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Comment by SoftTalker | Hacker News Reader

Yes I can't really think of any electrical job around the house that I could not do myself. Calling in an electrician to change an outlet is expensive because such trivial work is boring and they don't really want to do it. Sort of like hiring a senior developer to change a heading on a web page. So they charge a lot. They also have to cover the cost of travel to and from the house, even to change a $5 wall outlet.

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I'd probably pay someone to redo the panel. I could definitely do it, but it's tedious and I'd be pulling the meter to get it done anyway, at which point the conversation with the power company will be smoother if a licensed electrician is having it.

But everything else is fair game. It's really straightforward. The part I hate the most is fixing the drywall if I have to damage it running some new wire.

I generally would agree, but be careful. You don't know what you don't know, and that could be dangerous. As one example, I would guess that the vast majority of folks are not familiar with what an MWBC is and how they work, however they're extremely common, especially in older buildings. As another example, most folks have never heard of box fill and will just try to shove wires into a box until it fits.

I'm not an electrician and would definitely encourage folks to learn to do this work themselves, but be careful and if you encounter something that is not familiar, pause and learn until you understand what you're looking at, even if that means putting it back the way it was for a bit and doing some research.

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