When I started in the trade in 1974, a two man crew (Journeyman and helper) would rough in 1200-1500' on slab tract houses at the rate of TWO A DAY including the 125 amp service.
Granted, there was no cable, no recessed lighting, no smokies, no ceilings over 8' and switched outlets in lieu of overhead lights and the phone company ran their wiring.....but still, we flat out roped some houses.
It wasn't that we worked so hard but everything was basically the same and we were efficient. The company was well organized and we always had the proper tools and equipment to do the job.
No prints were necessary because there were only 5 or so models in each tract. We only had to check and see which side the POCO wanted the service on.
Journeyman marks boxes while helper drills all the holes. Journeyman throws out boxes and starts pulling and stapling romex. Helper nails on boxes and starts making up the grounds on the receps while Jman does the more involved make up. Helper mounts and terminates cables in outside (underground) all in one service. (Trencher guy come buy and installs riser about 20 at a time)
At the end of that era, we would use the old school spider method in the houses with overhead lights. In the shop, we'd make up a 4sd bracket box/round ring with a switch loop and four hot pigtails about 15' long. Nail one up, drop the cables down to boxes, feed and jumper. Three bedrooms done in under an hour.
With all the pre fab commercial stuff I have been seeing, I assume the big resi guys have gone back to this method.
So.....Rough in, 8 hours, trim 3.2 hours
No wonder I don't like resi work.
The up side was that I learned a WHOLE lot quickly and was "Journeyman" in a few months
NOW, by the way, it takes me/us forever to wire a house. Our price is often double that of resi contractors so we don't do a lot of new residential.
