c/electricians

19

gonzalez.rowan•2d ago

Ngl I miss the days when panels came with actual copper bus bars

Pulled an old 1970s Square D panel out of a house last week and that copper bar was thick. Like 1/4 inch easy. The new ones I'm putting in now feel flimsy, all aluminum or thin plated stuff. Some supplier told me copper got too expensive around 2008 and they never went back. Anyone else notice the drop in quality on modern load centers?

23

olivia_wilson•2d ago

Three phase balance saved my bacon last Tuesday

Was troubleshooting a flickering lights call at a strip mall near Spokane. Panel was pulling 180 amps on A phase but only 90 on C. Rebalanced the loads across all three phases. Voltage drop fixed and the store manager stopped screaming about fried ballasts. Anyone else check phase balance before swapping out dimmers?

3

oscarh16•2d ago

Had a journeyman call me out for how I was stripping MC cable

Guy watched me use my lineman's to twist the anti-short bushing in and said 'you're gonna knick the insulation doing that.' Switched to using my flathead to tuck it in instead and havent had a call back since. Anybody else have a simple tip like this that saved you headaches?

19

benwilliams•4d ago

Swapped from twist-on wire nuts to push-in connectors on commercial jobs

I used to swear by twist-on wire nuts for everything, spent 15 years using them on resi and light commercial. Then last fall I did a 200-unit apartment complex near Atlanta and after the 3rd time fixing a loose neutral I switched to Wago 221s. Honestly I feel like I'm saving 30% of my time on junction boxes now. Anyone else make the jump and see a real difference in troubleshooting later?

2

davis.gavin•4d ago

Blew a panel swap last month and it made me switch to Wago lever nuts for good

I was doing a 200 amp swap over on a ranch house outside Denton and kept fighting with wire nuts in a tight old Bryant panel. After 3 hours of twisting and taping, I had one neutral come loose during trim out and had to pull half the breakers again. My buddy handed me a box of Wago 221s the next day and I finished the same job in 2 hours flat with zero callbacks. Has anyone else had a similar moment that made them jump ship on wire nuts?

20

fiona737•7d ago

That one customer in Austin who asked me to explain every single wire I ran

I was doing a service upgrade in an old house down in Austin, Texas about 6 months ago. The homeowner, this older guy named Dave, kept following me around and asking why I was running each wire the way I did. At first I thought he was just being nosy or trying to catch me messing up, but then he told me his dad was an electrician back in the 60s and he never got to learn from him. So I spent my lunch break showing him how we map out circuits and why we use certain gauges for different loads. He actually asked if he could take pictures of my panel layout before I closed it up. That stuck with me because usually homeowners just want the power on and don't care about the details, but this guy genuinely wanted to understand. Has anyone else had a customer who was more interested in the how than just getting the job done?

8

mary_wells•7d ago

Went back to an old job site and saw my 20 year old panel still holding up

I was out in Burnaby last week doing a quote and walked into a building I hadn't seen since 2003. That panel I wired in the basement still had my labels on it and not a single thing was wrong. Made me realize how much faster we work now but man, we took more time on the little details back then. Any of you guys ever run into your old work and feel kind of proud about it?

12

the_miles•8d ago

The worst day I ever had on a job was last summer in Phoenix

I was doing a panel swap in a 1980s house and the homeowner kept hovering over my shoulder asking if I knew what I was doing. It was 115 degrees that day and the AC was broken in the house. I found a hidden junction box behind some drywall that was stuffed with old aluminum wiring and no wire nuts, just electrical tape. That alone added 2 hours to the job. Then the main breaker wouldn't seat right on the new panel because the bus bar was slightly off. I had to file down the tab and it still felt sketchy. The homeowner finally said 'can you just hurry up' and I almost walked off the job. Has anyone else dealt with homeowners who make a hot day worse by micromanaging?

11

jadep41•8d ago

Customer in a crawlspace asked me to fix his smart switch from the outside

I was swapping out a dimmer in a 1950s bungalow in Portland last Tuesday, and this guy stays in the crawlspace yelling instructions about wifi pairing. He wouldn't come out because he said the spiders were nesting on his jacket. Has anyone else had a customer hide while you do the actual work?

9

thomas_johnson•10d ago

Just ran the numbers on my last 6 service calls and one thing jumped out

I was going through my invoices from the last three months and noticed something weird. Out of 24 service calls, 18 of them were for outlets that had come loose behind the drywall. I mean, I knew it happened sometimes but not at that rate. Found an article from the NFPA that said loose connections cause like 30% of residential electrical fires, which kind of made my stomach drop. Anybody else seeing this pattern with older houses?

18

reeselewis•11d ago

I keep seeing guys land ground rods way too shallow

Watched a crew in Denver yesterday drive a rod maybe 3 feet in before stopping because they hit a rock. Not even a clamp on it yet but they packed up and called it good. How do you convince people that 8 feet means 8 feet not just until it gets hard?

10

amymason•12d ago

Just realized I should've gone with stranded wire instead of solid on this service call in Boulder

Went to swap out a dimmer switch at a house built in the 70s and those solid #12s were so brittle I snapped two trying to get them bent into the box. Stranded pulls around corners way easier, especially with older wiring that's lost its flexibility. Has anyone else made the switch and regretted it or am I just stubborn about sticking with what I learned in trade school?

15

thomas_roberts•14d ago

Old timer told me to stop backwrapping my connectors, took me a while to see it

Guy I work with has 30 years in. Said I was wasting time doing the standard wrap around the screw. He showed me the loop direction trick for better contact. Tried it on a panel in Denver last week. Now I'm split - half the guys here say it's safer, other half says it doesn't matter for solid wire. What's your take on that?

6

caseyclark•17d ago

Got called to a house in Wichita last month for flickering lights, found a buried junction box in the backyard

The homeowner said they had new landscaping done a few years ago and never thought about it. I dug up this old box full of water and corrosion with bare splices just sitting in the mud. Has anyone else dealt with homeowners covering up outdoor boxes without thinking?

3

gonzalez.rowan•17d ago

Walked through a 1920s hotel renovation and found a junction box nailed to a stud with no cover

I was helping a buddy rough-in some new circuits at the Hotel del Sol downtown, an old place they're converting into condos. We popped open a ceiling in the ballroom and there it was, bare splices just sitting there wrapped in friction tape from 90 years ago. Has anyone else run into sketchy old work that somehow still passed inspection back then?

22

the_tara•20d ago

Just realized I've been stripping wire wrong for like 5 years

I was working on a panel change out last week in a old house in Portland and my Klein's kept nicking the copper on some 12 gauge. The senior guy I was with looked over and said "you're twisting the strippers instead of just pulling straight." I couldn't BELIEVE I never noticed I was doing it that way. Anyone else have a basic habit that took way too long to fix?

25

the_tara•21d ago

Picked an all-in-one tester over my trusty multimeter on a service call yesterday

Had to choose between my Fluke T5 and a Klein ET450 for tracing a dead outlet in a 1970s house. Grabbed the Klein because I was chasing a weird breaker issue, and it saved me like 20 minutes of poking around. Anyone else swap out their daily driver for a specialty tool and have it just click?

5

torres.elizabeth•23d ago

Wago vs. wire nuts for residential work, I'm team Wago now

I used to swear by wire nuts for everything, been using them for like 15 years. But last month I did a 30-outlet rough-in on a new build and tried Wagos for the first time. The time difference was ridiculous, saved me at least 4 hours on connections alone. Anyone else made the switch and never looked back, or am I crazy?

15

veramartin•24d ago

Tried using a toner on an old knob and tube circuit last Tuesday

I was tracing a dead circuit in a 1920s house near Oakwood and figured I'd finally use that toner I bought three months ago. The receiver was picking up signal everywhere including from the gas pipe. Turned out the cloth wiring was so deteriorated the toner was jumping through the plaster. Learned that old systems don't play nice with modern testers and just use a wiggy on anything pre-1950. Has anyone else had a toner go haywire on old wiring?

25

skyler_fox72•24d ago

Tried using Wago connectors on a commercial job and I'm never going back to wire nuts

Did a 200 amp panel swap last week in Seattle and used Wagos for everything. Saved me at least 30 minutes on that job alone. Anyone else switch and not look back?

21

the_spencer•27d ago

Overheard a fellow sparky say he never uses a toner for wire tracing, just the ol' touch-and-check method.

Stood there watching him nick a live wire with his linesman pliers in a ceiling plenum last Tuesday and I gotta ask, has anyone else met guys who refuse to use a toner no matter how many times you offer to show them?

25

rowanw31•27d ago

I finally checked the math on voltage drop in a 200 foot run

Got a call last week from a homeowner who had lights dimming at the end of their driveway. They ran 12 gauge wire about 200 feet to a shed and were pulling 15 amps. I used a voltage drop calculator online and realized they were losing almost 12 volts. That's way over the 3% recommendation for a branch circuit. Ended up telling them they needed 10 gauge at minimum or even 8 gauge if they wanted to run power tools out there. Has anyone else had homeowners argue with you about the wire size after you show them the numbers?

33

rowanw31•1mo ago

Watched a friend's panel swap in Cincy go from rats nest to clean in 3 hours

My buddy Mike in Cincinnati had this panel that looked like a bird's nest of old wires from the 70s. He spent a whole Saturday pulling everything out, labeling each circuit, and re-running the whole thing with zip ties and proper bends. Tbh I always thought spending that much time on organization was overkill, but seeing the before and after side by side made me a believer. Have you guys ever redone a panel just for cleanliness or do you only touch it when code forces you?

7

charles508•1mo ago

Got a nasty shock (literally) when I opened a junction box in St. Louis last Tuesday and found a live wire just floating around in there

I was swapping out an old ceiling fan in a 1920s house and the homeowner said they'd already killed the breaker, but that wire bit me right on the finger - luckily I had my insulated gloves on from a previous job or it could've been way worse, so has anyone else run into random live wires after the customer swore the power was off?

8

wendy_garcia16•1mo ago

An old foreman told me I was bending pipe too slow. That changed everything.

He showed me a simple hand trick for 90s with the bender (using my knee for leverage) and I cut my time by about 40%. Anyone else pick up a weird tip from a grumpy veteran that totally stuck?