Many people spend more time then that on their daily commute to work.
Some who are truly on the road most of the time would welcome an occasional work site within 2 hours of home just to be able to go home at night.
Yes they do. For us, especially in the winter time with the accompanying shorter days on commercial LE (v/d/v) projects, driving an hour, getting everything set up, working 6 hours tops, then putting everything away and driving home... 10 hr day to get 6 hrs worth of work done just wasnt efficient. 2 men sharing a hotel room in a nearby place (easy when you are wiring hotels) was much more productive, and we often got the rooms for free as we worked for the owner, not the GC.
Most jobs a commute wasnt an option as we were 2+ hours out.
My aunt has made a 45 minute commute each way for the last 35 years. vs the 15 when she lived here, near work. An hour lost every day driving, x5/week, x50/year, x35 years, is 8,750 hours, which in two more weeks is an entire year of her life wasted driving. Wear and tear on her vehicles (maintenance$$$) and all the extra gas, she could have retired a few years ago had she stayed in the home she owned in town.
People also seem to have forgotten gas spiking to $4+ a gallon less than ten years ago, and driving something that gets 15-18mpg two hours a day quickly makes hotel rooms all the more attractive, at least here where hotels arent terribly expensive.
eta: electricalist, in your case we would work 8 hour days and have 12+ hour days. No way I'd drive 2 hours one way to do 4 hours of work then turn around and come home. Maybe even 6 as avoiding rush hour would be worth staying the extra 2 hours (over the 4 you mentioned).
Back when I did commercial v/d/v, we would work whatever hours weather or other factors would permit. Sometimes we worked 15 hour days (6am-9pm), sometimes we worked 5. Usually we worked 7 days a week until that phase of the project was completed. Some days we'd take a 2 hr lunch, others we'd take a shower and nap at lunchtime. Having a helper who is on the same page as I made more difference than the specific schedule we worked.
