All I've ever done is commercial and industrial work as an apprentice and jw. I want to venture on my own, but most the people I talk to need/want residential stuff done. The basic, (fix an outlet or light, add something here and there), is basically the same. But I want to know it all. Load calculations for a whole house, needing to upsize a panel (if neeed), so on and so forth. I want to do it right and I'm not afraid of reading, or experimenting on my own house.
Any help is welcome and appreciated.
Thank you
Been there, done that. Glad I did.
I came up through the IBEW and all we did was heavy industrial and large commercial, and that's what our training was about. Our local has a separate program for the residential guys.
I finished top of my class and while we were building a NG turbine peaker, the economy started going sour. I topped out right about then. One of the JIW's started his own business and I hooked up with him doing residential re-mods and light commercial. We did a couple new homes, but we piped them as part of a project. I wasn't happy with some aspects of what my boss was doing and my old boss from the peaker also started his own business and I went to work for him. We did lot's of res. jobs. I still work with him from time to time.
It was quite a culture shock, as it's an entirely different world. Be prepared to go from 'slow down, this ain't a race' to 'run and gun, son!'
Working res may be the first exposure you have with electrical inspectors. When I was doing heavy, I saw two inspectors in 6 or 7 years. With res, nearly every job gets inspected.
Be prepared to work for peanuts compared to IBEW scale.
Be prepared to lose your shirt on the first 3 or 4 re-mods you do.
Be prepared to totally re-think your troubleshooting skills.
Be prepared to get burnt by customers.
Be prepared to have to work in crawl spaces that have cat feces, dead rodents, live spiders and broken glass in the sand you have to crawl through.
Be prepared to work in attics that can easily get to 140 degrees.
Be prepared to buy a bunch of new tools.
When I decided to start working res, most of my pals from my local said they would get out of the trade before they 'lowered themselves' to working res. The only exposure they had to it was bad, so they came to bear hatred for it.
The good part is that you don't forget your industrial skills and always have that to fall back on. Plus, once you get the hang of it, res can be good work. It's usually a decent environment, it's usually clean, you can wear shorts, T-shirts and jogging shoes if you want and for the most part res is very, very safe.
I'm glad I learned the res side. It rounded me out. I worked with control systems before I came into the apprenticeship, so one of my mottos is '5 to 5000 volts, AC, DC, power, control and data'.
But my fave, no matter what the setting, is troubleshooting. There is plenty of that in res and light commercial.
