This is clearly ridiculous. Electricity isn't hard. This is precisely the sort of thing that standardized tests, both knowledge and practical, can effectively fix.
No one wants to fix it though.
I agree that we absolutely need to make regulation here more efficient, but I think this attitude is not effective. Electricity is hard, and getting it wrong ruins lives. It's OK to say that something is both hard but also perfectly learnable by most people. They aren't mutually exclusive. As soon as we learn something, we tend to say "it's not hard, really" to people starting that same journey. I think a lot of people unjustly reserve the word "hard" for only the highest degrees of complexity. But it's a useful word - we don't want to discourage anybody, but we also want to maintain a healthy respect for how much work you need to do to properly learn some things.
You're literally being paid to learn.
And pretty well! For example, an apprentice welder has an average salary of close to 50k/yr [1], a senior apprentice welder is closer to 60k. In Florida, it's a bit more for electricians [2].
Even the lowest salary range I can find for apprentice electricians is in the high 30's. Is that pennies?
The college grad comes out with a degree and anywhere from 50-200k of debt.
The apprentice made 200k during those four years.
That's a 400k difference over four years.
And the tradesman is poised to make the same, if not more, than the college grad after that.
Oh, and I'm not sure what industry you work in, but everyone who is employed by a profitable business sells their labor for pennies on the dollar, otherwise the business wouldn't be profitable.
[1] https://www.salaryexpert.com/salary/job/welder-apprentice/un...
[2] https://www.salary.com/research/salary/alternate/electrician...
A lot of it is market capture by established trade folks.
A lot of it is market capture by established trade folks.
If anything I'd say that there's regulatory capture from the manufacturers, take a look at the price of a breaker with an arc fault interrupter (now required by code on most circuits) and the litany of complaints about nuisance tripping and power draw.
Yeah but receptacles protect the user of the circuit, not the circuit itself / someone working on it. Plus you’re not protected on all the circuits where it’s not required by code. One RCD at the main is a lot smarter and more cost effective. Not to mention easier to mandate retrofits for, whereas somehow we’ve accepted in the US that tons of kids live in houses where there’s both no GFCI in the outlets in their room and no tamper resistant devices, it’s ridiculous.
> The cost is dramatically lower for wire nuts and GFCI receptacles than for GFCI/RCD breakers and lever nuts. I just picked up a ten pack of Wago lever nuts at Home Depot for $7 – Grainger/Zoro recently stopped carrying Wagos
Yeah you’re saving 0.2-0.3$ a pop (they cost around 0.4$ a pop if you buy them online by the 50s, I assume supply houses are cheaper) at the cost of much more time spent twisting, time troubleshooting later and worse health from having to twist those wire nuts for your entire career.
> If anything I'd say that there's regulatory capture from the manufacturers, take a look at the price of a breaker with an arc fault interrupter
Main breaker RCD is obviously the cost effective option :)
I went through and replaced every receptacle in the circuit (everything in the house is nasty stuff from the 1950s). Still tripped constantly.
Opened up every box going back to the breaker, took everything apart, but a test outlet with a test load on each junction and it was "fine" until I put it all back together and started tripping again (replaced the wire nuts, pull tested each junction).
Opened up every junction again, replaced every junction with wagos, and no more "nuisance" trips (they were clearly not nuisance trips, though every electrician said "they all do that I just replace the AFCI breaker when the inspector finishes, I'd do that here if you wanted me to fix the nuisance trips here")
But of course, I don't pay (money) for my own time... and fixing this wasn't fast.
I was reading something on a more trades oriented forum where someone asserted that recent updates to the AFCI breakers reduced "nuisance" trips at the expense of actually tripping when there is a legit arc fault. I've no idea how true that is but it's worth noting that GFCIs have been around since the 70s, were worked into the NEC by the 80s, and are comparatively far more mature. AFCI breakers… are not and they have fucking firmware on them that requires periodic updates.
With your house I wonder how much was not the wire nuts. Could some of those older receptacles have been contributing to the problems?
Without anything more than handwaving and emotion to go on I'd rather see aluminum wiring and back stab receptacles get banned along with some sort of push to get rid of the current installs.
State: 1970s house weirdly full of pre-1970s outlets (probably using whatever the builder could get on the cheap). "Basement" bedrooms have AFCI that trips when using an 8 amp space heater. Circuit breaker is a generic "Fit any panel" model not specifically made for the panel. Outlets wired with a devil-may-care attitude where hot and neutral were both regarded as "makes sparks" and no outlets had grounds. Even though the branch is in a basement area and ends in a bathroom with an outlet right above a sink, there's no GFCI.
* replace all the outlets in the circuit, put GFCI outlet on first outlet in the circuit. (still tripped with space heater); GFCI doesn't trip except when tested.
* switch circuit to another AFCI circuit; fault follows circuit not circuit
* switch back to AFCI, open up boxes between last outlet and breaker and test with a test outlet off each box/junction I can find; can't make it trip; I did reuse the wire nuts; Fixed!)
many many months go by
* trips under load again
* get another AFCI breaker (15 instead of 20A; yes I downsized even though it was tripping -- I didn't think it was tripping from load and I wanted some buffer against the potential there were 14ga wires in the branch) and a bag of wago connectors (for another project). Replaced the breaker -- still randomly tripped but wasn't surprised. (I found an electric supply place only 20 minutes drive away that had the correct siemens breaker style, and finally had free time when they were open!)
* open up boxes (again) and replace wire nuts with left-over wago connectors from prior project. That fixed the problem.
Now -- the flaky junction was in a steel junction box, but that box was nailed into a rafter against the ceiling. Could it have caught fire? Maybe? It was a 20A circuit, with 12gauge wire. I'll say yeah, it could have started at least smoking if it'd been on a dumb breaker.
No it's not hard. You can learn to run the majority of residential electricity (outlets, switches, lights) in a week. Another week or 2 and you can install panels.
It's commercial and especially industrial electricity that is hard. But we insist on training electricians to do all of it, when we mostly need the easier stuff.
And it's pretty hard to ruin someone's life with incorrectly installed electricity. Incorrectly meaning: "I didn't realize I needed to do this", rather than "I'm doing garbage work, like not tightening screws".
But without much experience it's hard to know when you're out of your depth, and nearly everyone has the same attitude: "how hard can it be? I'll just go ahead."
The regulations are there at the behest of the insurance industry, after much costly, hard-learned history. Many people lost their lives, in fires mainly. I'd call that ruined.
perhaps it would be better to say that a lot of electrical work is well within the skillset of a general contractor, and doesn't require a multi-year apprenticeship to learn. something like installing fixtures is a task that anybody is capable of, but instead the contractor has to call the electrician back in after the finishes are installed to do it, because we don't trust the general to do it safely. that's a waste of everybody's time and resources.
There is quite many ways to make eventually dangerous stuff. And this isn't just your program crashing, but potential fire inside a wall or socket. Or electrocution of person. And that is why it must be gotten right everytime.
For reference, it’s not uncommon for contractors to send out apprentices with a year or two of experience to do jobs solo (it’s illegal, but that never stopped anybody). I appreciate the need for experienced workers to do jobs to a high standard, but it seems clear to me the currents regulations are too onerous.
It’s not surprising a there’s a shortage, when the apprenticeship pays like shit, the actual job is not paid especially well, and the work sucks. The only people who make money are the contractors with a team under them.
Can you send mains power over coax? By code no, but an engineer can do the calculations and sign off and it is legal. Of course if it isn't actually safe the professional engineer is also legally liable in court for deaths.
Apparently you can pay ~$12K to an RTO (the 'pay to get qualified' type) and get it done in a year, but you still require a sparkie to sign off, as well as photo/video evidence along with written and practical tests.
I feel like Electrical/HVAC are among the most gate-kept trades in Australia.
Which is absurd because of course it's essentially the worst possible outcome: people either can't afford necessary work and so never do it, or figure it out and get it done to varying levels of quality which they then never talk about or show anyone because there's no way to get stuff approved.
It's wild to me that you have American DIY channels where people want to put a new circuit into their switch panel box, and just call up the local code office to check what they need to show to get it signed off - then go and do that (also, American switch panel boxes look like such a better system then what we do in residential Australia).
It’s not a particularly clean or neat job to run new wire in a lot of cases, which is the bulk of the work for a domestic electrician, I think.
As the average age of Nurses, Police, etc over the years crept up, there was no movement to increase the capacity of training replacements, as the senior people liked the wages they got.
Maybe, like with the other trades, something should be done to make the job more appealing, so more people try to enter the pipeline.
This is a issue for small police departments which can't afford to pay a non-productive trainee for years. Realistically some of them aren't going to be viable going forward and will either have to merge with departments in neighboring cities, or dissolve and rely on a county sheriff's department.
Generally, the state police have their own academies/training facilities. Only the largest police departments (like Los Angeles) can afford to support their own schools.
States where any kid (like I was!) can enroll before getting hired will have too many trained/educated prospective police officers chasing too few jobs, while your state has too many jobs chasing insufficient workers.
I don't know. To me it isn't. I'm now a software developer and I don't find it hard. Back when I was a car mechanic (and also electronic technician), part of Florida started requiring exams & licenses for people working on cars. The ASE exams were the basic entry-level requirements. We had people working for us who had 10+ years of experience installing car radios yet they were unable to pass the electrical ASE exam (A-6). I tried teaching these guys, but they still could not pass the test. Even after leaving that company, they used my certification & license to stay legal.
After getting run over by a car, I don't bend too well in the middle. There's no way that I could be an electrician (or any other trade worker).
Similar to any regulated field like Doctors that have a vested interest in keeping residency spots competitive.
Famous last words. Maybe the real issue is that it's treated as a "trade", ie, something you can get accredited with in 2 years of vocational school or community college. But as we know from all the actual regulations about it, the reality is much different.
Learning how to do your own household wiring as a homeowner is not hard.
The city government most certainly does not want to shoulder most of it via their inspectors, so they share it with “licensed” electricians who have to put their assets, or the insurance company’s assets, on the line.
Worse than that. You have to tiptoe around any criticism of it or "the usual type of people" will come out of the woodwork to make low effort quips about safety, house fires and whatnot because regulatory requirements in and of themselves are a virtuous thing to many and it doesn't matter if they're terribly implemented because they are holy.