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c2500 said:
Well the electrician started running wire today. My buddy was at his house late this afternoon so I stopped in to look around. Want to know what $4700 buys when the EC provides the wire? A master bath and smaller bath that are side by side sharing receptacles. Hmm...maybe I should take pictures :grin:

c2500
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How do two bathrooms share receptacles? Do you mean share a receptacle circuit? That is code compliant just bad design.

take pictures please I am sure when your buddy has problems with his electrical system in his home you will be able to point to the problem and then provide a multi thousand $ solution.
 
bikeindy said:
How do two bathrooms share receptacles? Do you mean share a receptacle circuit? That is code compliant just bad design.
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Its only a bad design if you have two women in the house drying their hair at the exact same time in each bathroom. ;)
 
Electrical contractors will probably never make a decent living. We spend all our time debating 14 ga vs 12 ga or backstab vs hook or free estimates vs service charges.

New Years Eve 2002 a friend told me about his plumber that charged $600 to install his toilet in 45 minutes...a toilet that my friend had provided. He loved the company because they did everything...plumbing, HVAC, etc. He still uses them for everything.

Dave
 
Clarification...

Clarification...

The bathrooms share a circuit. I have always wired each bathroom on a 20 amp circuit. Somewhere along the way I thought it was code, but after the above mentioned comments (As well as reviewing the 2006 IRC) I am gathering it is not. I will still wire each bathroom on its own 20 amp circuit though. Just hope 2 people don't dry their hair at the same time.

c2500
 
c2500 said:
The bathrooms share a circuit. I have always wired each bathroom on a 20 amp circuit. Somewhere along the way I thought it was code, but after the above mentioned comments (As well as reviewing the 2006 IRC) I am gathering it is not. I will still wire each bathroom on its own 20 amp circuit though. Just hope 2 people don't dry their hair at the same time.

c2500
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depends if the lights and outlets are on the same circuit or different...
 
c2500 said:
The bathrooms share a circuit. I have always wired each bathroom on a 20 amp circuit. Somewhere along the way I thought it was code, but after the above mentioned comments (As well as reviewing the 2006 IRC) I am gathering it is not. I will still wire each bathroom on its own 20 amp circuit though. Just hope 2 people don't dry their hair at the same time.

c2500
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I agree with you and that is how I lay out all the homes we do... we don't do many because others will do homes for nearly half what we do them for, so all the homes we do are above 4500 sq ft. That said I think it is wrong for the code to make us run a 20 amp circuit for small insignificant bathrooms when a 15 amp circuit or being tied to a 15 amp circuit will do. In large homes there are some times when even running off another bathroom 20 Amp circuit makes little sence cost wise but the code has been written these days more and more to try to protect from bad design instead of what it was intended for to protect from fire causing design. when a customer asks me "why was it wired this way?" I answer because it was wired to code.
 
aline said:
So is connecting equipment that draws 12 amps on a 15 amp circuit considered overloading the circuit? I would think that if he was just overloading the circuit the breaker would trip instead of his computers shutting down due to low voltage. It's also possible that if he had #12 wire maybe that would have been just enough to keep the voltage drop low enough to not shut down the equipment.
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It's causing a voltage drop that is unacceptable to the computer. Doesn't mean that a lamp, TV or clock radio won't work. If his computer equipment is that intolerant, it's an issue he must contend with. Is wiring every house with #12 awg just in case a practical solution?

Does this mean that anytime equipment is having problems due to voltage drop it's because the equipment is overloading the circuit and not because the wire wasn't sized properly to reduce the voltage drop to an acceptable level?


If you pay for a 15 amp circuit wouldn't you assume you should be able to load the circuit with 12 amps without so much voltage drop that your equipment shuts down? I sure wouldn't expect to maintain the 5% voltage drop that's recommended though.

If I was assuming 0A I wouldn't even bother running a circuit and if I was assuming 30A I wouldn't be running #14. :)
I assume 12 amps because I feel I should be able to load a 15 amp circuit with 12 amps without having problems.

My point is to just say wiring a home with anything other than #14 wire is a complete waste of time and money isn't necessarily true. It depends on the situation and whether or not they're willing to pay for it. I know this is a design issue and not a code issue and people aren't willing to pay for it but I wouldn't agree that it's a waste of time and money to run #12 in some cases.
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I say it's a waste of time and money when it's done on speculation. If I'm looking at a house and there's a remote "bonus room" off in the far corner of the attic, and I intend to convert that space into a webserver, I am not going to assume that however it's wired it'll be adequate.
 
LawnGuyLandSparky said:
It's causing a voltage drop that is unacceptable to the computer. Doesn't mean that a lamp, TV or clock radio won't work. If his computer equipment is that intolerant, it's an issue he must contend with. Is wiring every house with #12 awg just in case a practical solution?
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I guess I missed the part where I said every home should be wired in #12 just in case. I do remember saying that I wire these homes in #14 as well but in some cases I don't think it's a wast of time and money to use #12.
As a homeowner I guess I shouldn't expect be able to plug anything put a lamp, TV or clock radio into my outlets. Heaven forbid I would want to plug in computers and printers. No one uses those things these days.



LawnGuyLandSparky said:
I say it's a waste of time and money when it's done on speculation. If I'm looking at a house and there's a remote "bonus room" off in the far corner of the attic, and I intend to convert that space into a webserver, I am not going to assume that however it's wired it'll be adequate.
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If the runs are long ones I would think it would be safe to speculate there could be voltage drop problems and suggesting upping the wire size or adding more ciruits would not be a waste time and money. The homeowner may want plug more than a lamp, TV or clock radio into his outlets.

You're not going to assume that however it's wired it'll be adequate because you're an electrician and you know better. Most homeowner's don't have a clue about electrical. They're also to cheap to pay for any extras and then complain when they only have one outlet in the garage and bad mouth the electrician for not installing more.

I'd be willing to bet if you try to upsell larger wire, more circuits or more outlets the homeowner would decline to have it done. He never remembers declining these extras. He just knows the stupid electrician should have put in more outlets. :)

Recently I went out to a home built a couple of years ago. The homeowner wanted a new phone jack installed in a spare room for his computer.
He couldn't understand why it wasn't $20 like all the other phone jacks the original electrician installed. At $20 a jack he could have had one in every room in the house for less than what I charged him to install this one jack. :)

He should have speculated that he may want phone jack in the room. At the ridiculously low price of $20 he wouldn't have been out much even if he didn't ever use it.

It's a good thing people are cheap and don't spend the money for these things while the home is being built. Adding these things later is how I make money. :)

The homeowner tried to get the original electrician out to install the jack but the original electrician was too busy installing jacks in new homes for $20 a jack.
 
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There's an electrical contractor in my area that bids new houses at $2.50 a square foot and then gets guys to wire them for $25 per hour under the table.

He wanted to know if I'd be willing to wire his homes for $25 per hour under the table.

I didn't become an electrical contractor to work for $25 per hour under the table, above the table or any other way. I guess he finds enough people dumb enough to do this though because that's how he operates his business.
I think someday this will catch up with him.

The new housing market is about as corrupt as it gets.
 
aline said:
There's an electrical contractor in my area that bids new houses at $2.50 a square foot...
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I would have loved to have gotten $2.50 a square foot. I have put in bids for $2.00 a square foot and get a chuckle out of them. The going rate here is ranges from $1.35 to $1.80 square foot. You just can't wire a home for that price. Some builders have gone so far as to even pay per opening.

The housing market here tanked a year ago. Two of our major new homebuilders have pulled out of KY altogether. The ones that are still here are just not building right now. Some builders have gone to building office buildings. I even know of some other construction businesses that have folded because of our bleak housing market.
 
BackInTheHabit said:
I would have loved to have gotten $2.50 a square foot. I have put in bids for $2.00 a square foot and get a chuckle out of them. The going rate here is ranges from $1.35 to $1.80 square foot. You just can't wire a home for that price. Some builders have gone so far as to even pay per opening.

The housing market here tanked a year ago. Two of our major new homebuilders have pulled out of KY altogether. The ones that are still here are just not building right now. Some builders have gone to building office buildings. I even know of some other construction businesses that have folded because of our bleak housing market.
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The $2.50 a square foot was a couple of years ago. I'm not sure if he's still getting that or not. The $2.50 wasn't code minimum either it was based on wiring the same houses with the same electrical plan for each house with the same builders. I haven't seen the plans so I don't know what was included for that amount. I can't even say for sure the $2.50 is correct because I only heard this from a friend of his.

The last new home I gave a bid on was a rambler about 2700 sq. ft finished with an unfinished basement. This was about 6 years ago. I knew the guy and thought I was giving him a great price at $6500 based on the plans he'd given me.

He told me all the other contractors that gave him a bid were around $4500. He told me he really wanted me to do the job but only if I could lower my price closer to what the other contractors bid. I showed him my costs to wire this house, showed him my overhead costs and showed him how much profit I would make.

His response was "You really don't have any overhead do you?"

I replied every business has overhead and I need to cover my overhead expenses and make a profit to stay in business.

His response was "Electrical contracting isn't really a business though. I used to own a flower shop and that's a business with overhead. Electrical contracting doesn't have overhead like that."

I told him no thanks. I wasn't interested in wiring his home at a loss just because other contractors were lower.

The funny thing is he was bragging about how this was his third home he had built, lived in for a couple of years, sold it and made enough to build a another one borrowing less money each time with the profit he made on the sale. He told me he planned on building one more after this one and he figured he wouldn't have to borrow any money at all for it.

I guess I'm supposed to wire his home at a loss so he can continue making money on his investment.
 
I had a neighbor that built a new million dollar home a couple of years ago. His wife and my wife are good friends and we occasionally visit with them. While there I asked him how much the electrician charged him to wire his home. He told me $1.60 per square foot.

Then he complained that his panel was full so he was going to have a sub panel installed when he finished the basement.

I'm sure his next complaint will be that the computers in his home office keep shutting down due to voltage drop from all the long runs of #14 wire. :)

What does he expect for a $1.60 per sq foot.
 
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He also didn't like what the plumber was charging him for the toilets and sinks so he bought them himself. I don't know how he knew what they were charging him but his wife said they felt it was too much so they bought their own plumbing fixtures.

He got this million dollar home built for one heck of a bargain.

The guy's an excavation and asphalt contractor so you would think he'd know about material markup.
 
Maybe This Is Just A Labor Cost And The General Is Providing The Material. I Know A Contractor Who Let His Carpenter Wire Up His 700,000 Dollar House To Save Money Can You Say Ouch!
 
Tiger Electrical said:
Electrical contractors will probably never make a decent living. We spend all our time debating 14 ga vs 12 ga or backstab vs hook or free estimates vs service charges.

New Years Eve 2002 a friend told me about his plumber that charged $600 to install his toilet in 45 minutes...a toilet that my friend had provided. He loved the company because they did everything...plumbing, HVAC, etc. He still uses them for everything.

Dave
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Fine and dandy. When my controls for my furnace doesn't work, don't tell me it must of been a surge!!!!!!!!! "I think it's the board." Well HVAC guy show me your conclusion:mad:
 
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