ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Educating the Homeowner

And unless he's managed to zap himself in trying!

I too will answer just about any question, but start with, "Now tell me when to stop."

However the filter goes on when asked "how" to do it.

And, yes I have been that other EC they call after the customer gives it shot on his own.... Most will straight out of the gate LIE to you, and say "it was working before, it just stopped working". Yeah, after you messed with it. Or, for that matter there was no possible way for it to work in the first place. I had one rough, rock, and finish an illegal in-law, claim it had been there for years, and call me to "trouble-shoot" hall switching that should have been 4-wayed. Open the boxes and they are all made up (fresh & poorly) as single pole switches in parrallel with the lights. Finally, just said, "level with me", and he came clean. (Still didn't tell him how a four way worked.) Added RadioRA Dimmers with remotes and added a note of Non-responacabilty to the bill, and no warrantee.

This is where talking to your customer, and asking questions counts.

Today i received a call from a nervous manager, "All my computers are out, a breaker is off, can you come right away?"
I asked what is off, and he replied all 15 of my computers, I asked are you sure that only one breaker is off, yes, they are all on two outlets, and there are 6 strips pluged into each other from there.
It appears, that this past spring, an EC changed his service panel, as he was asked to, the owner was under the assumption, that changing the service panel gave him more power, the EC never questioned the load or asked any questions, just replaced the panel.

This was a good time for the EC to up sell the customer and he missed the chance, and now it appears he lost any future work from this account.

[This message has been edited by LK (edited 11-16-2004).]

Do you consider it a duty or moral/ethical obligation to point out what you consider to be unsafe conditions?

or

Do you just do what's asked, and leave it at that, in the interest of not upsetting a customer?

or

Something in between?

I feel obligated on all levels to point out unsafe conditions if I see them. What the homeowner wants to do from there is their choice. If I consider it an extreme fire or electrocution hazard and they don't want me to fix it, I often follow it with a letter. Then if there's a disaster, I have that letter in my file.

Dave