One dimensional electricians

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Tori said:
I have worked commercail my entire career 20 yr.s now
although my education for trade school is navy CE/CB 1 year school only , 4 yr,s non union trade school work days, school at nights working on office buildings core and tenant then went union 2 more years of school (the last two of a 4 year apprenticeship , I got credit for the education I had ) and have never wired a house except on the side, our union strives to put out qualified men , well rounded but they do not mean residential because we do not do residential
I know plenty of electricians who are fantastic but do not know there way around a house and don't care to

Our trade is so vast it is inevitble that guys all know something better than the next about a differant aspect
I for one love pipe, rigid pipe exposed and am fast and good at it , I hate terminations and pulling mc -
pulling big wire is a another speicalty
so you see we are all differant and what is monotous to me may not be for you :roll:
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Wow sounds alot like my background. I almost wrote the same thing.
 
electricalperson said:
as an electrician you should know at least the basic codes required for different buildings. my company i work with will take a job from anyone. one day we can be fishing in plugs in someones house and the day after we can be in a health care facility the next. so i think any electrician that reads and understands teh code can do residental if they are just a commercial electrician.
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Been there dont that for sure. Service work and a good mix of residential/ commercial and a bit of industrial makes for a well rounded electrician.
 
How does the saying go...I know more and more about less and less until I know everything about nothing. It's the nature of the beast. You can be great at one or a few things, but if you want to be great at everything, you're fooling yourself.

IMHO this wasn't an employee problem, it was an HR and supervision problem.

Dave
 
I don't agree it being a supervisory problem..I think it is just habit with the #12 wire..But laziness on the journeyman's part, he can read right..If you don't do residential then read up on it..I don't know the big deal on using all #12 It is all I use unless I am doing control circuits..If I am doing something new I research it so I am doing it correctly..doing it wrong or not knowing when being paid is just laziness..if you are licensed you need to own a code book..every boss I ever had bought a code book for the truck..you loose you buy it but it must be in the truck when he looks unless you are using it..I require you to have one and to use it as well..
 
j-box said:
Talking to a friend who owns a small electrical contracting outfit, he hired a guy who said he was a commercial journeyman electrician. Now the JM did know commercial and is fast and knowlegable in commercial, zipped thru a small lease space, all green tags. When my friend mentioned the houses to him, he said "Ah man residential, man piece of cake".
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I have found that most people in the electrical trade do tend to over state their qualifications just a bit. If you have a residential guy that does one small tenant space then all of a sudden he also knows commercial. I met one kid, he was 21 years old that told me he had allready done it all. He had about 3 months experience in residential and the same in commercial & industrial and he was ready to do anything. Many of these people don't have enough experiene to know how much the don't know.

One more thing, green tags on a commercial lease space don't mean a thing. The last one I did the inspector didn't even look at the work he just ask what I was doing and signed off on it. I could of had 50 code violations and it wouldn't have made any difference. If the boss didn't check this guy's work he may want to. Don't depend on the inspector.
 
growler said:
......... The last one I did the inspector didn't even look at the work he just ask what I was doing and signed off on it. I could of had 50 code violations and it wouldn't have made any difference. If the boss didn't check this guy's work he may want to. Don't depend on the inspector.
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This "inspector" should be fired from his job. He is entrusted with the care of public safety. To not even look the job over is nothing short of rotten. :mad:
 
wbalsam1 said:
This "inspector" should be fired from his job. He is entrusted with the care of public safety. To not even look the job over is nothing short of rotten. :mad:
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How many jobs do you inspect in the normal day, week, month, year? Are you a private inspector or employed by local government? What is the cost of inspection?
 
I went on a call to troubleshoot some bathroom receptacles in a newly finished basement. This was a very nice home worth about $800k.
Found out when I got there the homeowner never pulled a permit for the work. He had hired an industrial/commercial electrician that wasn't licensed to do the work and was doing side jobs illegally. The work looked good and was professionally done.

Here's what I found.

There were no smoke detectors in the basement at all.

The bathroom GFCI outlets were wired in series with a GFCI outlet in the laundry room which was wired in series with a GFCI outlet in the utility room which was wired in series with a GFCI outlet in the garage. Since they were all wired in series you had to reset them in the right order. You first had to reset the garage GFCI then the utility room GFCI then the laundry room GFCI and then the two bathroom GFCI's.

A full kitchen was installed in the basement. There was one 15amp circuit that fed the built in microwave and all the countertop receptacles. Every receptacle was a GFCI receptacle and again they were all wired in series so when the one at the end of the line tripped they all tripped and you had to reset them in order starting at the one at the begining of the circuit.

The homeowner got a great price on the electrical wiring though. :)

As bad as this was I've seen much worse by GCs that save money by doing the electrcal themselves. Romex ran under the carpet for an island receptacle, splices with no boxes buried behind the sheetrock, cramming two wires under the ground screws, etc. Again this was an expensive home only a few years old.
 
growler said:
How many jobs do you inspect in the normal day, week, month, year? Are you a private inspector or employed by local government? What is the cost of inspection?
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  1. Anywhere from 1-12 per day.Some days no inspections because of paperwork requirements
  2. I am employed by the government to do building and electrrical inspections. I also work part time as a private electrical inspector assigned outside of my governmental jurisdiction.
  3. Government inspections run a little more pricey than the inspections I do for private. I think this is because private inspection companies compete for inspection jobs, so they keep their prices lower to get more of a piece of the inspection pie. :smile:
 
growler said:
I have found that most people in the electrical trade do tend to over state their qualifications just a bit. If you have a residential guy that does one small tenant space then all of a sudden he also knows commercial. I met one kid, he was 21 years old that told me he had allready done it all. He had about 3 months experience in residential and the same in commercial & industrial and he was ready to do anything. Many of these people don't have enough experiene to know how much the don't know.

One more thing, green tags on a commercial lease space don't mean a thing. The last one I did the inspector didn't even look at the work he just ask what I was doing and signed off on it. I could of had 50 code violations and it wouldn't have made any difference. If the boss didn't check this guy's work he may want to. Don't depend on the inspector.
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Over my thirty year career I have done everything from hanging grannys new ceiling fan to piping the cooling tower at a nuclear power plant so it is pretty hard to pull the wool over my eyes when it comes to how much expierience you are claiming I had a 1 1/4 sealoff on my desk that was missing the cap a guy came in claiming years of pipe expierience I pointed to the sealoff and asked if he had ever used one of these he said sure thats for joining three pipes together he did not get the job.
 
Rewire said:
he said sure thats for joining three pipes together .
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lol

I'll be the first to admit I'm not at all rounded, but if I go into unknown territory I do try to get all the information possible so I don't screw up (including but not limited to brushing up on the code sections). Its the guys who think they know everything (and think their memory is up to date!) that are dangerous, and therein lies the difference (imsho) (between the wary old dog and the young whipper snapper)

(by the way, in the way of a funny, I learned from some friends when I was in las vegas -they pointed out these birds there called coots ?? I told them out east we only had old coots. she didn't get it lol)
 
If a new hire knows his starting wage is going to be determined by how many positive answers he gives you, don't blame him for exaggerating.
 
for some reason of all the jobs I inspect, there are more Code violations on residential where the first words I hear are "you know, Frank. He's an electrician down at XYZ company."
True "homeowners" will often ask questions and read before attempting their own wiring. With obvious exceptions, a lot of the factory guys in this area "know how to make it run"
 
growler said:
One more thing, green tags on a commercial lease space don't mean a thing. The last one I did the inspector didn't even look at the work he just ask what I was doing and signed off on it. I could of had 50 code violations and it wouldn't have made any difference. If the boss didn't check this guy's work he may want to. Don't depend on the inspector.
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Green tags mean the job is good to go, if the inspector is to lazy to check the project, then the one that needs to be checked is that inspections department starting with the chief inspector, and I have had the ocassional inspector give me a green tag without really looking at the job, I always make sure my job is good to go before I even consider calling any inspections, i would'nt want any bad reputation to follow me around the rest of my life, and lets be realistic does the boss need to go around and check the work a "qualified JM" has done everytime. My buddy just happened to walk the job, as I understand it just for the reason the JM was a new hire. But as for people talking residential down, my brother-in-law wires these multi-jazillion $ homes with all the bells and whistles money can buy, honestly I would bet not just anyone can wire those homes, he is what I call a "Residential Specialist".
 
Rewire said:
I pointed to the sealoff and asked if he had ever used one of these he said sure thats for joining three pipes together he did not get the job.
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That's hilarious!:D

One thing I have always tried to stress to guys working for me was "If you don't know or don't understand what I'm saying, tell me." I would rather spend as much time as it takes to teach you than spend any time fixing what you mess up.

Even so, a lot of times when I am explaining something, a helper will be standing there nodding his head like he understands and I can tell by his eyes he doesn't have a clue. :roll: I would rather you thought me stupid for having to have something explained to me 3 times than for you to know I'm stupid because I can't admit that I don't understand. IMSO :D
 
I've done all three. Commercial, industrial, residential and they are all different specialties that require time to learn. I believe my industrial experience helped me to learn commercial faster than I would have starting from scratch, but niether realy prepared me to do residential. Residential skills have come from doing a lot of it. Before doing residential work I tended to look down on residential electricians and never thought of them as "real electricians". It can be very hard work and some of it certainly isn't rocket science. Still I find myself most days every bit as engaged and challenged by the problems of residential work as I was when I was trouble shooting automation. After thirty years I still get a kick out of turning a switch on for the first time and seing the right light come on.
 
j-box said:
Green tags mean the job is good to go, I have had the ocassional inspector give me a green tag without really looking at the job, and lets be realistic does the boss need to go around and check the work a "qualified JM" has done every time.
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The owner or master elecrician only needs to check out the work if they wish to be in full compliance with Texas state laws. From a legal stand point I would say, yes.

If you check out the Administrative Rules of the Texas Department of licensing, you will find a requirement for general supervision of all employees. And a requirement for the contractor to make sure all work is compliant ( it's hard to do that if you haven't seen the job ).

The only way a boss is going to know if he has a " qualified JM" is to check up on him because in the end it's the owner/master that's responsible.

What's required by law and what really happens is often quite different. But that doesn't relieve anyone of any liability. :smile:
 
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