We need a lot more electricians
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I understand that these regulations exist in the name of safety, just be aware that any electrical updates to your home will likely involve a lot more work than you initially think. Depending on what you are getting done, the inspector may need to recheck your entire home. And, you're probably going to scoff at a good number of the required changes.
Context Edit: I'm located in Texas, and I ultimately had to have the electrical panel replaced entirely because there was a safety recall associated with it. Even after the replacement was complete the electrician had to come back and redo the wiring connections because the inspector said the PVC joint at the top of the box had to be metal instead.
When I first saw the estimate I made sure to shop around and to get multiple quotes in order to make sure I wasn't being taken advantage of. Thankfully, there were a few things I was able to remain grandfathered in for.
Update: I now know that "fuse box" is not a synonym for "circuit breaker".
It frustrates me that every year quite a lot of people are killed due to old houses not having whole-building GFCI's.
A GFCI costs only $20 and can be installed inside 10 minutes. So it seems crazy to be letting people die...
Yet typically electrical regs require that if an electrician installs a GFCI, they bring the whole house up to modern standards. Suddenly the $20+10 minute job has turned into a $15k and 3 weeks complete rewire. So most people don't have a key safety device added. And still every year people die from not having one.
IMO there should be standardized trip curves so that outlet GFCIs can coordinate with branch breaker GFCIs, which can coordinate with whole-house or other larger GFCIs, etc.
You really don’t want a 5mA GFCI on your house. You do want a 5mA GFCI somewhere involved for a regular outlet, though, especially if it’s anywhere damp or wet.
(And you probably do want a GFCI tripping at a larger leakage current on any outdoor circuit. Leakage on crappy outdoor wiring is very very common and can go undetected for years. And for some reason code allows new outdoor circuits to be run in galvanized steel conduit, and there seems to be little enforcement of the use of appropriate wire nuts and such outdoors. You can buy actual high quality submersible wire nuts, and stainless steel outdoor electrical boxes exist (at absolutely obscene prices), but they’re rare. So even nominally very fancy newish buildings do things like using regular galvanized steel outlet boxes outdoors by the ocean with predictable results.)
(A GFCI outlet does not help at all of your whole outlet box floors. A 100mA GFCI upstream would presumably trip very quickly.)
Not sure I'd want one, to be honest. There are some devices that trip GFCIs and I don't think I'd like my mains to trip that easily. I just use GFCI breakers as necessary. And certain circuits I go with AFCI instead.
Also, a GFCI install here is a simple and cheap affair. Does not require checking everything else or inspection or upgrading of fuse boxes or consumer unit.
But yeah, the law should probably have exception for installing safety devices, it's better to have some than zero because someone can't afford it.
There is also a good reason why you would like to know.
A tripping RCD is annoying, but not as annoying as dying from electrical shock and hurt all the way till you are dead because, guess what, you don't have a device that switches off the circuit if current flows where it should not.
Ah, and it could also kill your friend and make you liable for life. It could start a fire and ruin your whole existance. But yeah duh, so annoying.
Seriously, get an RCD. If it trips find out which part of your house sinks current into the environment in potential "he was killed in his sleep"-fashion.
Where I live RCDs are mandatory in every electrical installation.
No, that's not true!
A GFCI measures the current going in and the current going out and if they are not equal it trips.
In the U.K., you just can’t have plugs in bathrooms (aside from the shaver plug), which is probably more sensible.
The latest National Electrical Code requires both AFCI and GFCI protection only in kitchens and laundry rooms, but if you're already doing AFCI, why not do it all everywhere as it is clearly to be required at some point
Main downside is they are expensive. I've recently installed a new 24-slot subpanel and I'm using them everywhere required. At $50 a pop, that's a quick $1200.
You do want your refrigerator on one. What when your mom is putting a metal saucepan into the fridge of leftovers, knocks and smashes the lamp inside, and the AC lamp power supply kills her though the metal saucepan?
What when a baby puts a fork into an electrical outlet in the living room?
What when floodwater comes in and kills everyone on the ground floor of your house while you are frantically wading in the water trying to move furniture upstairs?
There are plenty of times you want a whole house GFCI.
Disclaimer: I'm not an electrician
My understanding is that is not entirely technically correct.
You can have standard sockets in bathrooms in the UK.
But, and it's a big BUT, 99.999% of bathrooms in the UK are not big enough to be able to place the socket 3m away from the relevant wet "zone" (shower and/or bath and/or sink, IIRC).
However, IIRC, shaver sockets are OK, as are spurs. Irrespective of bathroom size.
My (UK) fridge is on a standard 30A breaker which itself comes off a single 80A/30mA RCD which was presumably part of the regs at one point. It's never tripped. All the RCBOs I've seen are 30mA too.
(I have some sockets on a 10A breaker downstream of this which have tripped - the house needs a total rewire, total bunch of bodge jobs from the previous owner, including a 13A socket in the bathroom)
Does a GFCI typically have a lower trip that 30mA?
Why not? Here in Belgium they are required everywhere and that works just fine.
$150, $1000, all of these are smaller than $15,000. One is a surprise laptop breaking and needing replace. The other is a surprise car purchase and cash purchase.
GFCI, you gotta figure out which one popped. If the wiring's not great, it may well be in a totally different room from the outlet that stopped working. On top of it, they seem to outright fail (get stuck in a broken state, start tripping under even very light load, simply stop working at all) much faster than breaker-box switches (I'm... actually not sure I've ever seen one of those fail? I've had several GFCI outlets fail, across multiple houses).
I get why they're good to have, but they're really annoying. And expensive.
FWIW, you can have the same thing with GFCIs. I recently wired my garage for woodworking and installed all GFCI breakers in the breaker box, so a GFCI trip is just like a regular breaker trip (not that either of those has happened with the new circuits). The GFCI breakers cost about $50/ea [1] and protect the whole circuit.
> GFCI, you gotta figure out which one popped. If the wiring's not great, it may well be in a totally different room from the outlet that stopped working.
I once couldn't operate my garage door for a few days. There were no tripped breakers in the box. Eventually, it dawned on me that the circuit was labeled "GFCI" so maybe I should go check the GFCIs in the house, and I found that the GFCI in the upstairs bathroom had tripped. The upstairs GFCI is nowhere near the garage (and in the opposite direction from the breaker box). Since then, I've talked to several people in the area whose houses are wired the same way. I guess GFCIs must have been really expensive in the 80s, when these houses were built.
The moral of this story is that GFCI breakers can save a lot of headache. (Plus, those GFCI outlets are kinda ugly IMO).
[1]: I see they're about $60/ea now: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Square-D-Homeline-20-Amp-Single-...
In the UK, where ground fault interrupters can be part of the sockets it can be hassle, but then again that is strictly optional: in most other countries the ground fault interrupters are always integrated into the circuit breaker at the distribution panel. The upside of that it is that it also protects the wiring.
For example:
https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/oGJ0LxRFZ9FNcRtpABAlXPnUApM=...
Edit 1: If you're in Europe, my apologies - I have no experience with the wiring outside of the US. It sounds genuinely annoying and a bad user experience indeed.
Edit 2: Thank you all for your replies!
There are a few things that aren't practical to protect with a GFCI, such as high voltage grid power transmission cables. But people killed by those I wouldn't think are included in deaths 'at home'.
[1]: https://www.cullanlaw.com/blog/2015/may/may-is-national-elec...
A whole building GFCI sounds like a bad idea, throwing the entire house into darkness as well as cutting off the refrigerator and HVAC because a contractor plugged in a damp power tool in an outside outlet sounds like a bad idea. Worse if you were out of town when it happened.
Whole building GFCI - that is just nuts!
There are many ordinary motors that will leak just a bit to ground, enough to trip the GFCI, but no hazard exists — this would mean disabling the whole building, computers, refrigeration, water pumping, etc. just turning on that device. I've actually got one in a treadmill, and also a wood router tool - they trip the garage GFCI every time. At first I was concerned and "what's wrong with these things?". but as far as I could read, there is no issue, just an issue with certain types of motors that is no hazard, but a basic incompatibility.
And yes, being able to kill the entire power to the house merely by plugging a device into one of the outside outlets would be an insane vulnerability, not just by the contractor's accident you mentioned, but also by deliberate action - great way to start a burglary or home invasion, don't even need to find a wire to cut.
Yikes!
Right. There must be a reliable metallic path to ground.
This is a big problem with PVC pipe retrofits. In older houses, plumbing and conduit are metal and good grounds, and grounding to plumbing used to be permitted. Once PVC pipe came in, you have to assume that no pipe is grounded, and you need extra ground wires and stakes. This can happen due to a plumbing repair. Otherwise, a short to "ground" can energize the structure's entire water system.
In the original article, if your house doesn't have three-prong outlets, it's time for an full upgrade. You're at least half a century behind.
As for training new electricians, "In the past, Reyes recruited workers out of high school and trained them. But he’s reluctant to do it again. It costs his technicians time, it costs him money, and there’s no guarantee that the people he invests in will stick around because the job market is so competitive." Well, welcome to the free market. Maybe you have to pay more.
There are International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers apprenticeship programs not mentioned in the article. Here's Local 6, San Francisco.[1] They require high school graduation, a grade of C or better in algebra and trigonometry, and drug testing to become an apprentice. The apprenticeship is three years.
"Grid Alternatives partners with local organizations, like Homeboy Industries, a gang-intervention program, to introduce former inmates as well as other underrepresented people, to careers in solar. Those admitted to Grid’s training receive “wraparound supportive services” that address barriers they might have to participating, such as helping them get driver’s licenses, open bank accounts, or, for those formerly incarcerated, find attorneys." That may be starting too far down the food chain.
"But this past year, Laney’s program almost fell apart after one of its teachers, Forough Hashemi, announced she would be retiring at the end of the spring 2022 semester. Hashemi had been teaching six classes each semester, essentially holding the program together".
Laney College seems rather disorganized. Their web site says "Fall Classes Start August 24, 2020 – Enroll Now!". If their idea of recruiting is "we sent some letters and nobody responded", that's the college's problem.
Do you have a citation for this?
I was under the impression that using plumbing as equipment ground was never allowed, but that conductive plumbing has required to be bonded to ground for some time. I was further under the impression that by code, plumbing repairs couldn't leave behind unbonded sections of conductive plumbing.
You could look it up yourself. It's not hard.
Here's a guide to the 1981 National Electrical Code. See page 297. section 250-23, grounding for alternating current systems:
"grounding electrode conductor ... which runs to building steel and/or water pipe or driven ground rod".
Page 299, "water pipe and/or other suitable electrode" as grounding point for neutral.
Page 365, section 250-81 goes into water pipes as ground in more detail. It usually can't be the only ground. That's in 250-81(a). But back then, there was an assumption that water pipes were a path to ground.
By 2011, use of a water pipe as ground was more restricted. It's still allowed, but you have to attach directly to the metal pipe where it comes out of the ground. See[2], page 238, section 250-51, "Grounding electrodes". (You're allowed 5 feet of pipe from building entrance). Also see 250-53(D)(2), where the risk of future replacement of a metal water pipe with plastic is discussed. Water pipes are now valid grounds only if they meet the general ground rod criterion - six feet of conductor buried in earth. (3m for pipes.) You can see the general progression from "pipes are grounds" to "only grounding rods driven in the ground can be trusted." Which is reasonable enough, given that most new pipe is plastic. At this point, grounding pipes is more about preventing them from becoming energized if something shorts to a pipe. Just as all electrical boxes must be grounded.
[1] https://archive.org/details/mcgrawhillsnatio00mcpa/page/296/...
[2] https://archive.org/details/nationalelectric0000unse_d8w8/pa...
> by code, plumbing repairs couldn't leave behind unbonded sections of conductive plumbing
I assume that's correct, but I think shady / lazy / amateur contractors can assume the inspector won't check work in the crawl space.
Since they're a union, the pay scale is public: https://ibew46.com/media/6924/020623_020424_residential_area... Apprentices start at $21.30.
That McDonalds had a big "now hiring" sign out front, advertising $21 an hour. Hm. Not sure if the extra thirty cents would be worth tying yourself to construction's boom and bust cycle.
So for instance, one of the folks I know can do residential but also spent a year in the midwest learning how to wire up windmills. I guess that paid off in the last cycle when they had to pivot back and forth on jobs.
I just hate physical labor as a job, personally, but he makes almost as good of money as I do now, but my back will last past 50.
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 street to the house. Unknown how much cost there if too many houses here need to upgrade as well which would necessitate upgrading transformers feeding this area (most houses here are 100A AFAIK).
To redo my service to single phase 800 amps, which required a new transformer on a pole, new commercial panel, 100 feet of large underground drop (parallel MCM 600), etc, georgia power + electrician total cost was 10k.
If i had wanted to drag 3 phase power to my shop, which was a mile away, they would charge 10 bucks a foot, total cost 55k.
(I convert the large single phase instead with a digital 3-phase converter)
PGE/California electricians is particularly horrible about costing - i've seen combined costs (IE between PGE + electrician) of like 15k for panel upgrades that require 10 feet of trenching
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?)
Reality? I had a peak draw of 23 amps from the grid in the last year. Luckily the NEC has an escape valve for folks who can prove that.
100A service is fairly normal here for smaller homes. As heating here is primarily done by natural gas furnaces rather then electrical heating. Which make sense; gas is way cheaper to heat with here then electricity. And it saves a dollar for the developer.
I don't know about larger homes though; I'd imagine that they'd have 200A circuits but it wouldn't surprise me if they didn't unless the builder specifically requested it.
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.
The work we originally thought was needed was just a new meter box. Turned out we needed a new wire run from the meter all the way to our water line, a new pipe for the underground wiring, two additional grounding wires.
The utility said it wasnt their problem as the meter itself is their property but the housing, the way it attaches to the house, and the connection to the transformer was our responsibility to pay for.
Nearly $2000 to get a simple meter box replacement. Edit: Because this work was to be done in tandem with the siding replacement to avoid expensive rework, we didn't have much of an option in shopping around as most electricians did not want to deal with coordination with the utility around disconnect and inspection.
If it’s so simple, why didn’t you do it and save $2,000? Part of that price is uncertainty due to scheduling/coordinating with the siding contractor and utility.
Everything after the meter, including grounding conductors, are premises wiring aka your responsibility.
Having your electrical service properly grounded sure beats being electrocuted.
I manage electricians, and my jobs get charged $110/hr for a journeyman in a service van.
There are some jobs that I can do, but I hire someone else to do anyway.
Getting the work done properly was important to me. After the replacement, the random occasional 2-3 second power outages went away and it looks great.
My point was mostly to concur with parent that often you do incur unexpected work when updating legacy electrical, and that adds a bit of cost. To a homeowner, a box swap seems simple but can wind up costing thousands more than you expect.
Think of the old "I could write twitter in a weekend" adage. Sure it seems simple at first glance, but once you get into it it's far more complex.
A layman would think "It's a plastic box with a couple of wires in, surely it can't cost more than $200" and take more than an hour".
UK note: under "Part P" rules, it is significantly harder to legally do your own electrical work. https://www.electricalsafetyfirst.org.uk/find-an-electrician...
* I own a house that was built in the early 20th century. As was typical of the time, the house has a small number of fused circuits, which do not have a ground wire, and where the wire gauge is thinner than would be required for a modern circuit of the same capacity. Just the same, it's perfectly legal to: * Add new outlets to existing circuits without changing the fuse to match the wire gauge of the circuit or adding a ground wire. It has to either be a NEMA 1-15R receptacle (no ground plug) or a GFCI receptacle with a label that says there's no equipment ground. * Replace the fuse boxes with modern breaker boxes without re-wiring the house to have grounded outlets. The only limitation is that the new breakers would have to be smaller than the existing fuses so that the wire gauge meets current code for the breaker size.
* I have a 1998 house which has several pairs of circus on opposite phases which share a neutral wire. This is legal still, but requires that the circuits are connected to dual-throw breakers, so that it's not possible to have one circuit hot with the other dead. But this house doesn't use dual-throw breakers like it should. As far as I know, that wasn't even code when the house was built. But electricians can still add new circuits without fixing that.
* Some years ago I was remodeling a 1956 house. Initially, the inspector asserted that we would need to replace a staircase whose width and pitch did not meet current code. But he was mistaken. Even though we replaced the stair treads, because we didn't make any changes to the structure of the staircase, the head county building inspector agreed that we didn't need to bring it to current code.
Requiring common-disconnect (but not common-trip) breakers I think was a requirement since before 1998, but because it only needs common-disconnect, a listed handle-tie between the two breakers will suffice. (In other words, this should be a quite inexpensive situation to remedy. $8 for 3 of them at Home Depot for one particular common panel: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Square-D-QO-Circuit-Breaker-Hand...)
The handle-tie would get you common-trip too, wouldn't it?
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 self-checked with the city. He was right.
I did manage to get a few things grandfathered in, like being able to keep a three pronged outlet for the dryer. But ultimately I made peace with the fact that the house's electrical system was in a neglected state and the fixes simply had to be made.
Sometimes it'll be at home owners discretion. For example, I have a Pushmatic panel. The thing sucks. So even if it's grandfathered when I have other work done, I'm still getting rid of it ASAP.
The US is way worst about this than most other places though. Here they inspect your insulator, lead-in wires, meter, and distribution panel and then ask what if any problems you are having (they is the power company) every four years. Mostly the electrician/contractor does the work and there's no inspection of that.
Or they conveniently misunderstood the regulatory requirements.
Which means you have to fix the main box. Which is most expensive part to fix.
So if you are having a new socket added in your kitchen, then all the other sockets in the kitchen on the same circuit will need updating, and the breaker for the kitchen.
But you probably won't have to have your living room rewired.
I’m having a new service entry cable, meter box, and main breaker panel put in next week. By its nature that should impact every single circuit in my house. But my electrician isn’t touching anything besides what I listed above, and I know that there are multiple other things around the house not up to current code.
However, I think the 10 years is a bit pessimistic. At least in the US, the code hasn't changed that much in the last 20-30 years, and many of the changes are at the periphery where they are easy to modify like GFCIs, and tamper resistant outlets, etc, so I wouldn't be afraid of making modifications to existing circuits for houses in that range. Older than that you start running into (AA-1350) aluminum wiring (35 years or older) or two-conductor wiring (65 years or older), and you'll want to take the policy of not touching those old circuits unless you plan on completely replacing them.
Doing an addition? Well, now you need to ensure the entire house has fire/C02 detectors wired together with it.
Sorry, is there a requirement that every single wall should have a socket? ...that's what extension cords are for.
But you were taken advantage of. It's just that with the level of collusion in North America regarding electrical work and plumbing you are not going to be able to avoid it. I've seen the weirdest requirements which only a particular person with a particular license was able to perform and doing it yourself would be an automatic fail on an inspection even though the work was identical. I've also had some of these people make outright dangerous suggestions because they knew how to read their rule book but they didn't actually understand enough of what caused the rules to be written in that particular way to see when an exception to those rules needed to be made (case in point: someone wanted me to ground a 60' windmill tower at the house instead of at the base of the tower, which in case of a lightning strike would lead the lightning into the house).
Really, don't get me started, I've seen way to much of this to have anything but really bad memories of electrical inspectors, I'm sure there are good ones but I just haven't seen any. What I have seen is a bunch of little people with a lot of power to inflate costs resulting in no change or improvement.
I replaced a panel that was rusted out (there was literally a hole rusted through in the back due to water intrusion in the wall) in a house that was built in the 1940's, re-wired with circuit breakers sometime in the 80's.
The electrician said I didn't need to replace any breakers, just the panel. I asked the local inspector if I had to put AFCI's and GFCI's everywhere required by modern code, he confirmed that it was highly recommended, but not strictly required for existing circuits, only for new circuits. I also didn't need to install a cutoff before the panel.
Since I was buying new breakers anyway, I ended up putting AFCI/GFCI's as required by code.
Where was that? In my (medium-aged) American house and in some newish romex cable I bought last year, the ground wires are all bare copper cables, no green sheathing at all. I've had electrical work done in the last couple weeks, and no one even mentioned them.
IIRC (not an electricial) bare copper and green-sheathed wires are both acceptable for ground wires.
Those that keep up actually don't have much issue as it's gradual.
Current breakdown is:
25 states - 2020+ NEC
17 states - 2017 NEC
2 states - 2014 NEC
2 states - 2008 NEC
8 states - Very local
Some of them take 5+ years to update the NEC. Virginia adopted the 2017 NEC in late 2021.
When that happens, upgrades can be costly.
Though most major changes around AFCI/GFCI usage, pipe types, etc to NEC happened in the 2014/2017 code cycle.
So there were definitely some code cycles that were "extra bad" in this sense.
When I build my own residence from scratch, I'm going for a more industrial loft aesthetic vibe where all utilities are run outside the walls where they are easily accessible to frequently modify them as I please. I want to be able to frequently update to code without making a giant, expensive mess, followed by a validation inspection from a licensed electrician. How we build residences today is not compatible with my desires for a sustainable, durable, maintenance- and repair-friendly implementation.
For commercial or industrial work above a certain scale and complexity, you probably won't even be able to find a licensed electrician to validate work done by non-licensed personnel for sign off to send up to an inspector. I wouldn't consider a 1MW+ (or anything starting off with a 480V three-phase service) data center appropriate to install with non-licensed staff. There are gray areas the smaller and more residential scale you get. I've seen some pretty awful work funded by apartment complex flippers using non-licensed personnel, for example.
Once you are talking about common residential (anything less than 300A, where the average US house is usually around 100-200A, dual single-phase 110V service) though, it depends more upon finding a licensed electrician who agrees to a proposal to validate your work. This is not very popular because it is considered like a mechanic called in to inspect a shade tree mechanic's work or your relatives you only see around Christmas time proposing to pay you to inspect their attempt to clean up after a ransomware attack. But it does happen.
Assuming you can find and convince such a licensed electrician, you can do practically anything in such a residential context. It's a lot of work, and if you're a decent software engineer you aren't really saving much money. It would be the sort of thing to do if sloppy electrician work that doesn't meet the standards of r/wireporn or r/cableporn for example just drives you bonkers, and you happen to really like nerding out over strictly interpreting the intricacies of NFPA 70, National Electrical Code (NEC) with others, and you simply like having the satisfaction of knowing your electrical subsystem that well. If you squint hard enough, the NEC almost takes on a life of its own like source code, which appeals to a lot of technical types, so it isn't hard to find engineers and technicians of different stripes in aerospace, mechanical, civil, etc. doing this kind of DIY.
Code compliance inspections are required, but unless you are lighting up new service for example, enforcement varies pretty dramatically between locales. Again, I've seen some pretty shady disasters waiting to happen from flippers, but the city is none the wiser because no permits were pulled.
If it's been without issue for decades it likely will remain so if left as is. Once someone modifies it the risk of fire, electrocution, etc increases dramatically. That's why it needs to be brought into compliance as a general rule.
I kind of wonder if some of these safety devices will get people killed because they will fall tromping down to the basement or garage to muck with their panels.
I’m looking to get some new cabling placed since I can’t navigate within the walls
They aren't just about electrical safety directly, but also about not potentially confusing people in the future.
If the cable was black, then someone may not have known that it was an earth cable, and might have cut it, which would leave your electrical installation unsafe.
Thats the reasoning why using the wrong color for a wire can make it illegal.
It is only required to be "primarily green". So the common alternative of green with yellow stripe is also allowed.
You can reidentify black cable if it's large enough gauge (6 awg currently).
They must be > 6 awg to pull black and use green tape on the ends.
See 250.119.
This has been the case for a very long time though, at least since 2007 NEC. I don't have handy copies around for before then.
rimshot
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 more.
3) Dealing with problems in regions. Like power outages in areas that deal with lots of snow and freezing. How do people have heat to survive? How do things work so that we don't have destruction to homes from frozen pipes? Stuff like that.
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.
That said, having lots more battery storage inside buildings may be a great way to help shift peaks, and be far cheaper than upgrading lots of connections everywhere.
I'm going to disagree with this for three reasons.
1) We have places that have brown outs today. The grid isn't able to deliver. In other areas people have setups where power companies can cut (for periods of time) power to their air conditioner and that is used. There have been other areas where cables have run into issues with so much electricity going over it. The grid today runs into problems with the existing demands on it.
2) I've talked with people in some locales that only have 60A drops to their home. The local home and their local grid needs to be updated before everything can go electric.
3) When you read articles that say the grid can handle it they cover how the grid needs to be updated to handle all the things being electrified. So, they say the grid we have today can't cover it. Here's an example [1]. If it could handle it now there wouldn't be a need to it to be updated.
[1] https://cars.usnews.com/cars-trucks/features/can-the-nations...
1) I was recently talking with someone who lives in a community where homes have 60A service. The homes and last mile in places like that can't handle the draw people will need to electrify everything. 60A isn't enough.
2) Where I live there has been work to upgrade the wiring because it's not enough. It's not done yet and other communities I've been to have not been upgraded, yet. There are still areas where the current traveling through the lines today causes enough sag that I wait for something to break when things are at their peak.
3) Publications and communications from some power companies cover the need to upgrade the grid. Are they lying?
Yes its designed for peak load but the load profile is changing significantly. And no you absolutely cant just load shift away heating and transportation of residential homes. That isn't cost free and we don't even have the projects in place to manage that yet.
Heating is similarly trivial to load shift; heat or cool a little extra before the peak, stop during the peak, and then pick up afterwards. This goes for both space and water heating.
Do you have any evidence about what upgrades are needed? I have a feeling that since you are so wrong about load shifting, that your intuitions about the grid may not be completely ok mark either. The grid upgrades I know about are for long distance transmission, not anything for distribution at the residential level, as we are discussing here.
You have grossly oversimplified of the problem set with little regard for how people, utilities, policy development and the real world actually work.
1) Places today have rolling brown outs at times in the year. Some power companies have seasons where they ask customers to limit their electricity use. Even peak load today can be a problem and the electrification of all the things means peak load will increase.
2) Articles that dig into this call out how the power grid will need to change to support the growth in consumption. When it's covered and experts speak they highlight the need for change to meet demand.
Can you refute these?
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.
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.
It is incredible that the power company got power restored in a 36 hour window, when half of it was Christmas Eve.
How's heating "shifttable" ? None of the usual systems to heat house does it (inertia is not the same)
Water heating is even easier to implement this way, but requires smarter water heaters.
I know some electrical engineers who work in the field who are of the polar opposite opinion. I am trying to paraphrase:
1. the wires we have deployed will not be able to carry the currents needed
2. the deployed transformers are not beefy enough for the expected demand
3. the existing house wirings are not beefy enough for the expected demand
4. there are not enough people with the propper training in the field to change this all as quickly as is needed
This is not my judgement, but what "word on the street" is with electrical engineers who do nothing else than put copper under the earth 24/7
The former only needs (relatively) simple/stupid/cheap power & control electronics. Mimic the frequency & phase of the incoming AC from the utility, and let the panels run at 100%, 24x7, regardless of in-home power usage. Any solar_output > local_usage excess gets shoved back at the utility, any solar_output < local_usage shortage gets drawn from the utility, and dealing with that unpredictable yo-yo is 100% their problem and expense.
The latter - even with no batteries - requires a bunch of complex control electronics - because solar panels do not magically put out 120VAC at 60Hz, for any load short of their maximum current power output.
Smaller scale off grid systems can also be done with no installation/permitting costs if you set it up as a solar “ups” and put your critical loads on it. (Though I would at least have an electrician setup a critical loads panel and have your off grid inverter power that. )
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.
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.
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" combo.
And for that matter, this sort of building of solar projects by small players has been going on for years, very successfully, under a PPA model.
In places where it's allowed for startups to build new generation resources and get compensated on the market, such as Texas' ERCOT, solar is a dominant force. The challenge is not the tech, the challenge is that too many people are doing it, draining the supply chain:
https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2022/07/satellite-data...
The rate at which the industry is scaling is absolutely amazing.
But even as in the original post about electricians, skilled workforce labor remains one of the bottlenecks.
California somehow gets more sunlight than the rest of the US? If I recall for physics, the amount of light depends on the latitude, not what state you're in.
[1] https://unboundsolar.com/solar-information/sun-hours-us-map
It rains a whole lot more in Seattle than it does in Los Angeles.
Edit: controlling (more or less) for latitude, it rains a whole lot more in New Orleans than it does in Los Angeles.
Los Angeles averages 34.1 rainy days per year. New Orleans averages 115.1.
That's exactly backwards, though. The problem[1] with ad-hoc local solar installations is that they're undersubscribed, and end up pumping juice back into the grid at inconvenient times where it can't be used. Being able to use that power locally is the goal, not something to be solved.
[1] From the perspective of resource management. If you want to install solar as part of a prepper/off-grid effort you have a lot more design work to do and are absolutely going to have to inefficiently overprovision.
My village (UK) copes easily with everyone at home with the ovens on full cooking Christmas dinner and putting the kettle on after a football match, so clearly plenty of spare peak capacity (the grid has to match supply of course)
The average car in the UK does about 7,000 miles a year, in the US about 12,000. That's 230 miles a week in the US, needing about 76kWh of power. That's an average 450W draw. Homes used to use more than that keeping the lights on.
No doubt about electric generation, we need far more. Not hard, not expensive either. Generating it at a constant rate is a different thing, but with 200 million mobile batteries connected to the grid that's a fair amount of power shifting that's available.
For your power outage problems, I had one last night. They turned the power off because a vehicle crashed into the overhead lines. With no power my oil boiler doesn't work, so it's rather moot. Do US home typically have heating that can work without any electricity? Do they generate their own electricity to run pumps etc?
A gas furnace doesn't need much power though. A heat pump needs a lot of power, and resistance heating is worse.
From my personal experiences, yes. Gas pipelines are practically always buried, electricity lines are often overhead and subject to storm damage. There have been dozens of times in my life where electricity is out but natural gas infrastructure is still available.
In many places electricity is transitioned via above ground lines. Natural gas is via buried pipes. The above ground lines have far more issues due to natural events (like storms or tree branches falling).
In addition to this, electricity already hit peak loads in some areas due to other things drawing on it.
Electricity is more likely to have outages than natural gas.
> According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the mean annual wage for an electrician in the U.S. is about $63,000 compared with an average of $58,000 for all occupations.
They go on to point out it's higher in the Bay, and there's a wide range with many making more, but that's the mean so that means many are also making less. As explained earlier in the piece those high-paying union jobs are not the ones where this new residential retrofit demand is being generated. $5,000 above the average wage is a joke for a regulated, skilled trade. This will have to change.
Anecdotally, my dad is an electrician and makes roughly what I made as a senior developer except he's way more in-demand and can make a decent living in any city in Oregon (or Maine because they have a cross-licensing scheme with Oregon). I live a couple houses down from an electrician in a LCOL part of the state, and his house is nicer and larger than mine!
Reference: https://www.oregon.gov/boli/apprenticeship/pages/trade-detai...
I would have gone into the field, but the waitlist for apprenticeships was hundreds of people long during the Great Recession, and it's going to be difficult to start a new career at the bottom for me at this point.
The adoption of EVs, which are very common around here, has been very good for the owners of the companies that install them -- but the workers get paid the same hourly whether they are installing EV chargers or boring old normal stuff.
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 trades, electricity is the one that I know enough about to supervise somebody. (e.g. I am baffled by plumbing)
EDIT: Yes, you may not need 400A immediately, but if you're doing an upgrade, the cost delta between the conductors for 200A vs 400A is not substantial except for very long runs. Also, some utilities will cover the cost of a service upgrade to the meter; from the meter onward into the home is your cost. Balance cost with future needs, future labor costs, etc. Very similar to dropping a whole bunch of cheap fiber in a trench just in case you need it in the future.
I usually recommend people combine this work with a solar PV install, to capture the 30% federal tax credit towards the work (if you can justify the upgrade as necessary, which you can if your current service is less than 200A), as it has no limit on the amount you can capture as part of the install (versus the previous tax credit for electrical upgrade costs for installing an EV charging station).
[1] https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/otps/policy_brief_dig_once.p...
I've never heard of a UK house having a larger than 100A service (although I imagine they exist here and there - it's certainly not common).
UK: 100 A x 230 V = 23,00 W
US: 200 A x 120 V = 24,00 W
Edit: I am wrong in my understanding of US power distribution. It's 200 A per leg, which the US has two of. But it seems like the UK may or may not have 380 3 Phase, so the numbers are weird there too. Wrong all around!
> UK: 100 A x 230 V = 23,00 W
> US: 200 A x 120 V = 24,00 W
That's incorrect. The service drop in the US is 220V. It gets stepped down at the main load center to 120V for most of the regular circuits. So it's more like 48000W service in US houses.
It's not about having 400 amps per se but about sizing the wire you put in the ground. Maybe you'll have a 200a main breaker and you'll only ever use 200 amps, etc. - but the hard part was digging and future you or other future yous will be happy that the wire was upsized when it was put in.
Same with conduit. Same with number of conduits.
I can't tell you how many times I have been very pleased with myself that I threw in that extra 3/4 conduit line when we dug that one trench that one time ...
So when you install a 400A panel in the US, it's 400A*240V which is 96,000W.
I have all of these on 200A with amps to spare. But I have a small house. I suppose if I had multiple EVs, dryers, or heat pumps, or 3000sqft it would be a different story.
It's spending a small additional amount now (on wire) to avoid an enormous expense (trench digging) in the future.
Oh, and you know that 3" conduit required for the 400amp ? Make it 4".
Oh, and you know that trench you just dug ? Throw in double 1.5" and double 3/4 conduits right in there with it.
Oh and you know that first two feet of dirt you filled in ? Now throw two more 3/4 conduits on top of that because you never know when a common carrier on that same pole will have fiber up on it ...
Future you will be very happy you did.
The future could also look like large batteries on-site that charge slowly, and then provide power at high amperage when needed, like slowly compressing a spring, then suddenly releasing it.
This is already what Electrify America and Freewire (https://freewiretech.com/) are doing with EV Fast chargers when the electric utility can't provide a higher power connection in a reasonable time-frame. As battery prices drop, that could be a viable way to power heavy home appliances.
You can also get a separate meter installed instead or alongside, this can be useful it the property could be dual purpose (think: duplex, house + machine shop, etc). This can increase costs because of double baseline but it can also reduce costs because of double "low tier" - depends on the market.
She's right. Induction has the speed and response of a gas cooktop with the precision a resistance electric cooktop.
> and an electric water heater.
Make sure it's a heat pump water heater if efficiency and operating cost matter to you.
This, and also easier cleanability than either of them (basically it doesn't need more cleaning than the rest of your kitchen counter) and much safer (won't heat anything non-metallic that you leave on top, won't heat the surface of the stovetop itself except indirectly via heat transmission from the pots/pans, and will automatically turn off if it doesn't detect a metallic item).
I have one and there's no way in hell I'd go back to an ordinary electric range as long as I can afford not to.
As with the touchscreens in cars, I'm sure it's also about marketing a sleeker product and lowering the bill of materials and labor - hence cost of manufacturing.
Just wait a little longer and a manufacturer will start offering physical dials on an induction stove as a high-end feature, but also realize that it will still be control by wire like a computer input device, not a mechanically coupled control like a (dumb) dimmer switch - since it would be ultimately controlling the inductor in the stovetop via software.
Don't get me wrong there's other pros/cons to induction but you don't need to get induction to have those benefits.
I had no idea that some non-induction cooktops could also detect pans, though. In my mind that feature has always been linked to induction. Good to know it's not necessarily like that.
The problem with induction is the thing it's good at (heating water quickly) isn't a useful feature. A gas flame is a 3D cooking surface and this is important as I want heat applied to the sides of pans in many instances. Also, copper and aluminium cookware don't work on them and they are superior materials for cooking with in many instances.
I know exactly what to expect when I set my induction stove to 8 (out of 10) and let my daily-use pan heat for 1 minute. That's the setting at which I can temper oil with dry spices without burning them.
This isn't a function of the induction element, but rather the digital controls. Naturally I adjust the setting once the cold food goes in the pan, but having a calibrated starting point for my cooking flow is pretty useful, and I cook for my family daily.
> The problem with induction is the thing it's good at (heating water quickly) isn't a useful feature.
An induction stove can heat anything quickly, not just water. And importantly it can rapidly change temperature, unlike a resistance electric stove.
> Also, copper and aluminium cookware don't work on them and they are superior materials for cooking with in many instances.
You can just use one of these:
https://www.inductioncooked.com/how-to-use-non-induction-coo...
However, I've never seen a recipe that called for a copper or aluminum pan specifically. The benefit of copper is supposed to be precision temperature control, but as you said, precise temperatures don't matter for day to day cooking.
Same, I just turn a knob and it outputs the same BTUs every time - it isn't random.
>An induction stove can heat anything quickly, not just water. And importantly it can rapidly change temperature, unlike a resistance electric stove.
Again, I'm generally not too concerned about speed here. But yes, I'm very much concerned with changing temperatures quickly which involve not only the heat source but just as importantly, the cookware which leads me to....
> You can just use one of these:...The benefit of copper is supposed to be precision temperature control, but as you said, precise temperatures don't matter for day to day cooking.
Copper is a superior material because it changes temperature extremely quickly because it is such a great conductor - it's not about precision (except with candy making where induction could be great) rather than reactivity. When I turn the gas up the pan reacts to that change immediately and when I turn the gas down it reacts immediately to that. Unlike a material like cast iron which can store a lot of energy, it doesn't react to changes in input quickly so is not suitable for many things - you can't finesse a cast iron pan very easily. Seriously, get a nice gas range and a high end copper pan and cook with it - you'll be amazed. It's why so many chefs insist on the combination of gas and copper.
And no, I'm not buying one of those useless disks to make a copper pan work in induction. It kills the entire point of a copper pan and just gives you a cool, high-end look without the actual functionality. I'd feel like a complete fool because I would be.
I'm happy induction exists for people that want it or believe gas will harm them. But it's not for everyone and there's extremely good reasons many people want to cook over open flame. When I'm not using gas to cook you'll find me outside burning wood fires to cook with.
Curiously, we’re in opposite situations. I have a (very) basic understanding of electricity, just enough to change power outlets and the like. But in general I’m baffled by it because it’s a bunch of dangerous stuff I can’t see with values I don’t fully understand¹.
Plumbing, on the other hand, is water inside tubes controlled mechanically. Taking things apart reveals the simplicity of the system. After doing a fix I can feel confident in the safety and reliability of the work even before opening on the main valve again².
¹ If anyone has recommendations on a trustworthy course / YouTube playlist which teaches enough basics to understand electrical wiring in residential homes, I’m interested.
² I’m not doing super complex jobs, but in my own home it’s been years since I’ve needed to call a plumber.
I did help teach an autotutorial class in physics for premeds which got me to do a little more with fluid mechanics than most people but the trouble I have with plumbing is finding documentation for the details.
For instance when it comes to sealing PVC pipes I have seen instructions that tell you to "refer to the documentation from the pipe manufacturer" which is not at all straightforward for pipes that have been there 20+ years.
In many regions, doing it legally requires lots of courses and certificates. When you have invested all the time and money into getting said certificates, which is sometimes multiple years full time, you typically want to become a full time electrician to pay back the time+money investment.
That means that 'I just do electrics on the side' is becoming a thing of the past - at least in places with strict certification requirements.
Therefore, lots of people DIY stuff illegally...
If you choose this route, understand that:
* The main cause of injury/death caused by electrics is fires. Fires are normally caused by improper fuses (a fuse/breaker should always be the lowest rating of any device/cable/connector downstream of it, unless that device has its own fuse), or badly made joints. Do joints properly with wago blocks or by tightening screw terminals very tight.
* The 'obvious' risk from electrics of electrocution is reduced to almost zero by installing a whole-house RCD/GFCI device. I wouldn't want to live in a house without one. And turn the power off before doing electrical work.
It is still worthwhile to understand what you're doing, and how the breakers/GFCI/Arc fault will save your ass - and why they are NOT the same thing!
It's only in pre-orders, however. Edit: Looks like first round of pre-orders were limited to Bay Area and now there's a wait list for next round.
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 electrician to "check off" on your wiring after you do most of the grunt work, this works well for areas that require permits even for homeowner-done work.
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.
I thought induction used slightly less energy. Or is it that it uses more energy for a shorter time so the net is less but the peak is higher?
I assume I could replace my electric stove with a stove with induction "burners".
With electric, it heats up a coil that heats up your pan (and the air around it) that heats your food.
With induction, it skips the coil and simply heats the pan. The pans are specially designed to contain a heating coil in them which implicitly is closer to your food.
It also means the work surface tends to cool quickly (or never get hot in the first place), making it safer.
Just to note, you don’t need special pans to use an inductive stove. Any magnetic cookware will do, which includes cast iron and most stainless steel. As an intuitive rule of thumb, if a magnet will stick to the bottom, then it’s compatible.
This is not correct. Any ferric-metal pan/pot will work. If a magnet can stick to your pot it will work.
You can put SMALLER outlets on a larger breaker (40 amp outlet on a 50 amp breaker) because the outlet is SUPPOSED to keep you from overloading it (and the outlet will actually be rated for more than the "plug size")
The DANGER you must avoid is having a 50 amp outlet on a 50 amp breaker but only having wiring between them that can support 40 amps - and the amount of amperage a wire can support DROPS over longer distances. So it's best to size everything correctly from the beginning.
Right now you have to fasten a box to the wall structure, cut the wire so that about 8" can make its way into the box, strip the outer insulation and insert it into the box, strip at least some of the individual conductors, and then splice (by twisting and using wire nuts, or less commonly using a press-fit dingus) the ones that need to be spliced.
You then repeat that for every outlet (which in electrician-speak includes lamps and such) on the circuit. Then repeat that for every circuit. You are now ready for your "rough" electrical inspection (the one before the in-wall wiring is covered).
Then before the final inspection you have to individually connect each conductor to (usually) a screw on the actual device before cramming^H^H^H^H^H^H carefully folding the wire back into the box and screwing the device in place, followed by screwing the cover in place.
Repeat for every outlet in the unit and you are ready for your final inspection.
What I'm picturing is a special box that can insulation-displacement-crimp right onto the wire (probably with some giant pliers. On the inside it has some sockets that the eventual device plugs straight into, possibly with a sort of optional middleware layer that can reconfigure the connections for less common hookups.
So you crimp all the boxes to the wire and fasten them to the wall structure and you're ready for the rough inspection.
Then after the walls are covered you plug in the devices directly for all of the common configurations (e.g. just a receptacle in a string of receptacles) and fiddle with some kind of middle layer for the oddball configurations (e.g. a duplex receptacle where one of them is switched).
As an alternative to the "middleware" maybe there are a collection of different boxes that are pre-configured for the circuit arrangement in question (not unlike plumbing components are today).
Also the only way to replace the outlet would seem to be to rip out the entire wall and splice in new cables like a complete do-over which seems a bit extreme although profitable, or do a high resistance fire causing re-crimp. This is "OK" for receptacles that last the life of the house, if the life of the house is short enough, but wall switches would be essentially unreplacable.
One idea that might save money is giving up on copper switched wall switches. Feed the wall switch 12 volts and let them speak zwave to control things.
The boxes would come in a few varieties based on the number of cables that could pass into/through them. Again I'm picturing some kind of intermediate layer between the box and the device that could accommodate less-common connection arrangements, but maybe you lose a bit of flexibility in the name of progress.
The connections wouldn't have to be 100% reliable, but at least as reliable than hand-twisted wires and wire nuts (also AFCI breakers could eliminate a lot of the fire risk).
(edited, not to say its impossible; perhaps your innovation would in itself be the world first reliable connector...)
You can either train more workers to do it the old way or invent new ways that require fewer workers (or less highly-skilled ones).
Kind of how PEX plumbing (whatever its drawbacks) has made it much simpler to plumb a house than it was when soldering copper fittings onto copper pipes was the norm (let alone threaded connections shudder).
Also, outlet/switch boxes get nailed to the studs during construction, and modifications to those boxes are fastened to the drywall, in my experience.
Then again, wire nuts aren't that great either.
It could even start out as basically a fancy wire stripper and a box with push-in connections that switches/outlets subsequently plug into.
Happy to hear feedback / thoughts on this.
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 "competent amateurs", but how on earth would you do that?
What does this mean? Any “amateur” is allowed to do the work anytime they want (on their own home), and anyone can apply for a permit. They just have to pass the same inspection as everyone else. I do not see why the code (rules) would be different though, the principles of electricity and safety do not change.
This is not true across all US states, let alone other countries.
I currently live in a jurisdiction that does allow home owners to do their own electrical work, but they have to pass a (demanding) exam before being licensed to do so. In my previous home state, home owners were not allowed - even if you did the work, a licensed electrician had to be "seen to be responsible".
As long as you you use a panel that accepts the same type of breakers, you can also re-use the existing breakers, unless code require upgrading to AFCI breakers. Otherwise you swap them for new breakers of the same rating. (Assuming the US: There are some inspectors who would ok a panel swap that reused the existing breakers without requiring upgrades, but technically upgrading is supposed to be required, unless your state amended out the AFCI requirements in the state version of the code). Note: technically many breakers can fit in competitor panels, but they are not legal. They were not designed nor tested to trip at proper ratings in those panels, and using them violate the labeling of the panel.
Now obviously the reason for upgrading the panel is to add more circuits, and it is possible that these additional circuits if added would need more power than the 100A service can provide. To technically comply with code, you need to follow the rules to calculate the expected loading of existing circuits plus planned new circuits.
The last sentence you wrote is the killer. You are technically correct that changing the number of circuits in the panel is not itself disallowed. But .... you would also be hard pressed to get an AHJ to pass a number-of-circuits upgrade without knowing how many circuits you are planning on adding, and doing the feed sizing calculation to make sure you don't have to upgrade the incoming feed to support it.
Putting in a new panel can get you more space, or just update to a currently maintained standard for breakers so you can find and put new ones in.
It sounds like he was adding circuits which means he's running wires for those new circuits anyway.
I live in a small town in Michigan; the amount of fuss probably depends on location & density.
I drew a schematic for them and I found out of 5 electricians only 1 could read the schematic.
You can sling Javascript the same way in Chennai or in Cleveland, but I wouldn't want a UK electrician wiring my house in California.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Brotherhood_of_E...
I wonder how long before robotic telepresence makes these also outsource-able.
It is the electrical work (both within in the home, and "interconnect") that is the expensive bottleneck.
(( also batteries are also a bottleneck. but a different one. ))
I think I'd rather just learn to repair electronics.
But as others have mentioned in other comments: Working for a company taking a big cut to install cables at peoples home with all the weirdness (smelly place, not at home, unfriendly, wrong description/tool) is not for me. I would suggest going straight with the goal to create a company asap and build an empire.
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
I can't speak for the US, but for Australia, there are many hybrid roles. A few examples of systems include:
* Home Automation
* Industrial Systems (designing & programing factory control systems)
* Building Systems (designing and programing large building HAVC/Access Control systems)
My experiance has been that people who understand and design both physical and software systems can find well paying work. That said, the career path often convoluted and personal relationships with the right people are critical.
The electrical trade is very rewarding, but very dangerous. You typically have to rely on co-workers to be responsible and safe, if they are distracted, life changing and/or ending results can occur.
Before considering an electrical career, attend an arc-flash class to get an idea about what your are signing up for.
If you are a detail person, it's a great trade. If you like working in all sorts of environments both in and outdoors, it's a great trade. It will take a long term toll on your body because of the mechanics of the jobs.
https://www.rewiringamerica.org
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=saul+griffith&s...
Who could see that coming?
There’s a name for this, something something market. Just make sure markets are fair, workers are protected, re-training is easy and this problem won’t keep repeating. But instead the focus is always on “learn to code/do wiring” whatever.
I also own a home in Berkeley and had no trouble getting 2 quotes for a panel replacement, and work started less than a week after the first phone call. It cost $12k for the new 200 amp panel and 4 new outlets.
Now, landscape contractors, that’s been a harder nut to crack.