201–210 of 533 posts
I was an electrician in the US Navy but couldn't get an electricians job out of the Navy without starting over. We could help this shortage if we did more to qualify military electricians as civilian electricians when they leave the military.
There is literally a program for this: https://usmap.osd.mil/navyRatings.htm
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The ability for power companies to deliver on this reliably is decreasing as our society grows increasingly low-trust. This is why you may want to take control of your own destiny and secure your own source of power.
It’s insane radicals that try and shut everything down that are causing people to have to become more self-reliant. Most people I know have trouble remembering to change the oil in their car. Being in charge of electrical generation and giant batteries is not a good idea for many.
There's a pricing factor to go all electric. Natural gas is still far cheaper for heating than using electric heaters.
The article is touching on the important issue of homes but is missing three very important related issues. 1) The network that delivers power to the home. It's not able to handle everyone electrifying everything. If you electrify everything (electric stove, electric car, air conditioner/heater) you are going to be hard pressed in many locales to be covered by at home solar. 2) Electricity generation. We need a lot m…
Yes we will need more electrical generation. I have zero interst in solar panels on my house. I don't live in an area where they would be particularly useful; moreover, I don't want to own them, or to be responsible for maintaining them; I don't want large batteries in my house, or to be responsible for maintaining those. I don't want transfer switches or the responsibility of maintaining those. I want to pay the ele…
And if you live somewhere with, like, reasonably first-world-ish infrastructure you only get an occasional blackout, which should only last like a day or so. Size a battery for a normal day of use or a couple days of rationed use, and then never have a power outage again.
Something to keep in mind is that most homes, if they haven't been constructed within the last 10 years, likely have some non-compliance with the current electrical code. For instance, I needed to install an exterior disconnect which wound up costing me more than a thousand dollars on top of the existing electrical work I needed done. The electrician also needed to replace my existing ground wires because they are su…
Oh it gets even funnier then that. So I took quick look into what it would actually take to upgrade the main circuit breaker in the house assuming a 100A to 200A upgrade is needed to accommodate both an EV and a heat pump. I thought it was $5000 or so. As it turns out, $5000 is for pole mounted service. It's range is actually around $15,000 to $25,000 for underground service, as it requires digging the line from the…
The actually switching out your circuit breaker from 100A to 200A is cheap (2-3k?). Almost all of the cost is for the utility to run you a bigger line, and they can pretty much charge you anything they want (what is your alternative if you don't like the price?)
Something to keep in mind is that most homes, if they haven't been constructed within the last 10 years, likely have some non-compliance with the current electrical code. For instance, I needed to install an exterior disconnect which wound up costing me more than a thousand dollars on top of the existing electrical work I needed done. The electrician also needed to replace my existing ground wires because they are su…
I feel like some of this should be "grand-fathered" in. Perhaps you were a victim of an upsell. Any electricians that can verify? For example, I needed a new fence. I got a few quotes and most were DRASTICALLY high priced as they wanted to move my fence to comply with current code. An older, more experienced worker had no problems with permits and said I was grand-fathered in because it was already existing. I even s…
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In most countries, I don't think you're required to update your home every time the electrical code gets a change. However, many electricians will try to sell you on this unnecessary work.
Generally (in the USA) if you touch something in your home, you need to bring it up to code. You touch a wall, well now you need to make sure that wall has a socket in it, for example. Doing an addition? Well, now you need to ensure the entire house has fire/C02 detectors wired together with it.
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I think the article does a disservice to its thesis by focusing on California. Half the country lives in places where subzero temperatures are an issue. Not to mention, the rest of the country doesn't have the sunlight hours to make solar as viable, let alone the disposable wealth to upgrade their homes. Electric cars are still a long way from viability in most places, though it may not seem that way in California.
Nearly every state in the us has very viable solar. The blockers are not economic, but regulatory from the utility and utility commission side. There are small solar arrays all over farms in Minnesota, for example. Solar is super cheap, and only getting cheaper. Cheap enough that one can start to size your array for the seasonal minimum. And as storage gets super cheap this decade, solar plus storage are a "baseload"…
We are thinking of switching some gas appliances to electric in our old farmhouse but we probably need to rework our electrical panel completely to add high amperage services for an induction range (my wife won't accept an ordinary electric range) and an electric water heater. Fortunately our son is in training as a handyman and that means we can get him working on projects of all kinds around the farm. Of all the tr…
It's interesting that I've found the people who are comfortable with plumbing are very wary of electrical, and vice-versa. Look for a "smart heat pump" water heater and you can probably get away without actually upgrading service unless you want to - 100 amp service can support a stove and water heater especially if the water heater is "smart" enough to not run when the stove is running. You can also find a friendly…
When you're getting your certifications, you have to get both.
You can specialize in one, but you have to know plumbing and electrical work to pass.
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And service in EU is 380V, so the relationship between the numbers remains similar.
That is incorrect. The EU/UK are on 230V at 50Hz at residential service entry.