Do you enjoy residential work? - Electrician Talk - Professional Electrical Contractors Forum

joltaker · 12-29-2008, 11:53 PM

My brother is an electrician for a plant and has never been into residential work. I am starting trade school on Jan 12th. My plans were to get my license and work for a franchise company. This sounds like a GREAT way to be self employed and not deal with the headache of owning your own business. My question is this. Do you enjoy residential work? I know people are crazy sometimes, im referring to the labor side of this feild. Is it just terrible? Fairly easy once you know what your doing? Any input is appriciated! Trying to get opinions from experienced workers before I jump at this career.

TOOL_5150 · 12-29-2008, 11:57 PM

I fully enjoy residential work. But at the same time, I dont like bending pipe - im good at it, but just dont like it. A little pipe here and there is all good, so it works out for me.

~Matt

Bkessler · 12-29-2008, 11:58 PM

I love ropin' houses, With 16+ years of resi, commercial and light industrial I love wiring houses the best. With days on end of endless piping coming in a close second then I'd have to say working with the big pipe and wire third.

joltaker · 12-30-2008, 12:12 AM

This residential isnt really wireing new houses. Its more of replacing ceiling fans on a current house has electrical problems on some parts. More of a repair then install but has the occasional install on outlets, light fictures.
It seems like I would enjoy this. I have always liked the "providing service" type of work. I have owned a lawn care business for the past 3 years.

How do electricians usually charge? Do you charge by the job or by the hour and estimate the time?

spoon · 12-30-2008, 01:39 AM

Nope.

joltaker · 12-30-2008, 02:14 AM

Why not?

220/221 · 12-30-2008, 09:00 AM

You can't just start doing service work. You need experience wiring houses to be able to service them otherwise you will be spending a whole lot of time scratching your head thinking WTF?

If you only install pre wired ceiling fans, that's a different story but full residential service will take at least a year in the field, if you are sharp.

The first thing I realized about electrical work was the huge learning curve. I have ten year guys who still have to call me for help occaisionally. Hell, after 30+ years I struggle once in a while.

The ideal path to take in the electrical trade starts with a year roping houses followed by a couple years of commercial/industrial. If you want to do straight residential, spend a year roping houses and then go for it.

Once you understand the basic circuitry used in houses and the different ways the structure is built, you will be able to start service work. Pay attention to ALL of the trades, not just electrical. This knowledge will help you greatly.

brian john · 12-30-2008, 10:09 AM

I enjoy it all.

Houses are a nice break once in a while.

I have worked in almost all sectors of the trade and the one I like to take in small spurts are the ones with

EXCESSIVE Mud, you know where you boots weigh 12 LBS after a trip to the trailer (most construction at one time or another)

Porta Potties in July (and the other 11 months as well)

It pays to be well versed in all aspects of the trade.

spoon · 12-30-2008, 04:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by joltaker

My question is this. Do you enjoy residential work? I know people are crazy sometimes, im referring to the labor side of this feild. Is it just terrible? Fairly easy once you know what your doing? Any input is appriciated! Trying to get opinions from experienced workers before I jump at this career.

Heck no man. Stay away from it. Wood sucks; drilling through it, hacking it our of your way just to get somewhere, pulling stupid Romex through it. Not to mention the carpenters that just love to set their chopsaws in the very same location you're working in. You gotta' love that sawdust in your clothes/hair/eyes/nose/mouth. Crawling around in swampy attics and diving in the dirt under old houses, forget it. Pass it on to the next guy.

There's better ways to make more money using the same electrical trade. Just forget about it and try your darndest to get into commercial/industrial. That's where the money is.

480sparky · 12-30-2008, 04:34 PM

Ropin' resis is like hot fudge sundaes. I like 'em, but I don't want a steady diet of it.

If all I had to do was rope houses, I'd be installing a rubber room in my own house inside a year. Let me rope one or two, then gimme some commercial work so I can bend pipe, figure raceway and box fills, figure out how to control the lights like the customer wants to, get 50' up in a lift, run a backhoe or skytrack all day.

electricalperson · 12-30-2008, 05:08 PM

i hate residential i hate all electrical work besides troubleshooting and repairing. all new work and old work is for the birds

gilbequick · 12-30-2008, 05:10 PM

I do enjoy residential work. I like the fast paced "get in get out" mindset, but coupled with quality and a good job at the same time. You get a lot more drive around scenery changing with residential, but the work itself gets repetitive after a while (like anything else).

I enjoy residential service the most. I love to troubleshoot and fix things and make the old work with the new.

There's no way you're going to be able to start a residential service company with no experience. It's going to take a lot more than a year to operate a successful resi service business, or you better hire a really experienced person who won't screw you over. Even after a year you might have a decent idea how things work but you won't know why or really be very good at troubleshooting much. Much of resi service is troubleshooting.

If you're planning on starting a business changing out ceiling fans you better have a lot of ceiling fans lined up and plan on working 14 hour days doing it.

electricalperson · 12-30-2008, 05:13 PM

i believe a year in the field is not enough experience to start a business theres so much to this trade that one year is not enough to cover what you need to know to work on your own

Frasbee · 12-30-2008, 05:23 PM

I did some residential, once.

I hated it.

It was raining, and I was under the house, and the mosquitoes were eating me alive.

I'm sticking with commercial.

InPhase277 · 12-30-2008, 05:33 PM

I hated wiring houses all the time. That part of residential sucked. But residential service work is the shiznit! Like 220 said, you don't just start doing service work without knowing a little about how a building is wired. Not only that, working under different journeymen will get you well rounded in different ways of doing things.

Besides, I don't think I have ever heard of a state that will license you with school credit only. Most require at least 8000 hours of on the job training. They may discount some for school, but you still need at least 3-4 years of verifiable work experience.

bobelectric · 12-30-2008, 06:35 PM

My knees still remind me of doing houses,one after another.Crouching down,like a catcher,because the boss said it took too much time if we sat down or knelled.

L16 · 12-30-2008, 08:27 PM

Hell yeah .. resi is the shiznit.... although it does become menotonous at times.. just like anything though i suppose

Kevin J · 12-30-2008, 08:48 PM

I also enjoy residential work. Its mainly what I do. I do work mainly around a lake community, so the houses are pretty high end and really, really custom. I get to see a lot of high end lighting, whole house automation, and just some pretty cool stuff. These houses are, to me, pretty fun to work on. And, the money's pretty good. I do some commercial, its good for a break sometimes. If I had my choice, I'd have to stay with romex.

electricalperson · 12-30-2008, 08:51 PM

if i had a chance to go back in time i would of picked plumbing

Mountain Electrician · 12-30-2008, 08:54 PM

Resi is IMO a necessary evil. I dislike it, but it pays the bills.

In a perfect world, I would shoot trouble all day long, fixing things no one else can for 1500 bucks an hour. Beautiful women would fall at my feet, my back would never hurt, and my employees would show up for work on time every day.

Back to reality...my back will always hurt due to years of bending over lifting things, and my employees will continue to be habitually late, and I'll continue to wire houses, crawl in attics, wade through waterlogged basements and put up with all kinds of unreasonable, stupid, dishonest, ungrateful, retarded customers and general contractors in order to make a living.

On the bright side, I do have a beautiful woman falling at my feet ( well, sometimes) and I was smart enough to marry her 24 years ago.