Letter from the BBB...

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TwinCitySparky

TwinCitySparky

Senior Member
Location
Minnesota
realolman said:
You were learning on your employer's buck and he was allowing you to learn on the restaurant's buck. He no doubt paid you less than he paid someone more experienced.

I am sure he was charging them a reduced rate for your services?:wink:
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Ummm ok... Truth told, he is almost honest and is semi-sincere.

:cool:
 
360Youth

360Youth

Senior Member
Location
Newport, NC
alfiesauce said:
I agree with Marc.
The homeowner is not paying you to learn on the job. You are always learning yadda yadda yadda, but you can't expect to get paid full rate for all of your learning time... imo.
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Who says anything about learning. I think you charge for your time accordingly. I have learned, the first thing I tell a customer is that fixing it is usually easy, finding it is the hard part. Not always the way it works out, but mostly true, and the customer understands that there will be time involved. Some here may be better at troubleshooting for various reasons, but if someone else digs a ditch faster than you should you stop charging at 3pm because so-and-so could be done by now.

Now, I have cut a customer a break because when I finally find a problem, maybe I feel like I should have found it earlier, but it all pretty much hit and miss unless it is a speciffic problem.
 
360Youth

360Youth

Senior Member
Location
Newport, NC
360Youth said:
Who says anything about learning.
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That kinda came out wrong :smile:. What I mean is, who is to say that he is learning on the job and not just having trouble tracking it down. As I said at the end of my earlier post, if he finally finds it and gets to one of those "Doh!" moments, than I believe it is fair to cut him a break. And I also believe if I cannot find the problem after what I feel is sufficient time, than the customer should not be billed until I can find. If he hires me to find and fix, and I can't do it, than I am not doing my job.
 
M

macmikeman

Senior Member
Location
Planet macmikeman
At no point in 9 pages have I seen the proper way to handle any residential troublshoot job in the first place. Step 1 identify problem. Step two- look for alternate new wiring path and figure up both price for new alternate wiring path and 45 minutes of troubleshooting original problem. Step 3- add those two costs together, then present a proposal to make the repair. Now you can fool around with the finding business for 45 minutes, and maybe get lucky or not, at which point you start running alternate wiring to re-feed or what ever it is that restores proper functioning of electrical system in that house. Customer has no grounds to complain- he has agreed and signed a proposal, and now he has his problem fixed.
 
360Youth

360Youth

Senior Member
Location
Newport, NC
macmikeman said:
At no point in 9 pages have I seen the proper way to handle any residential troublshoot job in the first place. Step 1 identify problem. Step two- look for alternate new wiring path and figure up both price for new alternate wiring path and 45 minutes of troubleshooting original problem. Step 3- add those two costs together, then present a proposal to make the repair. Now you can fool around with the finding business for 45 minutes, and maybe get lucky or not, at which point you start running alternate wiring to re-feed or what ever it is that restores proper functioning of electrical system in that house. Customer has no grounds to complain- he has agreed and signed a proposal, and now he has his problem fixed.
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That's one way. Replacing wire usually involves replacing drywall and paint also. They may not be the ECs problem, but it is an added cost to the HO. I see where you are coming from, but I would have to add the option of continuing to look for it at the HOs request, in that 2 more hours of looking and 30 minutes of repair may save him the agrivation of everything else.
 
growler

growler

Senior Member
Location
Atlanta,GA
macmikeman said:
Now you can fool around with the finding business for 45 minutes, and maybe get lucky or not, at which point you start running alternate wiring to re-feed or what ever it is that restores proper functioning of electrical system in that house. Customer has no grounds to complain- he has agreed and signed a proposal, and now he has his problem fixed.
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I don't like it, I don't like that idea one bit because the problem may not be solved. In many of these older homes the bathroom devices may be tied into the bedroom circuit. May times what you will find is a melted wire nut and burned wires in the light fixture junction box or in an attic junction box and this is just the first wire to burn into and open a circuit but a real potenial hazard still exist if you wire around the problem.

I am a firm believer that if you have a problem then you find the problem. You never just wire around it and possibly leave a fire hazard some place.
The fact that a few devices are not working may only be a symptom of the problem and not the real problem. Anyone can rig a fix but an electrician sould be able to find and correct the problem.

Once you find the problem then you will know if there was a potenial hazard. I have found big old flying splices in the walls where they were arcing and melting the tape. Sure only a couple of receptacles were not working but the real problem was a risk of fire. Until you find the problem you have no idea of what all is on this circuit or what condition the wiring is in.
 
R

roger3829

Senior Member
Location
Torrington, CT
growler said:
I don't like it, I don't like that idea one bit because the problem may not be solved. In many of these older homes the bathroom devices may be tied into the bedroom circuit. May times what you will find is a melted wire nut and burned wires in the light fixture junction box or in an attic junction box and this is just the first wire to burn into and open a circuit but a real potenial hazard still exist if you wire around the problem.

I am a firm believer that if you have a problem then you find the problem. You never just wire around it and possibly leave a fire hazard some place.
The fact that a few devices are not working may only be a symptom of the problem and not the real problem. Anyone can rig a fix but an electrician sould be able to find and correct the problem.

Once you find the problem then you will know if there was a potenial hazard. I have found big old flying splices in the walls where they were arcing and melting the tape. Sure only a couple of receptacles were not working but the real problem was a risk of fire. Until you find the problem you have no idea of what all is on this circuit or what condition the wiring is in.
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I agree.

The problem must be found. Then, and only then can a solution to the problem be developed.

If you bypass the problem you are just looking for more problems done the road. If you re-feed a circuit, how can you be sure that you have eliminated the problem completly from the old circuit? What happens if you re-feed the circuit and connect it to phase "B" instead of phase "A" and the old problem corrects itself? Now the customer has a new more dangerous problem.

It's not your fault the wiring went bad. It is your responsibility to correct it. It is also impossible to determine what went wrong and why before you troubleshoot and find the problem. In my opinion, saying that ALL troubleshooting in residential work can be accomplished in 1 hours is an unrealistic statement. I have been in this field for over 30 years and would never say that I could find every problem inside of 1 hour.
 
2

220/221

Senior Member
Location
AZ
I agree. The problem must be found. Then, and only then can a solution to the problem be developed.
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I would have to agree also.

In the first case I presented, I found the problem but didn't actually see it. I eliminated the jumper from the circuit, clipped it at both ends and replaced it. It is 100% safe and will never be an issue. It still bothered me not being able to see it but I didn't lose any sleep.

The second scenario is different and I should not have left it. There is still a buried splice, likely an open splice in the ceiling. I disconnected the faulted part of the circuit to eliminate a load, but the splice still exists.

I did explain to the homeowner that drywall would have to be removed to find the splice but I am sure that he won't recall that or pass along the information when he sells tha house.

I will lose some sleep over that one.
 
480sparky

480sparky

Senior Member
Location
Iowegia
roger3829 said:
.....It's not your fault the wiring went bad. It is your responsibility to correct it. .....
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Why is it his responsibility to correct it? He's been hired to correct it, then told not to. He has no responsibility after that. It's all the customers responsibility at that point.

If I were in that situation, I would simply have the customer sign a release form stating that they required me to stop before I had located the problem.
 
growler

growler

Senior Member
Location
Atlanta,GA
480sparky said:
Why is it his responsibility to correct it? He's been hired to correct it, then told not to. He has no responsibility after that. It's all the customers responsibility at that point.
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I think that roger means that if you are hired to correct a problem then it's your responsibility to do so in a safe manner.

Naturally if the customer doesn't want to pay for your time then you shouldn't be responsible.

Just because a customer wants something done cheap doesn't give us a right to cut corners. If we do the work then it should be done right and safe.
 
R

roger3829

Senior Member
Location
Torrington, CT
480sparky said:
Why is it his responsibility to correct it? He's been hired to correct it, then told not to. He has no responsibility after that. It's all the customers responsibility at that point.

If I were in that situation, I would simply have the customer sign a release form stating that they required me to stop before I had located the problem.
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Ok. What I meant was he didn't CAUSE the problem, he was only hired to CORRECT the problem. I wasn't trying to imply that he HAD to fix the problem no matter what. If the homeowner wanted to stop paying, then that's when he stops working. He has NO RESPONSIBILITY to fix anything if he is not getting paid

You are correct, have the HO sign off that they asked you to stop working before you were able to identify and correct the problem.
 
growler

growler

Senior Member
Location
Atlanta,GA
roger3829 said:
In my opinion, saying that ALL troubleshooting in residential work can be accomplished in 1 hours is an unrealistic statement. I have been in this field for over 30 years and would never say that I could find every problem inside of 1 hour.
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I fully agree. I have actually found a circuit that stopped working that was fed from the main panel in another house ( not town house). I would guess that it had been hooked up temporary for construction and never disconnected. It really feels strange going into the neighbors yard tracting a cable but that's where it went. Then I needed permission to disconnect it and leave in a safe condition before even starting to repair the real problem. There are some really weird problems out there if you go to enough homes.
 
S

satcom

Senior Member
Fulthrotl said:
sometimes i can't even find the HOUSE inside of an hour......:rolleyes:
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So true, and someone has to pay for that time, over 35 years and third generation in business, I looked at some of the troubleshooting actuals, we have, over the years, and it is not unusual to find some that took 1/2 day to full day, and the average was 2.25 hours.
 
2

220/221

Senior Member
Location
AZ
I have actually found a circuit that stopped working that was fed from the main panel in another house
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We see that all the time in apartments. Some crackhead with a little knowledge goes into the common attic/crawl space and taps the neighbors power.

And, .......I have learned most every thing I know while getting paid for it. It's all about the presentation.:cool:
 
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