ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area What's wrong with this Question?

whoa Mark...5? wow!
I happen to compete in permit-shmermitsville, so i can relate, i've lost bids to the carpenter's helper , who moonlights as an electrician....the state can fine, but rarely will, so it doesn't really pay to drop a dime on them.

The end justifies the means to many, as the stock market's down & real estate ( given the low %) is picking up, people wish to invest in it instead.

Unfortunatly, $$$ comes before electrical integrity, all the (king's horses?) dizzy hens in real estate , pesudo-home inspectors & home depot crash courses outwieght any authority or safety concerns.

Initself, the 'safety community' has shot itself in the foot entangled in it's own inconsistent beuracracy, scare tactics, and buisness dealing, not much help there.....more a 'wag-the-dog' scenario.

So being a good doobie becomes all the harder given the later ,little backup, or validation for good, bad or ugly..
(cue the theme from the same movie...)


I had to place a 100A service on an individuals barn monday, because the second floor to his house burnt off sunday.

He( the owner) freely admitted that his father had done the wiring years ago, what was left to view was of obvious (lower end)DYI'er caliber.
This was of no consequense to the fire chief, or the insurance man , no one there could have cared less....

As to the DYI'ers, they're here to stay,grin & bear it.

In fact,considering "what's wrong with this Q" how many here have participated in DYI'er forums and tried to field such Q's?

I find it interesting, but repetitive ( the white wire goes on the white screw..) having done so for a spell in effort to practice good communications with my customers.

If you consider that we need sell ourselves as a trade that does a safe installation this is necessary, i'm sure most posters here out in the trenches can relate......

[This message has been edited because i did'nt like my 4th grade english teacher002).]

[This message has been edited by sparky (edited 07-21-2002).]

Opinion:
I believe many of you have ambivalent feelings toward this forum. You want to answer questions (cause you know the answer and can help someone) but, also, you don’t want to answer the questions! Why? Because you are giving away information that has taken years of study, experience, and hard work to acquire. Hey, this is how you make your living and pay the bills so I can’t say I blame you for not wanting to give it away free.

Has anyone ever considered a closed forum, where you had to meet certain requirements to join? This would keep out most of the DIYers.

Just a thought. Any comments?

Sparky
What can I tell you, got married in '68 and the year before hadnt seen an American girl for some 13 months, and well...you know the rest.
The thing that gets me about the DIYers is you give them a quote and they look at you like you have some sort of disease, like how come you are so expensive what they dont see is all the training, the insurance, the Bonds, the licenses and all the preparation that goes into doing ,, say a service, when we do it looks easy and probably think that hey why did I hire this guy in the first place, what they dont consider is the time we spent paying our dues learning the right way to make an installation and all the ins and outs of the trade.
Eagle:
Thats another bothersome item, and my biggest peeve is the guy who says well residential is no big deal, buy yet these are the same guys who splice romex to old BX with out a box and they hang from the ceiling, or they cut the grounding conductor out completely, and of course as you mentioned the 'teeny-tiny boxes ' all in and effort to save a whole 10 cents.
The thing thats funny is they never cut costs when it comes to the plumbing or building material but yet complain when it comes to paying 13 dollars for one breaker.
-Mark-

(oops, sorry..)



[This message has been edited by sparky (edited 07-21-2002).]

Motor-T, I can buy most resi breakers for about $3.00ea. What makes them worth $13.00 ea? (golly, I hope that doesn't include troubleshooting and install!)

Mark,
i can't really argue what i live daily..

MikeW,
really, there are actually more DYI forums than ones like this. One needs only do a Google search and check the hits,( 64,000 or so here) so it makes me wonder why they end up here?

In the past I have actually helped (coached) people who, I judged to have suitable abillity through a project with the stipulation that, I inspected their work. (for a fee) This saves them paying for the full job. They must also have it inspected by the AHJ.

My point is that we must try to judge the question asked with the askers abillity. (not an easy task at times)

I'm absolutly steamed when someone missrepresents themself as an electrician, verses say an apprentice, and asks a question such as Bill stated earlier.

As far as sharing trade secrets, I have no problem sharing my few, uh one.

Roger

Just how much should the homeowner do without professional help? How much should he be allowed to do? I don't think there are any easy answers to these questions, simply because everybody is different. I'm not sure what the solution should be.

Let me play devil's advocate and throw some more fat into the fire by quoting some non-electrical examples.

I am not a qualified plumber, but I am at present helping a neighbor plumb in his hot water service after a remodel (yes, I've been doing the wiring!). Should I be doing this? If not, why not?

How many of us here carry out basic servicing (or more) on our own vehicles without being qualified auto mechanics?

Now, if we say that non-qualified people should do nothing more complex than, say, change a light bulb, wouldn't it also be fair to say that somebody who is not a qualified auto mechanic should do nothing more than check the oil in his car? Would anybody support such a stance?

Beyond whether it is right or wrong for somebody to carry out the work, or whether they are capable of doing the job safely, the reality is that many of them will do it anyway.

You know from my previous posts that in England there are no legal restrictions on wiring -- Anybody can do it, no permits, no inspections, and no requirement to follow any "code" on residential. Yes, we have some attrocious wiring in many of our homes.

On the other side of the Atlantic you have varying degrees of control, licensing, permits, etc., but even those of you living in the strictest areas still report cases of poor and downright dangerous wiring.

It's unfortunate that some of the less knowledgable people are the ones who think they know everything. They will just go ahead regardless of danger, lack of skill, or any local requirements.

I'm really going to sit on the fence on this, but the more I think about it, the more I realize that I don't have any strong feelings either way. (Those getting paid to do the work for somebody else is another matter.)

electure:
You are right about 3.00/breaker until you get to a job where they have a breaker you dont have on the truck, I usually carry Siemens a few GEs 1 or 2 Square D but then I have to fetch one and there price goes up considerably. Also the last time I priced an FPE a 2-pole was what 35 dollars or so. It depends on whats involved..
But I am getting off the subject.
-Mark-

Isn't it appropriate to answer questions from an unqualified person who wants to do electrical work the same way you would another tradesman? Like—"Article 250," “conductor reidentification,” “ground electrode” or "310-16 correction factor"? Most all of are familiar enough with the NEC to reference as an accepted standard—essentially a baseline set of conditions that you, your peers and seniors accept or at least use as a basis for argument.

Should dull-witted moochers be treated any different? Suggest that you value your training and do not care to contribute their feigned expertise, but maybe those who sport the nice orange aprons might be happy to.

I used to snicker going into a spacious home-repair chainstore that had a coil of 14/4 SEOW on a heavily traveled end-of-aisle shelf, along with a shelf tag of “14/3 Romex”—priced at probably one-fourth of their cost. I’d point out the obvious mislabeling on occasion and only after several tries on a number of trips did I find a trainee manager that had enough sense to so much as consider my comment. Heaven help them if someone called to check stock on a hundred feet of inch-and-a-quarter electrical metallic tubing.