Today I went to inspect and test the wiring in the nearby house of an acquaintance. It's a rented house, and the landlord has had his own guy inspect and wants the house rewired, with the tenant to pay half the cost.

The guy concerned is someone I've known in passing for a while now. He's a friendly easy-going sort, but his wiring skills..... Oh dear!

Now, there are some horrors left over from before he moved into the house a few years ago, but his additions are, frankly, a mess: Outlets tapped from others using under-sized cables, unsuitable circuit arrangements, broken rings, an underground feed to his mobile-home workshop consisting of 6242Y (like Romex) pulled through garden variety water hose -- You get the idea.

I now have to write a report on the state of the wiring so he can negotiate with his landlord about the necessary work. I suspect that my report is going to to pretty much coincide with that given by the landlord's electrician.

The combination of his additions with somebody else's bodged modifications (not his fault, so a negotiating point at least) really suggest that the only sensible course of action is to start over.

So, how do any of you go about exercising diplomacy in a situation like this?

Paul,

Awkward situation for sure. One I've used is:

"This may work fine, but it is not according to code"

Good Luck,
Bill

I'm confused about who it is you're afraid of slighting.

I usually back away from these situations where my social life is involved, saying that I don't have time for the job. Better a stranger criticise, and no hard feelings.

Sometimes I blame myself to the person, by explaining that I'm perversely dogmatic and therefore can't help but find fault. I can make my "extreme uptightness" a condition of my doing the work, and then if they accept it's cool, and if they decline it's cool too.

Paul:
Greetings.
Gee, I thought that all the homeowner specials were "ststeside"!

Working/inspecting/reporting on or for a friend can be a sticky situation to say the least. Last time I was in that corner, I did as Bill said....sure it works, but it's not "Code", and as a Lic EC and AHJ I HAVE to write it as I see it!

Good luck my friend!

John

I had a similar situation once where I was doing work for friend of mine who is an MD and also happened to be my landlord. He never had to tell me where he'd done electrical work because I could just tell by the code violations I found.

Finally, I told him: "Take this in the spirit that I'm giving it: I would not try to practice medicine because I'm not trained in medicine, and I would make mistakes. By that same token, you should not practice electrical work."

Sometimes there aren't really many ways to tell someone something, and you just have to depend on them being humble enough to understand. Good luck.

-John

My trouble is that I find it difficult to say "No," so when someone asks me to "Just have a look" at some problem, and I usually end up doing it (and often regretting agreeing to do so immediately). Maybe I'm overly sensitive or something, but I guess I just don't like offending anyone.

Basically, the guy asked me to check the wiring as he thought the landlord's electrician might have been overly critical in an attempt to condemn the electrical system and thereby break the lease. He was hoping for a counter opinion which would say "No, we just need to fix these couple of little things here."

Of course, I can only write up what I see, and everything which is of concern will go into my report. I don't have to add a recommended course of action as this is purely a second-opinion, but by the time all the problems are listed it will would be hard for anyone not to see that a full rewire is really the only logical solution.

Oh, he did ask about providing a quote for a full rewire if that's what it comes down to in the end. Fortunately, I managed to regain my determination a little and refuse, explaining that I really have too much other work in hand at the moment to be able to take it on (which is true anyway).

P.S. I don't think I'll bother to write-up the dead mouse I found when removing a wall switch from its box. The huge gap between some of the boxes and the wall which allowed said unfortunate rodent to enter will go in, though.

[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 05-14-2004).]

If you truly are concerned about hard feelings, maybe try to get out of it. See if he would be willing to get a third opinion.

I would probably still try to explain that you would have to be overly critical of the work, and you aren't comfortable doing that in this situation. In these types of situations I generally make the code the bad guy instead of the installer. You are only informing him of what the code says. "Even though this appears to be working fine, the code won't allow it this way" instead of "boy was the guy who installed this an idiot or what?"

I would expect that with careful explaining, he'll realize how little he knows about the code and possibly adopt the attitutde that he's kind of been caught, and he may even tell you to write up what you honostly think anyway.

Either way, talk to him first. How he handles it from there is in his court and out of your control. But you've handled it the best way you know how.

Paul,
That's a real tough one!.
I've been put in this situation a few times and I can't say that I enjoy it, at all.
My advice would be, if you are going to do a report, be absolutely impartial.
Just concentrate on the work that needs to be done to bring the installation back up to Regulation standard, that's the most important thing here!.
What happens after you have done your report, is entirely up to the two parties in the argument.

Forget about their feelings. Think how bad you'll feel if someone dies in a fire from the faulty wiring. I work for a dentist who does some bad wiring. I ask him how he'd like it if I worked on his teeth.

Dave

Paul,
I kinda have to go with Dave55 on this one... One for liability's sake, & the other reason being you might save this guy from really getting over his head in the future.. Just my opinion, but as a friend I try to put things as straight as possible to avoid reprocussions in the future.. (IE, their house burning down!) While I try to do it in a jovial way.. I make sure I get my point across.
Just kinda walk through with him while you're writing things out & explain why you should'nt do what has been done... This is the way I typically go about things when I'm doing home inspections also.. At the end, tell him he's free to get another opinion if he wants.. But I think, as a friend, he'll appreciate you being candid with him

-Randy

I didn’t realize it until years later, but the hardest thing I had to do being self employed was to tell people “no.” [I always had more work than I could handle.]

Although marginally so, if push comes to shove, one small diplomatic concession may be to allow the helper to do very limited tasks defined well before the job starts. Later, you may realize the junior assistant is competent in something unexpected, and allow some leeway, but I wouldn’t make that decision until it is blatantly apparent.

A problem can be that birddogging an unskilled person is much more work and takes a lot more time than doing it yourself. Another risk with “helpers” that comes up only later is that “a little knowledge is dangerous” and personal overconfidence to a hazardous level may lead to ignorant but perilous decisions by the new “expert.”




[This message has been edited by Bjarney (edited 05-14-2004).]

Thanks for the backup guys.

I've known from the start that I can only write-up what I see in an impartial way, and that to omit anything just because he did the work would be a dereliction of my duty when inspecting.

It's just not a particularly good feeling when someone has come looking for my help in the hope that my second opinion would get him off the hook, and all I can do is confirm the original report that the system is dangerous ("Cannot be considered safe" and "posing a risk of fire" is the way I managed to word it in my summary).

Dave/Randy,
I'd already taken on board what you have in mind. This guy has a wife and three lovely daughters. If my report helps in some small way to prevent a fire there, then who knows what tragedy might have been averted. Looking at it from that way, a few hurt feelings is a small price to pay.

Anyway, my report has been delivered this afternoon, and he's now got to negotiaten with the landlord as to what happens next.

Paul, I would write the report regardless of personal affiliations. This Guy is a tenant, and he may move in 6 months time, then the next people that occupy it pick up the pieces.

Safety must always be paramount, regardless of the Regs, they are only a minimum standard after-all.

I carry a digital camera with me everywhere, if I am called upon to do an inspection I take as many photos as I can (1 GB Microdrive holds a lot of 640x480 ..900k Jpegs!).

All our Guys carry small Fuji digital camera's for this very reason.

Matter of opinion never becomes an issue then as you have photographic evidence.

... What I "love" is going to a house with an apparent problem,...finding the electrical atrocities,and citing Code violations, all for the H.O. to say.."Why..??I did this 35-40 years ago,and it's still working fine"..They then look at me like I'm trying to wrestle their last $2.05 from their pocket's,in order to re-do the wonderful creation that they worked all of some Saturday afternoon for,and missed the weekly Bob Hope PGA Tour on TV,and that has worked for the last half century..Yeah,it's a thankless profession sometimes...
Russ

Well, when I got back from work this evening I had an e-mail waiting thanking me for my time and advice. So even though I couldn't tell him exactly what he hoped to hear, at least I couldn't have offended him too much.