pictures before drywall

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dab

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Gasquet, CA
i found that taking digital pictures of my work that will be buried in the wall is good insurance when i need to find out where my buried junction boxes are. i saw this same thing when i worked on the old getty museum in malibu, ca. the general foreman for the ec was quite the hero and it even made other trades jobs a lot less damaging. the gf could say with cetainty where his in-concrete conduits were. this was important since the job went on for years.
 
That seems like a great idea. But I thought you were not allowed to bury a junction box within a wall. Or do I perhaps misunderstand 314.29? :-?
 
it would be the boxes that are buried by the drywaller that were to be outlet or switch locations. you can usually find them by the telltale bulge in the drywall. this isn't exact enough so a picture shows it in relation to other equipment or windows.
 
It has become my routine. Also has come in handy to take trim out pictures of the lighting. I leave the job, get a call two days later from GC cause there is a cracked glass on a bedroom fixture. My e-mail to him 5 minutes later shows a fixture with no crack in the glass. I guess the carpet company got the next phone call.
 
Not only do I use a digital camera, I use a can of upside down paint and mark the he11 out of the floor. That makes them real easy to find!
 
That is a good idea but.. is it really your responsibility to spend your time(money) like this. Just because the general hires poor sheet rockers should we electricians have to take pictures. I think a clause in your contract charging T&M and not being liable for any sheet rock damage is a better idea for easter egg hunting for receps.
 
One of my builders marks the floor under every potential cutout for phone, cable lights, rec, etc and he inspects it before the sheetrockers are done. This saves him a mess later on. It's great esp. since I don't have to do it.
 
Dennis Alwon said:
One of my builders marks the floor under every potential cutout for phone, cable lights, rec, etc and he inspects it before the sheetrockers are done. This saves him a mess later on. It's great esp. since I don't have to do it.
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When there is penalty in your contract, for locating, and digging out the box, and it is ENFORCED, the GC may check the rockers work.

The problem is two sided, the GC looks for the bargin rockers, and gets just that a hacker company, the EC is so hungry for the work, he bypasses the contract, and has no bargining power.

You have rare one, a GC that takes pride in his work.
 
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digital camera photos come in real handy at times. i've never used them for actual outlet locations because that might be + or - 6 or 8 inches, hay thats a pretty big hole to patch!!! our outlet locations are normally laid out on the floor with perminent marker. today i believe a digital camera is a required tool to have on a service truck. it has saved me hours of none productive court appearances!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Here is a great example of how good it is to carry one on the truck. I got called to a job to move a range plug last week. Looked at it and priced out the move, got the go ahead. It went up the wall thru an attic to a load center, no big, just add a j-box in attic and extend the cable. While up there I found some pretty extensive rat chew damage on the lighting wiring. I took about 6 different shots with my camera, downed them onto my laptop, e-mailed them to the owner of the house who was at his workplace, and provided a price (included was time for above setup work). Change order was emailed back to me within 1/2 hour of when I sent the e-mail out. Repair done and money collected that same day. Without the camera and the laptop/ internet, probably the owner would have wanted to look for himself, and then I would have had to come back another day.
 
charlie tuna said:
today i believe a digital camera is a required tool to have on a service truck. it has saved me hours of none productive court appearances!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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I take pix about every two days on larger jobs. I've had GCs withhold payments because they said certain portions of the work weren't done on time. I pulled out the pix, and there's the proof.

They can also document damaged shipments, damage caused by other trades, site conditions/weather, accidents......
 
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