He is slow, but I think I will hire him

Heyseed

Member
his work looks kinda OK
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I'd make him bid the job!How many holes did he drill at the top to route the wiring,sure seems like a waste of time to me and most other electricians.
 
The electricity doesn't care about all that fancy work. Neighbour hired a similar electrician and paid 40k for 8k of work.

All I care is if they make connections properly and map the darned circuits with labels on the box!
 
I worked around electricians most of my career. Conduit work, all piping making offsets no matter what the diameter had to look the same. Inside of the panel all wires were run straight down along the breakers then ninetyed into their respective breaker. Never a rats nest of jumbled wires crisscrossing and squashed together. I believe it is called professionalism and pride in ones work. One of them told me, some other electrician may come here to do some work, my NAME is on this work. I respected and was in awe of their work. gobble
 
I knew a guy who's panels looked like that and then in the garage attic the rolls were tossed across the attic all curly wires and big mess . The inspectors loved his panels and would never look in the attic at his wire mess. Inspectors loved him. Half the stuff they looked at was violations of wrong size wires.
 
Apparently the guy puts an effort into what he does, nice traceable work. Laid out better than run of the mill you come across these days.
 

Pretty,,, but a HUGE waste of wall space... I work in a biz where we are always adding and growing. That would definitely get you fired. Shows lack of understanding and short sighted work.
 
Code allows 42 circuits; panel has at least 46 cables going into it . This means he has already loaded up the first panel with twin breakers. Some of those circuits are two pole so there is no way all those conductors are landed without tandem breakers . This means a second 42 circuit panel was needed here . The sub looks pretty loaded up too.
 
Some will call it " O C D "...but others will say "it's how it's done". My uncle was a home builder and he did work like that and required his subs to also. He built a lot of "high end" homes and could set his price. He never had to "bid" as his customers only wanted HIM to build. He only had to build half as many homes to make twice the money as the rest. The last home he built before retiring, he didn't really want to build and thus his price was 2 mil...customer never even argued. High volume/speed isn't always the best way to go. Oh, by the way, he always slept very well at night .
 
dr sportster,

The newer codes NEC had removed the 42 circuit limitation. It all depends on the adoption of what year, and of course, enforcement (inspections).

D.
 
It's pretty and all that but I don't think much of it.
What is all that stapled to? It looks like drywall.
What if you tip something over against it or someone leans something heavy against it?
I would have cut some pieces of 2 and 3" thinwall conduit just long enough to go through the ceiling, bush both ends and thread all the wires through those. Could have done it in 1/3 the time and the wires would be protected.
There's probably a code for how many pieces of wire you could thread through each conduit but even if it took 5 or 6 of them it would still look better.
And why run two handy boxes with romex between them for the outlets?
Why not attach a 1900 box directly to the panel. Use a mud ring and put two outlets in that.
Lastly, why not center the main panel directly over the main line in at the bottom and do away with the pull el?
 

I worked as an aircraft mech. for 30+ years.The wire men ran whole bundles ,big and small, as neatly as that.Looks professional to me.
 
I was the maintenance manager for a small county in Wisconsin, our Courthouse was built in the late 30s and early 40s. Of course the heating was steam with pneumatic controls, thousands of feet of 1/4 inch copper tubing all run like shown in the picture, the control plumbing was a work of art. Now they just haphazardly pull plastic tubing through the plenums all tangled up with each other.
 
Looks great. No different than wiring a tractor. Sure it takes longer to do it neatly, but the wires laid out neatly have much less chance of causing problems later on. I can't comment on the amount of circuits on that board etc because not my line of work. I have been told I am slow also but my hourly rate is also low.
 
I have two panels in my basement similar to that and I relate it to our finish carpenter who worked on our house. I don't think that there is such a thing as a good fast finish carpenter. I would look at that and think that if the whole house has that detail it was well built project.
 
To be honest if that was a high $ house done in a reasonable time, and it's all to code for that area I would be pleased to see that when I opened the door to the room it's in.
We had a new building put up for a warehouse and offices when I worked at the seed plant. The electrician was ok with his work.
The plumber on the other hand needed shooting! his work looked awful where you could see it!. They had in floor heating put in the warehouse, the guy installed all the pipes and the control unit in a purpose built room.

when a guy opened the door the unit faced you on the far wall. He had about a 3ft gap between 2 units and there outlet and inlet. The copper pipe came out at the bottom 6" from the side of one unit and ran up 2ft and 90'd back into the top unit inlet. It was just a shame when he did it, the pipe that should of ran up the wall was at a crazy angle. It was all cut to short to do it tidy with nice angles and vertical/horizontal lines. It just drove me nuts every time we saw it, as it showed absolutely no pride in workmanship and he wasn't the cheapest plumber in the area either!.
 
Don't know if panels are overloaded or code is met, don't think that is the point of the photo. I would like to see that. How much easier to trace circuits, etc? Just nice looking job. As long as I am not paying by the hour. :)

See...that is how I would do it if I were doing it for myself.
 
It's fancy and if you're billing by the hour the way to go. Problem is what do you do when you need to change something. I used to be an organizational freak about wires. Did some real nice jobs the first few times around the house but when I needed to Change it, it was more hassle than it was worth. Then it never looks as fancy the second time and you have one or two odd wires out. Neat, but I wouldn't want to deal with it.
 
Yes but tandem, breakers in a new panel means add another panel. Can you spot the violation that would be taught to a helper first day on the job that is obvious in the picture?
 
I know several residential contractor and have seen them do a job like that.Just think how long it would take lay that out. Looks like a display in an electrical suppliers showroom.
 
I have been an electrician for 22 years and have never seen anything lime that. I think it looks very tacky and personally try not to run wire out the sides of a panel. I was typically giving 4-5 hours to do a panel change that is recessed in wall. As far as the receipts under the panel...they could've both been placed in a 4 sq. box and placed directly below panel. I could go on but I won't.
 
dr sportster,

My response was not a chance to "spot the violation", rather to respond and state that the limitation of 42 circuits has been removed from the current NEC.

I am not a paid professional to assess the possible issues with the photo as shown.

D.
 
RE: the two handy boxes; code violation. A circuit may end in a handy box but it may not pass through a handy box. The handy box on the left is in violation. Not a single one of those exposed wires would fly in Idaho. If it's ON the wall is has to be inside conduit.
 
Would this be better? He probably was quick. I thought the first guys work was beautiful. In Virginia romex does not need to be in a conduit. As a carpenter I have seen electricians cut almost all the way through a floor joist to run a bundle of wires, so several holes would be better in my opinion. Code varies from state to state. This post proves that people will carp about anything. Sheesh.
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I don't think you will find a code that picture will meet.

All I'm saying is having wires laying neat and parallel can be done by anyone with OCD and time, it does not mean the circuits are sized properly, or labelled properly, etc.

As noted, I'd rather spend money conduit/emt than paying people to make romex look pretty. What's the phrase, polishing a dung ball?
 
Can romex be exposed?

A few years back, by boy bought a different home. The guy he hired to do a building inspection said the load center used in the house he was buying was a fire hazard even though it looked good to the average person. Seller paid for a new load center.

I'm thinking even though things look good, when selling a property all it will take is for some inspector to say, this needs to go or in this case wires need to be protected, then what?

It does look better than anything I can do.

My friend is a union electrician. Inside the load center, his work is art work. He rolls out the romex and steps on it to straighten it out before he runs it in the walls. Not only does his work look good, he is extremely fast.

Geo
 
Also the romex jumper between the two handy boxes is not strapped before either box . That is why I said it is something a helper is taught the first day . Strap within 12 inches of a box. That should have been a 1900 box . Use offset nipples .
 
Good thing it's not a code violation. I would be in trouble if someone looked at my pole barn.
 

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