electrical engineers and electricians

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lielec11

Senior Member
Location
Charlotte, NC
I am a licensed professional engineer (electrical). I was speaking to a friend of mine who has worked as an electrician for some time and over the years he also has worked with other trades performing small side jobs here and there.

He was talking about starting his own company starting with residential generator installations and other small jobs to get things going.

My question is, how can I use my experience to help him (or anyone else) and make some additional money at the same time. I have a steady full-time job working at a successful MEP design firm but it is always attractive to work for yourself. If he will be doing mostly residential work is it actually helpful to have an engineer on board? Additionally, since I do mostly commercial work that requires drawings to be filed, etc, does residential work require the same (state of New York). Any advice or comments are greatly appreciated.

Thanks
 

glennspark

Member
Location
Leeds
I am a licensed professional engineer (electrical). I was speaking to a friend of mine who has worked as an electrician for some time and over the years he also has worked with other trades performing small side jobs here and there.

He was talking about starting his own company starting with residential generator installations and other small jobs to get things going.

My question is, how can I use my experience to help him (or anyone else) and make some additional money at the same time. I have a steady full-time job working at a successful MEP design firm but it is always attractive to work for yourself. If he will be doing mostly residential work is it actually helpful to have an engineer on board? Additionally, since I do mostly commercial work that requires drawings to be filed, etc, does residential work require the same (state of New York). Any advice or comments are greatly appreciated.

Thanks
so...does your mate understand about how to create a successful earth nest?...
 

cdslotz

Senior Member
I am a licensed professional engineer (electrical). I was speaking to a friend of mine who has worked as an electrician for some time and over the years he also has worked with other trades performing small side jobs here and there.

He was talking about starting his own company starting with residential generator installations and other small jobs to get things going.

My question is, how can I use my experience to help him (or anyone else) and make some additional money at the same time. I have a steady full-time job working at a successful MEP design firm but it is always attractive to work for yourself. If he will be doing mostly residential work is it actually helpful to have an engineer on board? Additionally, since I do mostly commercial work that requires drawings to be filed, etc, does residential work require the same (state of New York). Any advice or comments are greatly appreciated.

Thanks

You wouldn't be much use doing generator and resi work.
You would be invaluable continuing to do commercial design you already know. Just that you will be able to sell and perform design/build electrical. Get involved in conceptual budgeting, and put yourself in a better position to bid with limited competition.
Few electrical contractors have a PE on staff.
 

cadpoint

Senior Member
Location
Durham, NC
...Additionally, since I do mostly commercial work that requires drawings to be filed, etc, does residential work require the same (state of New York). Any advice or comments are greatly appreciated.

You have to know the State laws of when your practicing Architecture without a license.

Most States let the home owner build or GC their own houses, and the requirements get into
city/county rules, gate community and neighbor assoications_BS. It could go about anywhere for other requirements, Etc.

In NC it's up to 65K before sealed drawing required for exactly what you want to do, now in most cases like a mall upfit for example this will might or might not work for you and your friend. The sum of all construction gets above this or your magic number thus you'd have to an Architect.

It might work with a hard finished shell, but not when one has to demo and bring back say an office space. Your going to have to bring in another professional associate.

JMO, your miles might well vary.
 
Location
NE (9.06 miles @5.9 Degrees from Winged Horses)
Occupation
EC - retired
FWIW, life is different here. We are starting what looks like close to a $1,000,000 dollar project. My WAG. I know, just a nice residential project for some of you. Each trade is bringing there own expertise to the table with no A&E involved unless the Millwright has an ME on staff. I will be the only one to have an inspection. I don't know where you would fit in for this and smaller projects.

What size projects does your company work with now?
 

cadpoint

Senior Member
Location
Durham, NC
Just WOW

Just WOW

FWIW, life is different here. We are starting what looks like close to a $1,000,000 dollar project. My WAG. I know, just a nice residential project for some of you. Each trade is bringing there own expertise to the table with no A&E involved unless the Millwright has an ME on staff. I will be the only one to have an inspection. I don't know where you would fit in for this and smaller projects.

What size projects does your company work with now?

Just WOW!!!
 

mgookin

Senior Member
Location
Fort Myers, FL
You may want to check with your current employer and see how they feel about you doing other work while you're working for them. I'd stick with what you have but of course it's your choice.
 

RICK NAPIER

Senior Member
Location
New Jersey
Here over 5 receptacles and you will probably need to supply plans. Electrical contractors can do the plans for the following buildings.
1. Class 3 structures:i. Group B less than 7,200 square feet, two stories, 40 feet high;ii. Group M less than 4,800 square feet, one story, 40 feet high;iii. Group S-1 less than 4,200 square feet, one story, 40 feet high;iv. Group S-2 less than 7,200 square feet, two stories, 40 feet high;v. Group R-3 as permitted in the building subcode and including accessory private garages, radioand television antennae and swimming pools;vi. Group R-5 as permitted in the one- and two-family dwelling subcode and including accessory​
private garages, radio and television antennae and swimming pools.
Home owners can do thier own plans.
 

charlie b

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Lockport, IL
Occupation
Retired Electrical Engineer
I agree with mgookin. You might be treading on thin ice. You need to avoid even the slightest appearance of a conflict of interest. If your company pays you to perform electrical design work, and on the side you are doing electrical design work, you are facing a COI issue.
 

JDBrown

Senior Member
Location
California
Occupation
Electrical Engineer
"No moonlighting" clauses appear to be fairly common in Engineers' employment contracts, even though they're not legally enforceable in many jurisdictions (I'm not a lawyer, and all of the information in that sentence comes from Internet research, not primary sources, so take it for what it's worth). So you should probably start by checking your employment contract for a "no moonlighting" clause.

Even if you don't have such a clause in your contract, you really ought to find out if your employer would have a problem with you doing some work on the side -- and they may not mind if they do all large commercial work and you want to branch out into residential on your own (i.e. you're not going to be poaching their work). But if you don't talk to them about it, and they find out by some other means, it could make you look "disloyal" to management. That doesn't mean they'll fire you on the spot, necessarily, but it could end up hurting your chances for promotion down the line, etc. You just have to ask yourself if it's worth the risk. If it is, then go for it. If it's not, talk to your boss first -- but be prepared to go with whatever he decides, because it will look even worse if he tells you no and you do it anyway.

I had one of these conversations with my bosses a while back (and I do have a "no moonlighting" clause in my contract, although, as I understand it, it's not legally binding in my state). The outcome was that, while they don't necessarily have a problem with me doing work on the side, they have concerns about liability. Basically, several years ago they were named in a lawsuit that was filed for a project they didn't even design. Since they had done some consulting for the project engineer (answering questions, giving advice about what equipment to specify, etc.), they were named in the lawsuit. The lawsuit had to do with something totally unrelated to the Electrical work (it had to do with the flooring material being too slippery, or something like that), but the company I work for still had to shell out the cash to hire a lawyer who could fight to get their name removed from the list of defendants. As a result, they're now worried that if I were to do work on the side while still their employee, their company could end up named in a lawsuit if I ever got sued, even though the company hadn't been involved at all in the project. Unfortunately, I can see their point, as it seems lawyers like to name everybody and their grandma in lawsuits in hopes that somebody will settle just to make it go away.

My point is, every company is different and every situation is different. If there's a place for an Engineer in your friend's business, that's great. But I'd strongly recommend protecting your primary source of income (your current job) first.
 

mayanees

Senior Member
Location
Westminster, MD
Occupation
Electrical Engineer and Master Electrician
I am a licensed professional engineer (electrical). I was speaking to a friend of mine who has worked as an electrician for some time and over the years he also has worked with other trades performing small side jobs here and there.

He was talking about starting his own company starting with residential generator installations and other small jobs to get things going.

My question is, how can I use my experience to help him (or anyone else) and make some additional money at the same time.
Thanks

Learn how to perform Power System Fault, Coordination and Arc Flash Studies.
Not that I'm looking for competition!, but that's a field that will remain hot for many years to come, because of the interest in 70E compliance. And it's a real benefit to your electrical design projects to have a strong power background.
Good luck.
 

kingpb

Senior Member
Location
SE USA as far as you can go
Occupation
Engineer, Registered
To decide if your really go to make any money, first figure out how much the project itself is going to bill out to the client, then figure out what the electrical engineer fee would be that you could legitimately charge, IF they even needed and engineer.

Don't forget you have to get set-up as a business, purchase liability insurance, etc.

COI? That can easily be determined by asking your boss. They would probably be more concerned with you using company resources for your profit, i.e. computer, copier, telephone, making calls on their time.
 

lielec11

Senior Member
Location
Charlotte, NC
Thank you all for your replies.

I am well aware of the "moonlighting" issue that may arise and have had the talk with my boss informally in the past. It is true that they are more concerned about using company resources, but also, his main priority is that anything on the side does no distract from my day job. As far as poaching work goes, I don't think I'd come close as we do mostly healthcare, commercial and university work, mainly major infrastructure.

mayanees - actually i have been getting involved more on doing these studies for my company using SKM Power Tools. I feel it is a very valuable resource although it seems some clients don't want to spend the money.

Isn't NFPA 70E a standard, and not a code like 70?
 
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