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We need a lot more electricians

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Re: We need a lot more electricians

#271

Post by yboris »

whitej125 wrote: post #73
yboris wrote: post #17

Unrelated, but sharing just in case: I don't have electricity training, but last month I replaced my electric panel (upgrading to 30 circuits, keeping 100 amps) and it was easy: turn off every breaker (hiding face behind metal panel as is good safety strategy), turn off main, disconnect the meter, touch all dangling hot wires to ground (just in case, unsure if there's weird residual charge from something). Except for…

Did you have to break a seal on the meter to get to the meter disconnect? If so, what are the implications of that?

Last time I had an electrician who was going to be doing work requiring disconnecting the meter - so I called, and it seemed like the easiest thing was for us to just cut the seal and someday later the electric company would come by to replace it.

I live in a small town in Michigan; the amount of fuss probably depends on location & density.

Re: We need a lot more electricians

#272

Post by petre »

danans wrote: post #260
kuschku wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how would you run an instant water heater or electric induction stove then? Every apartment and house I've ever lived in had 380V three-phase right to the kitchen, to the bathroom, and to basement rooms (e.g. for prosumer workshop tools).

> So how would you run an instant water heater or electric induction stove then? Every apartment and house I've ever lived in had 380V three-phase right to the kitchen, I run an induction stove on 220V single phase every day here in the US.

Isn't it two phase? AFAIK in the US you have 240V two phase with 180° between them.

Re: We need a lot more electricians

#273

Post by Wohlf »

amluto wrote: post #229
tibbon wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need a AFCI in most places now. In the 2020 edition of the NEC®, Section 210.12 requires that for dwelling units, all 120-volt, single-phase, 15- and 20-ampere branch circuits supplying outlets or devices installed in dwelling unit kitchens, family rooms, dining rooms, living rooms, parlors, libraries, dens, bedrooms, sunrooms, recreation rooms, closets, hallways, laundry areas, or similar rooms or areas shall be…

There are other downsides. For example, actually finding a two-pole or AFCI breaker or, worse, a combination AFCI/GFCI breaker is not so easy.

I recently installed some new circuits and was able to find them, but strangely it was $20 or more per circuit cheaper to get an AFCI/GFCI outlet and a regular breaker instead of combo breakers.

Re: We need a lot more electricians

#274

Post by TheCapn »

LesZedCB wrote: post #249
5544ffee wrote: post #242

I considered beginning an electrician apprenticeship because I just can't sit in a cubicle 40 hours a week anymore. I'm still young enough that the physical aspects aren't an issue, but the overall working conditions, pay and benefits sound terrible. I think I'd rather just learn to repair electronics.

same. if i could find something that's like 50/50 or some other ratio with a similarly scaled pay i think i could make the jump

Industrial Controls / Instrumentation Tech

Biggest downside is the field environments you can find yourself in. Depending on your industry you can be in some horribly smelly/disgusting facilities or dangling off catwalk way above ground trying to adjust calibration on some silly sensor. There's good ones though too.

I'm a Software Eng in the industry so I don't ever really have much for field duty, but I work with several coworkers who are able to get their hands dirty when we're doing a site install: wiring panels, tracing faults, installing/adjusting sensors.

But talking about pay scale is a bit iffy based on where you're at now. I don't make FAANG wages doing what I do, but I do make somewhere in the 80th+ percentile for my geographical location (Saskatchewan) so its all relative

Re: We need a lot more electricians

#275

Post by zitterbewegung »

If we have near 2 percent unemployment it almost begs the question that do we need more people to seek employment ? And I don’t mean large layoffs or pushing people to go into trades school or disregarding going to college. It seems like all of these articles are saying we need more X people doing Y but doesn’t look at the whole picture that either people don’t want to do it because of risk but instead just are doing another job.

Re: We need a lot more electricians

#276

Post by epistasis »

treeman79 wrote: post #69
epistasis wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is mooooore than enough spare grid capacity to deliver the electricity to electrify homes. We size the grid for peak capacity, not for average capacity, which means that there's a very low overall usage amount. And the big drivers of additional electricity, heating and transportation, are easily shiftable to non-peak times. And as we have smarter devices, and more time of use billing, load shifting will be easy…

A recent cold snap left East coast with rolling black outs across a number of states. This is not California where you put on a warm jacket. You heat the home, find shelter somewhere or die. I kept getting notes to hold off on using appliances for a few days. Can imagine that if our areas heat was electric that would have collapsed the grid.

>Hold off on appliances

I'm not familiar with your utility's challenges with delivering electricity, but it is a very solvable problem to greatly improve reliability.

Vermont's Green Mountain Power does great work, perhaps you can fire you utility commission and get one that will reign in your utility's incompetence.

Re: We need a lot more electricians

#277

Post by xkcd-sucks »

Kon-Peki wrote: post #38
yboris wrote: post #17

Unrelated, but sharing just in case: I don't have electricity training, but last month I replaced my electric panel (upgrading to 30 circuits, keeping 100 amps) and it was easy: turn off every breaker (hiding face behind metal panel as is good safety strategy), turn off main, disconnect the meter, touch all dangling hot wires to ground (just in case, unsure if there's weird residual charge from something). Except for…

Your willingness to repeatedly follow a process without deviation puts you into a much smaller group than the general population. Yes, the average person can do it, but many won't. And it will be innocent bystanders or firefighters or whatever that pay the ultimate price, not the sloppy guy or gal that saved a few dollars by doing it themselves. I wish that our building codes and permitting system had provisions for…

To be fair, a lot of "professionals" aren't super competent, even to the point of reading the manuals of things they're installing, and it's difficult to find people whose work isn't sloppy and half-assed. In these cases the only advantage hiring a contractor brings is their liability if something goes wrong, and their ability to deliver a whole crew on short notice.

Re: We need a lot more electricians

#278

Post by hinkley »

brianwawok wrote: post #205
carcostthrow wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

EV or not EV, I really think you want 200A service? It has been the standard for quite a few years, and I cannot imagine only having 100A service in a proper house (would be fine for an apartment or whatnot). Now I am higher electric usage than most, but I hit over 100A several times a day (but have never hit 200A and flipped my breaker). The actually switching out your circuit breaker from 100A to 200A is cheap (2-3…

I think my house has 2x200A. It was zoned multi family but the previous owners had a separate service for an electric car, and there’s still bits of electronics in the attic from where they tried to do crypto mining.

I’m sure their equipment overheated. The roof is not insulated and the attic fan is pushing against a louver that’s the wrong design. It gets hot up there without any equipment.

Re: We need a lot more electricians

#279

Post by _whiteCaps_ »

Filligree wrote: post #165
nemo44x wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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. Sorry, is there a requirement that every single wall should have a socket? ...that's what extension cords are for.

Extension cords are a bad idea. Especially since you can buy 10A rated cords that can be plugged into 15A sockets.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/HDX-55-ft-16-3-Green-Outdoor-Ext...

There's a really good explanation in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_q-xnYRugQ

Re: We need a lot more electricians

#280

Post by techie128 »

chaosite wrote: post #247
londons_explore wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some countries you have a single one for the whole building, rather than one per circuit. That dramatically lowers the cost. The only real downside is that if you accidentally put your finger in the toaster, rather than just the power to your kitchen cutting off, the power to the whole house cuts off. I think thats a fine tradeoff to save $1200.

Well, if the power shuts off and that saves me from electrocuting myself, I couldn't care less how much of the rest of the house lost power. The annoying part is when I plug in some faulty device that is not immediately dangerous and that shuts down power to the whole house.

> The annoying part is when I plug in some faulty device that is not immediately dangerous

Do you mind, re-reading that statement? I don't even understand that argument. You should not be plugging in faulty devices in the first place...

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