A talk with an old electrician changed how I run wire for alarm panels

I was working a job in a commercial building in Charlotte last month and an old electrician, must have been in his 70s, walked up and watched me for a minute. He said, "Son, you're pulling that wire too tight. Give it some slack for the next guy." I never really thought about leaving extra service loops or making my terminations easier for someone down the line. Now I leave a few extra inches at every panel and it just feels more professional. Anyone else pick up a simple habit from a stranger on a job?

2 comments

2 Comments

taylor_flores10d ago

Oh man, that's golden! I had almost the exact same thing happen to me a couple years back at a data center in Atlanta. This older security tech, probably retired by now, saw me running cable for a card access panel and told me to always leave a pigtail on the ground wire "so the next guy doesn't have to fight with it." Changed my whole approach. Now I leave extra loops on every single termination, not just the alarm panels but on the readers and door strikes too. It's wild how a little bit of slack makes the next service call ten times easier, and it makes your work look way cleaner when someone opens the box. I notice the difference now when I have to work on someone else's install that was pulled tight as a drum.

nathan54510d ago

Yeah, it's amazing how something that small saves you a headache later. Good on that old timer for passing it along.