a supplier order.
This matters most on the electrician side, where a job can stall on one missing fitting. A homeowner can usually wait a delivery cycle. A contractor mid job cannot, and knowing which of the three locations to call first, or whether to special order instead of waiting, is exactly the kind of thing three generations at the same counter has produced.
Hard to find, obsolete, and still worth a phone call
Fifty three years at the same trade means Arrow has been stocking parts for panels and fixtures that stopped being manufactured decades ago. FPE panel gear is the clearest example: the brand is long discontinued, but homes wired with it did not get rewired just because the manufacturer disappeared, and Arrow has kept carrying compatible stock for the customers who still need it.
That is the real advantage of a supply house that has been in one market since 1973 rather than a chain that turns over its inventory to whatever is newest. Before assuming a part cannot be found, it is worth one call to the counter. Obsolete is not the same thing as unavailable.
Homeowner or licensed electrician, same counter, what to bring
Arrow works with consumers and contractors both, and neither gets a different counter or a different answer. A homeowner replacing one outdoor fixture gets the same attention as an electrician picking up a job's worth of panel gear, and trade accounts are welcome alongside walk in customers.
The fastest way through the counter is to bring the thing itself: the old breaker, the burned out fixture, a photo of the panel label, or the part number if it is written down anywhere. When none of that is possible, a clear description of what it is for and where it is going gets the counter most of the way there.
Arrow Electrical Supply, Family owned and operated since 1973. Call 410-838-2271.
Three counters
Whichever one is closest to the job.
Call ahead, ask what is on the shelf, and if one counter does not have it we will check the other two before we talk about a special order.