This may have been covered before but I am so sick of these "handyman" outfits doing electrical work. They do not have an electrical license so I am going to report the next time I find out about it to the inspectors office. Mainly for the safety of the home owner. The have no idea about the nor care.

I think we worry a lot about the DIY and handyman types when we should first weed out the incompentants with a licence in their pockets.

I used to feel strongly about this issue but I don't anymore. "Hackymen" will always exist, but it's the homeowners who are to blame for hiring them without checking their credentials, or lack thereof.

I think Sberry makes a great point. Let's remove the log from our own eye before pointing out the speck in someone elses eye. Licensed hacks are a much greater threat to the trade than any handyman, IMO.

Peter

I've seen electricians make mistakes, but I'd bet most of the "disasters waiting to happen" in the Photos Section are from handymen/weekend warriors. You know what I mean...the missing covers, flying splices, overfusing, etc.

Dave

Sometimes the hack and handymen are my best salesmen!

This is because I get called after the customer has already tried cutting every corner. He has, by than, paid several times for the job- which still doesn't do what was desired.
I come in, usually have little trouble running down the problem, often have the parts on the truck- and when I leave, everything works!

Sometimes the customer watches, and is impressed by my 'rolling workshop' of a truck, and my trade-specific tools. Soemtimes I am able to explain just why this particular situation was beyond the abilities of the other guys- training, education, and experience, you know!

I leave behind a customer who is awed- and who has learned the foolishness of taking short-cuts. From then on, he calls a pre, and I have a good customer.

I think that we should import all of our strawberries from countries where the farmers concentrate more on agriculture and leave electrical work to the incompetent electricians. There are many Doctors that did not graduate in the top ten percent of their class ( about 90% of them ) but I would trust the guy a the very bottom of the class to do an operation before I gave the butcher a call.

Quote "I think we worry a lot about the DIY and handyman types when we should first weed out the incompentants with a licence in their pockets."

You are a new member around here, I would recommend you don't start bashing people on here, especially other electricians.

Number 1, I didnt bash anyone and number 2 is there some kind of senority here? I see a lot of crummy work, from handyman types as well as trade guys, at least the handy types have an excuse, they dont know any better. I certainly agree there are people who shouldnt be doing the work they do, there is a guy in my area that I still can spot his work, never understood short circuit interuption, cut the ground wire off in every cable. It would have certainly been prudent to educate him on it. Its something I try to make clear when I get asked about wiring projects from friends.

[This message has been edited by sberry27 (edited 08-14-2005).]

[This message has been edited by sberry27 (edited 08-14-2005).]

I think renosteinke makes a valid point here, he uses this to gain customers, good move.

Renosteinke does not make valid point because that is not how it works. In most cases the handyman or hack does get the lights on or the machine running or whatever. The customer usually does not even know how many dangerous code violations there are until later. Flying splices, buried boxes, oversized breakers and fuses, cable laying on ceiling grid,boxes uncovered, live conductors in crawl spaces, the list can go on forever of items that can be wrong and dangerous with the building or equipment still showng no symptoms. I was at a job not long ago where the ground system had been disconnected ( 6 years since the hacks were there ). It was caught on an inspection ( home inspector that caught many faults). I had to explain to the owner that the last remodeling job had been done under the table as I could tell from the obvious violations ( no GFCI protection in kitchen an electrical inspector would have caught that one easy ). Handymen are not good for the trade because in many cases home and business owners are not knowledgeable enough to know the difference between a job that is to code and safe and a job that seems to work. There are licensed hacks in every trade but I don't think you can start to get rid of them without some sort of trade regulation ( license requirements). Michigan requires 12,000 hrs. experience and testing. How much experience does our strawberry farmer have to be giving advice to friends on wiring projects. If Mr. sberry27 is a retired master electrician I will apologize, if not he should stop giving advice because he is not qualified. I believe that every home or business owner should be free to burn his own property down but before a sale is made there should be a thorough inspection to make sure he doesn't injure the unwary.

Again, I didnt giver advice to anyone on here as it kind of looks like one of the major qualifications to come on here must be arrogance. Somehow we seem to think the green wire would actually know the difference if the guy thqat hooked it up had a licence in his pocket or not. Do you treat all new people here like this? When you point out that I have given some wrong tech advice than you have a valid point about not being qualified.

sberry27,

No one here will tell you there aren't incompetent people out there with Licenses. There's good and bad everywhere. The unqualified, and/or unlicensed (and uninsured) people doing work for others is all bad news.

You didn't mention anything about yourself, so remarks can only be speculation, but many would consider it more than a bit arrogant for a DIYer to join a Forum full of ECs and make their first post in support of DIY & Handymen and complaining about ECs. Before you complain any further please think about that.

Bill

For what it is worth..........

sberry27 is new to this board, however he has been a Kiess's board for quite some time.

(I read alot of different boards)

He is actually very knowlegable and very friendly there, and might I add very helpful.

Let's all not bash anyone, but instead welcome him here, he may help one of us out at some time........

Sberry27, Welcome.......


Dnk.........

Sorry Mr. strawberry, I just wanted to know if a person with your point of view had any experience to back it up. Even if you were a doctor, lawyer or an engineer from NASA there are those of us that would wonder where you came in contact with all of these incompetent electricians. When I find mistakes made in the field it is normally done be someone playing electrician ( Joe the guy that worked maintenance at the apartments down the street). When I find a hack job, I will ask for the name of the contractor that did the work. I have yet to find a legitimate contractor named. The green wire does not know who hooked it up and if it is hooked up properly no one will ever know. People are allowed to legally do many types of electrical work without a license ( home repairs by owner, maintenance both commercial & industrial as an employee )but when they go in the field and advertise thier services as a qualified electrican, they are stating that they have a certain level of competence and in my opinion the honor system doesn't work. Without a license a person can not get a business license and without a business license they can't purchase insurance. It's the same with a driver's license, there are many people that don't drive repsonsibly but if you are injured in an accident you hope the other driver has a license and insurance. If you want to do your own work I don't think anyone cares but if you are trying to justify handymen by saying that there are a few incompetent electricians with a license that dog wont hunt. If that logic was sound we would have to open up all professions and tomorrow I'm doing surgery because it pays better than electrical work.

growler,
I would have to disagree with you, at least in my neck of the woods. The majority of poor quality and code violation work I come across was performed by outfits carrying a license. Here are some recent examples and I'll let you decide if they are poor quality/code violations.
#1)Stone parking lot with 30' pole lights newly installed by a licensed "master electrician". Poles fed with #2 AL URD burried less than 12" below stone. #2 AL URD spliced inside hand hole to #10 THHN using big blue wirenuts. No EGC anywhere.
#2)8' HO fluorescent shop lights installed in a light manufacturing facility suspended from the bar joists with nylon tie straps and fed with orange 16ga extension cord daisy chained from a j-box. Both of these jobs were done by 2 different "licensed master electricians" and inspected by an inspector who doesn't know what he's doing and trusts the "master electrician" does. Both of these jobs cost top dollar(more than I would have charged). Most homeowners and business owners in my area have been scared out of using unlicensed handymen by their insurance carriers. Sadly, around here, a license gets you automatic approval on jobs without an informed inspection.

Sberry 27, Welcome to the Forum. Most of the men and ladies at ECN are engaged as professional electricians trying to earn a living at their trade. Many, many threads and posts here reflect their anger at the practices of 'handy-men', 'hacks', and other unqualified persons doing 'electricians' work' at rates of pay which a qualified tradesman with all the overhead of a proper, legal business cannot fairly compete against. These guys are, quite rightly, much angered by this situation. The fact that some handymen can do a good job in some circumstances, or that there are diy people with relevant good skills, or even that there are licensed idiots about, is irrelevant. The fuse you lit exploded as anger about the unfair competition and the dangers it creates. Nothing personal; not that you are new; not that you aren't "in the trade" and in agriculture - in fact, exactly the opposite - many new members get amazingly patient and caring responses to sometimes quite inane questions. I look on here, (as a mere bystander), amazed at the complexities of the US Code and the depth of know-how required to cope with it in the field. No handyman, IMO, can ever do much more than wire up receptacles, do simple switching and fit luminaires etc. Present them with anything more complex, like safe sizing of conductors, safe grounding, phase shifts, safe working practices, starting single/multiphase motors, number of receptacles required by Code, correct breaker sizes and specifications, fitting smoke alarms, number of conductors in a conduit, etc.,- ( one could go on all day ), and the holes in their amateur knowledge immediately expose an unknowing (or cheapskate) consumer and others to danger, which can't be right, can it?. The sheer trillions of man-hours experience and logic, distilled into Code, enshrined within the law and diligently practiced by qualified men, weren't executed in order to create a monopoly for a minority Guild to hold the consumer to ransom- they were put in place to provide for his safety and that of third parties, such as children, passers by and Firemen. In general, they do just that.

Alan

[This message has been edited by Alan Belson (edited 08-14-2005).]

Fred, what does it take to become a licensed master in that part of Indiana. I have tried to find the information but it's not easy. It appears that Indiana does not have a state license so how do they determine who is qualified to have a license. A license without certification is the same as no regulation at all. When I was young I lived in a couple areas where you could buy a local license for $25. If find it hard to believe that a master electrician would feed a light fixture with an extensiion cord so if figure he must have gotten his license from a Cracker Jack box. There are areas of the country where the wild west is over and the inspections are for real.

"but if you are trying to justify handymen by saying that there are a few incompetent electricians with a license that dog wont hunt"
No, I agree, I am absolutely not justifying the incompentant to do the work. It was just kind of my point that not every crummy installation I have ever ran across was done by a handyman type. I think as a trend the people found on these boards, even the DIY are very conciencious. The DIY boards are full of "want to do it right" types.

Ok 90% of wiring problems come from Hacks and DIY, however, this last week:

Monday: We arrive at job, no power, after checking, we find service conductor at main breaker open, after checking we find they spliced the service conductor in buried pipe, first clue was rigid conduit on one end and EMT on the other, yes buried EMT, so we asked the owner if he knew who did this job, yes let me get you the invoice, well it happened to be a well known area EC, and one that complains about hacks, doing business in his area.

Wednesday: Service upgrade estimate, we get there, look it over, give estimate, oh that is too much Mr Other EC said he can do it for Less, and there is no need to change the meter pan, and he said i don't need any additional grounding or bonding, and another thing He said you don't need a permit for this, Mr Other EC is another one that complains about Hacks working.

Yes most of the dangerous work does come from DIY's and Hacks, but there is some coming from within the trade.

There is a question I do have here and it is,, how do some of the mobile homes pass inspections? I know they are mostly made in states like Indiana but they are shipped to other states where they wouldnt pass, mostly for things like box fill. I have seen small boxes behind light fixtures used as junctions for gobs of wires, packed so tight that they had to screw the fixture down on them and several with entrance panels in the back of closets. Maybe newer ones have cleared this up but they wouldnt have met clear working area, etc. I saw a new modular with no provision for lights switches at the top of stairways, etc.

The construction of a mobile home is not covered by the NEC. Think of it like an appliance no different than a washer or dryer.

growler, There is no state-wide licensing of electricians in Indiana. Local licensing requirements to be a licensed electrical contractor are that an applicant has passed the Block or Experior Master exam. Some are grandfathered in and are licensed for residential work only without proof of passing the master's exam. The EC who did the work in my 2 examples passed the Experior 2 years ago(after 5 attempts)and was issued a local EC license. My point is, a license is no guarantee the holder has any integrity or work ethic. Another master EC last week told an elderly lady she needed a whole new panel installed for $1800.00 because she needed a new 2 pole 30A CB for her A/C and "you can't buy Square D QO anymore". Maybe they need to require a polygraph test to renew a license every year.

I think that, maybe, Sberry has hit upon one of the things that makes ECN so special.

It is always, (as George Bernard Shaw observed) much easier to be critical than correct. I only regret that he hasn't been here long enought (yet) to see that the vast majority of threads are intellegent discussions, where all of us learn from each other.

Now, no matter where you live,your commercial success is determined by your competence more than any other factor. If your skill level is about the same as "Mr Fix-it," he's your competition. If, on the other hand, you can do something he cannot- who cares what he charges?

Now I am perfectly content to let someone else change lightbulbs and apinted-over switches. Sometimes they get ambitious and try their hand at other stuff....and make a mess of it...or run out of tricks...and I get called.
Now I look at this as an audition. Funny thing is, simple courtesy to the guilty party will often result in him initiating future work for you. He'll say,,,"Boss, we really ought to call John and ask him."

That said, I make clear in my response to the "One Bad Apple" thread that some folks plying the trade ought to be working elsewhere....like behind bars! Fortunately, they are (IMO) quite rare; you can't get away with shoddy work for long- not only do inspectors set their sights on you, but electricity is a malicious thing, delighting in every opportunity to misbehave.