Hacker News Reader

Comment by mturmon | Hacker News Reader

r/electricians is a good place to lurk to get more inside information about this trade. As you note, there are definitely sectors, like resi(dential), commercial, industrial, and they work by different rules.

The speed needed by a residential electrician is very different than the long-term outlook you hear from industrial electricians (“label that box because the next guy to service it could be you”).

Another recurring trope is the perceived hierarchy between the trades. I lose it when a plumber is described as a “turd herder.” And drywallers get no respect.

View on HN

And drywallers get no respect.

I find this especially unfortunate given that, in my experience, drywallers understand the rest of the trades far better than vice versa, since they're in the position of being able to see everyone else's completed work.

seeing someone else's work does not mean you really understand it. We've all seen Michelangelo's David, but none of us could recreate it. Just because you've seen the wiring/conduit in the wall does not mean you know the hows/whys about it.

Yes, but a person who has visited hundreds of art museums will have a better understanding of art than a guy who only paints landscapes or carves wooden figurines. You can learn a lot by observing what is good work and why, even if you didn’t produce it yourself.

you are giving the word "understand" too much depth here. it's pretty obvious what the parent post was getting at.

> We've all seen Michelangelo's David, but none of us could recreate it.

But you can probably tell the difference between it and a crappy version.

All the dudes saying it's easy can't mud up a smooth wall for shit.

The best advice (a good) spackler ever gave me, started with his question "why do you make all your wiring holes so small?"

In my apprenticed ignornance, I figured I was "doing the gypsum guys a favor" (by not cutting large holes everywhere) but it turns out cutting larger holes made both trades' lives easier.

Making a large cut-out "disappear" is actually much easier to conceal than a smaller opening.

----

That, and wet sanding (it's incredible how many people dry sand - all the dust!).

Drywallers don’t understand anything except “it’s my turn to hang gypsum board.” It will be one of the first trades that is completely automated.

Mechanical, electrical, and plumbing contractors need to understand the most since their work goes all over the building and they’re on the project from start to finish.

Drywallers just come in and put up gypsum once walls have been framed and MEP has been roughed in, and then they leave.

Tapers and mudders command my respect, that’ a difficult trade to perfect. Holding up 4’ x 8’ sheets of gypsum and screwing it to studs might be hard work but it’s dead ass simple.

>Drywallers don’t understand anything except “it’s my turn to hang gypsum board.”

This is incorrect; they know what my hammer means. Not just anybody's, mine.

–(former data center) Electrician

I hope you had a speech you gave to the drywall crew on each new project, something like:

“This is my hammer, it would do you well to remember it. If you don’t bury my boxes, you will not see my hammer again. If you bury my boxes, I guarantee you will see and feel my hammer. The decision is yours.”

"Dead ass simple" for a new build with standard framing within lifting heights only.

Most drywall is installed in commercial buildings with drop ceilings, not houses. Tenant spaces usually get rebuilt every 10 years.

It’s dead ass simple when 95% of the walls extend beyond the grid, there’s very little hardlid ceiling in most commercial spaces.

Professional drywallers have panel hoists that can lift drywall 12’ tall.

Yeah, so 'dead ass simple' for professionals with gear in standard deployments then. That's a lot of qualifications.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com