I used to think the expensive cable management trays were a waste of money. But last month at the Johnson County school renovation, I saw a helper trip over a loose bundle and pull down three junction boxes. The head electrician told me, 'That $200 tray would have saved us $2,000 in repairs.' Now I use troughs on every commercial job. Has anyone else had a close call that made you spend more upfront?
I put in 6 dimmers on a kitchen remodel last month before realizing the Lutron ones I grabbed are only rated for 150W of LED, and my tape runs were pushing 200W each. Has anybody else had to swap out dimmers mid-job because the specs didn't match the load?
I bid a job last month on a house in the Irvington district. Owner wanted to keep costs down so I had to pick between ripping out all the old cloth wiring or just patching in new runs where it was really bad. I went with the partial rewire because the panel and main feeds were already updated in 2018. Now I'm worried about hidden splices in the walls down the road. Has anyone else dealt with callbacks from a partial rewire on old homes?
Used to think Wagos were just for beginners or people who didn't know how to twist a proper joint. But I had this job in a crawlspace last winter, tight spot, bad lighting, and I kept dropping wire nuts into the dirt. After the third time fishing one out I just bought a bag of Wagos at the supply house. Now I use them for almost everything in residential boxes. They save me maybe 10 minutes per box on average, especially when I'm working alone. Has anyone else made the switch and found it speeds up rough-ins?
I ran into this on a job in Raleigh last week. Old house with no easy way to get a GFCI receptacle in the crawlspace because of moisture and dirt. I figured just throw a GFCI breaker in the panel and call it done. Saved me from mounting a box down there and dealing with corrosion. But my partner says breakers are too expensive and you lose the convenience of a reset at the outlet. What do you all think? Am I overthinking this or is he right that it's a waste of money on jobs like this?
I get that they're faster but I saw a 20 amp lighting circuit with Wagos just dangling in a ceiling box. Give me wire nuts and a good twist any day. Has anyone else seen these things fail when it gets hot?
Had to tear apart the whole gang box and map every wire with a continuity tester before I realized the previous guy just grabbed whatever scrap he had lying around, has anyone else run into weird wire gauges in old houses?
I bought a Flir thermal imager last month after getting sick of chasing dead neutrals in commercial panels. First call I used it on was a three phase motor starter in a warehouse that kept tripping. Found a hot spot on a bad contactor in under 10 minutes. That one service call alone would have cost me half the camera if I'd spent all day probing with a meter. Has anyone else had a tool that seemed expensive at first but ended up saving you time and money right away?
Had to run a new 20 amp circuit to the far end of a finished basement last week. Was dreading cutting drywall all over. Then an old timer told me to try using a string and a shop vac. Taped a string to a plastic bag, sucked it through from the other end with the vac. Worked on the first try. Saved me from patching like 6 holes. Anyone else do this or am I late to the game?
Had a panel in a commercial building that kept tripping. Chasing it down with a multimeter took hours. Pulled out the FLIR and found a loose connection in 5 minutes. $400 was a lot but that one job paid for it. Anyone else ditch the old methods for thermal imaging?
He told me to stop relying on my bender's degree marks and start visualizing the bend before I pull the handle, and now I can't unsee how much time I wasted doing three-fourths of a bend wrong on a 90 in a parking lot last month, has anyone else had a mentor give you a tip that totally changed your approach to a basic job?
Last Tuesday I got a call to fix a partial outage in a 1950s ranch. I opened the main panel and a dead squirrel fell out on my boots. It had chewed through half the wires before it zapped itself. Took me three days and $400 in parts to replace the whole mess. The homeowner just laughed and said they wondered why the lights flickered for months. Has anyone else found something weird inside a panel like that?
After that I bought a set and honestly I wish I'd listened three years ago, anyone else have a tool they ignored til it bit them in the wallet?
I was troubleshooting a 277 volt lighting circuit in a warehouse last Tuesday. Had a cheap set of leads on my Fluke and got a weird reading that made no sense. Turned out the probe tip was loose and giving me intermittent contact. Spent 30 minutes chasing a ghost when it was just bad equipment. Anyone else ever get burned by low quality test leads?
Ignored it for 5 years until I pulled a switch box where the neutral screw was smoking. Now I never skip it. Any of you guys had a late lesson like that?
I passed 500 calls last Thursday and I had to pull over and just sit. It wasn't the number that got me, it was remembering the first one from January - a simple outlet swap in a garage near St. Paul. The customer's wife came out and thanked me because her kid could finally plug in a space heater. That small thing was what pushed me into this trade after I got laid off. Now I'm at 500 and I've replaced more breakers and dimmers than I can count, but that one call still stands out. How many calls did you guys log in your first full year?
I was on a service call last week at a house built in 2022 and noticed the ground wire from the meter to the ground rod was only a #4 copper. For a 200 amp service you need a #2 bare copper minimum per code. The homeowner said his buddy did the work and saved him money. Problem is if that house takes a lightning hit or a fault the ground wont clear fast enough and you get voltage on everything metal. I told the guy to call a real electrician to redo it. He didn't listen but I put a note on the panel. Has anyone else seen builders or handymen try to cheap out on grounding?
Had a call last week at a strip mall in Tulsa. Lights flickering in three units. Pulled out my Flir E8 and scanned the main panel. Hot spot right on a neutral lug, was barely tight. Saved me two hours of poking around with a meter. Any of you guys use thermal regularly for service calls?
Last month I pulled a panel cover in an older house near Portland and found the entire back of the bus bar charred black, but the homeowner swore nothing was wrong. Two days later another call where a junction box had been arcing inside a wall for weeks and nobody noticed until the smoke came through the drywall.
Man, I was that guy who used push-in connectors on every junction box for like 3 years straight. Thought they saved time and were just as good as screw terminals. Then last fall I got called to a house in Portland where a push-in had arced out inside a ceiling box, melted the wire nut and almost started a real fire. The homeowner said they heard popping for a week before calling. Now I only use push-in connectors on solid wire in lighting fixtures or ceiling fans, never on 12 or 10 gauge in walls or outlets. I strip and wrap everything else on the screw terminal with the loop going clockwise. Has anyone else had push-in connectors fail on them, or am I just paranoid now?
Been an electrician for about 4 years now and I always stripped wire with my lineman's pliers or a cheap hand stripper. Then last month I was on a job in Austin rewiring a whole house and the old timer I was working with handed me a self-adjusting wire stripper. I thought it was dumb at first but I used it for a couple pulls and it cut my time by half on each box. I was stripping 12 and 14 gauge by feel and messing up the copper all the time. Now I barely touch a pair of lineman's for stripping unless it's some weird situation. Has anyone else had a tool they ignored for years that turned out to be way better?
Spent 45 minutes trying to get a red wire nut to hold on three 10s in a j-box today, kept spinning loose no matter how hard I twisted. Learned the hard way that you gotta pretwist the copper tails on anything over 12 gauge or you're just wasting time - anyone else run into this?
I stopped by an old building on 42nd Street last week to help a buddy with a light fixture. Place was built in the 20s and they still had those old screw-in fuse panels in the basement. Got me thinking about how different things were when I first started... We used to pull wire through knob and tube without a second thought. Now everything has to be arc-fault and tamper-proof. Any of you guys run into old systems that make you stop and remember how far we've come?