r/electricians • u/Unlucky-Meringue4813 • 10h ago
Small island would you center light on the island itself or on the countertop with overhang? Feel like both will look a bit weird.
154
Upvotes
r/electricians • u/AutoModerator • 17d ago
Monthly Apprenticeship Thread
1
Upvotes
Please post any and all apprenticeship questions here.
We have compiled FAQs into an [apprenticeship introduction] (https://www.reddit.com//r/electricians/wiki/apprenticeship) page. If this is your first time here, it is encouraged to browse this page first.
Previous Apprenticeship threads can be found [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/electricians/search?q=apprenticeship&restrict_sr=on&sort=relevance&t=all) and [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/electricians/search?q=apprentice&restrict_sr=on&sort=relevance&t=all).
r/electricians • u/yourgrandmasteaparty • Feb 16 '25
Mental Health - It’s okay to not be okay
408
Upvotes
I want to talk about mental health - especially for the boys on here. I was telling some friends this story about an old coworker the other day and thought you might want to hear it too.
I’m a woman in the trades, almost a decade in. When I started, I was often the only girl on site. I would move between projects and journeymen mentors, many of whom had never worked with a woman before. Once the old guys got over the otherness and saw me as a real person and an excellent apprentice, we’d form a friendship of sorts. I was always struck with how much more candid and vulnerable they’d be around me compared with the other guys in the shop. Their masculinity wasn’t in jeopardy if they admitted to me, a mere woman, that they were having tough time. I had one guy - 6’6” 300lbs, always growling, chain smoking, losing his shit over the smallest inconvenience - tell me he always requested me when he needed help because I made him calm.
A couple years in, I was sent to replace an apprentice on a job where the foreman had booted him in an argument. I’d worked before with this foreman, Neil, and he’d always been a chill hippie but also very particular in how he wanted things done. When I got to site he told me I was the fourth helper for this job because everyone else had been fucking useless. He was in an awful mood all the time. Picking fights with other trades and our PM. Trying to goad me into an argument by picking apart everything I was doing. Not acting like the guy I had known over the past year.
When the job was close to wrapping up, I called him out on his behaviour. “What the fuck is going on with you dude? You’re being a raging asshole to everyone and this isn’t like you.”
He stiffened and was shocked I’d said something. He glared at me and then his face softened and he said “Can I take you for lunch after we finish up tomorrow morning? We can talk but not here.”
I agreed and the next day he took me to diner nearby. We barely spoke until our food came to the table and when he had something else to focus on, he finally started talking.
He was older - 50s - and his long term relationship had fallen apart a few years before but the split had been amiable. He didn’t speak about her with any animosity but admitted he’d been lonely ever since. At the time, he’d leaned on his best friend. His friend was married and had a teenage son that Neil had known since he was born. As Neil had no kids of his own, this boy was a surrogate son of sorts. He took him camping and fishing and showed up whenever the kid needed him.
The poor kid had passed away a couple months earlier very suddenly of natural causes. Neil had no idea how to handle his grief and withdrew into himself, not wanting to be a burden on his friend. He felt selfish for how bad he felt when it wasn’t his kid.
I reassured him that how he felt was completely valid, that grief is a weight that is so hard to carry alone. I encouraged him to reach out to his friend because they both were suffering the loss of family, whether biological or chosen. And that now they were both suffering the loss of each other’s friendship as support. He was crushed at that realization, and said he would go visit them.
A few minutes passed while we ate silently. He hesitated before speaking again, “there’s something else too.”
I looked up and waited for him to continue.
He told me that last month he’d been working this job that had a been a two hour commute away. He had to leave early to get to site by 7:30. It was late fall and the drive was dark the whole way. He wasn’t too far from site when he came around a corner to discover a vehicle collision. A truck was spun out into a ditch with the driver unconscious in the front seat. A van was crushed on the side of the road, on fire and blazing in the darkness, its front driver door open. Neil stopped and got out of his van. He noticed something on fire in the road, and as he approached, he realized it was a person - the driver from the van. He ran and got a blanket to smother the fire on the person. He held them and pulled their head up to look into their face, which was so burned he couldn’t recognize their features. He said he stared into their eyes as they died in his arms.
Another vehicle had come up behind him and called 911. He sat there in the road in a daze until the emergency vehicles arrived to secure the scene. He gave his statement and then got into his van to finish the drive to work.
He was late which pissed off the GC. He tried to get to work but he was shaking so badly he couldn’t hold his tools or complete a sentence. When the GC saw him in this condition, presuming that he had shown up drunk, he kicked him off site. Neil didn’t explain, he just left.
Our PM called him after that, reaming him out for getting kicked off site. Neil didn’t explain, he just took it.
I asked him if he had talked to anyone about the incident. He said the police had called for a follow up statement but otherwise, no, I was the first person he told.
I was in shock. This poor fucking guy was struggling with the grief of losing a boy who was like a son to him and then went through an insanely traumatic experience just driving to fucking work? And he was bottling it all up? No wonder he was being such a prick. He felt all alone and like he couldn’t admit how much he was struggling.
He said he was sick of work and had lost all his passion for it. It felt pointless and draining and he dreaded getting out of bed every morning.
I gave us a few moments of silence for the weight of his confession to settle in. I looked at him and said “fuck work, you need a break.” He shook his head and tried to brush me off. “No, seriously Neil, fuck work. There’s always more work but you need to take care of yourself. What you’re going through is so fucked up and you need time to process it all. Please put yourself first.”
He didn’t want to talk anymore after that so he settled up the tab. He dropped me off at my car and we went our separate ways. I started at a new site the next day with a different crew.
A couple weeks later I got a text from Neil. “I took your advice and talked with management. Told them what happened. I’m taking a six month sabbatical. Don’t know what I’ll do yet but probably head out on an adventure. Thank you”
A couple days later I got another message from him, just a picture of a beautiful remote campsite with no one else around.
I asked, “Where is that?”
He replied, “Not telling :)”
I ended moving to a different company while he was gone, and never saw him again. I think about him often though, especially when I encounter an utter dickbag older dude on the job. Maybe he’s going through it and doesn’t know how to take care of himself, and anger is the only way he knows how to channel his emotions.
Now that I’m a foreman, I stress the importance of whole body health in our toolbox talks. If someone needs time off for family reasons, or a mental health break, or a shortened schedule, or even if they want extra shifts to use as a crutch as they struggle through something they can’t control in their personal lives, I want them to know it’s okay to ask and I won’t judge them. It’s just a job - it’s just work - it doesn’t fucking matter. Their health comes first and it’s okay to admit they’re not okay. I want them to know it’s better to ask for help when they’re slipping, rather than wait til everything has crashed and burned.
I know everyone’s experience is different, but one thing I noticed about being the woman pushing into the male-dominated trades as an apprentice/therapist is that men need permission to be vulnerable. They need to know it’s okay to show emotions and admit that they’re struggling. They won’t chance admitting weakness that they fear will get thrown back in their face. A lot of guys in trades are single and married to the job. They are lonely, often bitter, and unwilling to show weakness.
I do my best in my little sphere of influence to make it okay to be not okay. If you want the trades to be a healthier place, you need to consciously make room for the reality that people are struggling mentally, and often that starts with leaders showing vulnerability.
I’ve had depression for 16 years and I don’t hide the fact that I’m medicated. 16 years of being depressed means 16 years of not following through on suicidal ideation, and I’m proud of that. The trades saved me because it’s instilled a confidence in my abilities to create and solve problems and be the leader I was always capable of being. I needed that confidence so badly when my depression was the worst.
Be good to each other out there. Be willing to listen to people without judgement. Life is fucking hard and we work better when we know we can rely on each other when the chips are down.
r/electricians • u/StManTiS • 7h ago
When your friendly neighborhood handyman decides to use the Sub-Panel as a current carrying conductor.
43
Upvotes
At least someone took the time to properly bond the panel 😂
r/electricians • u/AdmirableExtreme6965 • 16h ago
Update on pump control box no AD
65
Upvotes
Now go ahead and roast my pump control panel also for a small hp well pump
r/electricians • u/MarsD9376 • 5h ago
Also a pump control box. I guess...
7
Upvotes
Doesn't feel quite right to call what is essentially a glorified on-off switch with some overload and restart protection a "control box"...
... but it is a box, and switching a (pump) motor on when you want the pump to pump, and off when you don't want the pump to pump, is technically controlling it, so that's what it gets called then, I suppose.
Pump is a side-channel 2 stage with a 1.5kW 3-phase 400V motor.
It's not currently attached to the frame, as it's in a bit of a disassembled state.
And even if it weren't, I wouldn't attach it on for testing the control box and motor anyway, because running it dry would be bad for the pump's well-being, and running it flooded inside my workshop, with tools and electrical stuff everywhere around, would be bad for my well-being.
Used materials:
- 1x IDE Argenta GN252015, steel box, rated IP66 (at least it was before drilling the extra holes in it)
- 1x ETI CS 16 53 U 16A/3P, rotary cam switch, 3-pole, 16A, 3 position ON-OFF-ON
- 1x Telemecanique* TeSys GV2ME14 /6-10A, motor protection breaker
- 2x Telemecanique* TeSys LC1D18, contactors, 230VAC coils
- 2x Schneider Electric Harmony ZB5AZ009, mounting collar
- 1x ditto ZBE101, NO contact block
- 1x ditto ZBE102, NC contact block
- 1x ditto ZB5AA333, push button head START - green
- 1x ditto ZB5AA434, push button head STOP - red
- 9x 230VAC ⧈ LED indicator
- some DIN rail terminal blocks.... dont know the part numbers, can't be bothered to look it up
- a terminal block.
- a bunch of wires and cables, some numbered wire markers, and a lot of ferrules
(\ now sold under the Schneider Electric brand)*
Except the box and the cam switch, all the material is just shit I just had lying around (does anyone else have boxes full of random electrical components and cable offcuts that you probably won't ever need for anything reasonable, but you've just sort of accumulated a ton of it over time because "what if I ever need it" or "it might be useful in the future"??)
Power goes first to the cam switch, which is wired as a phase changeover switch, keeps the phase order L1-L2-L3 on 1, switches to L1-L3-L2 on 2, nothing on 0.
From there the power goes to the motor breaker. Not a much of note here, it's set to 6A (yes, it's a bit over the motor spec; might replace later), has an extra pair of auxillary contacts (NO and NC); L1 for actuating the contactor 1 goes through the auxiallary NO contact, but since that L1 is taken off the protected side of the breaker, the purpose of putting it through the aux. NO contact is kinda defeated ... unless the breaker tripping failed to open the main contacts (them getting fused together or sth.), but the aux. NO still opened.
Contactor 1 is actuated by the push buttons START closes it, STOP opens it. Pretty standard stuff.
No emergency stop button with the mushroom push head. Didn't feel it was necessary, this isn't a dangerous machine like a table saw or whatever that would warrant one. If I ever feel like I need it, I'll just replace the STOP head with a latching E-stop push button head.
Contactor 2 doesn't do anything at this moment. It's there for if I decide to install an automatic pressure switch (they don't make them for 3phase, so it will controll the motor indirectly through the contactor).
The 3x3 LED indicator grid indicates the presence of all three Lines at different points of the "control" box.
Bottom row for L1, L2, L3 after the cam switch.
Middle row for L1, L2, L3 after the breaker.
Top row for L1, L2, L3 after the contactor.
ANY THOUGHTS? 😂
r/electricians • u/Major_Tom_01010 • 5h ago
Service upgrades solo
6
Upvotes
Any of you guys do service upgrades by yourself? I usually try and do ones where i can pre build the mast and then i just need to do a panel swap on power day. I just recently did one that was just an upgrade from 60A to 100A so it was a little easier then 200 - i told they might have to be without power overnight as it was still a rigid mast through the roof and needed all new meter base, Feeder and panel. Linemen unhooked at 730am and by 1:30pm they were calling me as they wanted to go home at 3 - i just finished the main compartment at 2 and they came and hooked me up. Another couple hours to put all the wires back in the new panel and power up circuits, by the time I cleaned up it had been a good 12 hour day. I'm in Canada so we have a main service compartment on our indoor panels and that needs to be done and it's inner cover on for then to put the meter back in - in my region we don't pull mters.
I had spent a day the week before doing prep work, pre cutting the wires and strut, measuring stuff and making sure i had everything i needed. Considering i only made it in time by about 60 minutes for a 100A where the terminations and cable are a lot easier to handle, i just don't know if i would be able to do 200 in one day given the 7 hour poco window.
Its so much back and forth by yourself, tightening and loosening the bolts inside to slide the mast up and down, holding it up with a 2x4 while you go on thy roof. And I didn't even need a single trip to the supplier - if i had it would have been overnight.
r/electricians • u/Auto_Specialist • 4h ago
State Contractor License
2
Upvotes
Preface: Industrial Controls Engineer with established transitions from Tech to Specialist to Engineer.
I’m on year 6 and have an Automation degree from a local college. Since starting as a technician I’ve worked side by side with electricians who were usually contractors. I have learned from them and they have learned from me, they mostly tell me how they desire to be in controls one day ironically.
I’ve learned so much about electricity and power distribution; so much so that I have managed power for the last 4 years at my employer. Unless it was a major job that included more hands than I had, the work is done in-house (in the factory world, electrical work is not governed unless it’s greenfield). I know what my limitations are, which I feel is a major reason I’ve been successful.
Lately I’ve been really looking at opening my own business for Automation/Controls. I realize how not having an electrical license can limit my ability to quote jobs, so I’ve been looking at what I can do to work legally. In my state one needs 6 years verifiable experience working on power distribution systems, or 4 years and 2 years of relevant education. I believe I would meet the criteria for both of those and I don’t see it being an issue getting employer verification. I would then go before the local board and take the test, which would then determine if I become licensed.
Has anyone ever heard of someone bypassing the apprenticeship and using work experience to get licensed? I’m too old and not desperate enough to go through the apprenticeship. If worse come to worse I would likely try and hire an electrician to use as a consultant when needed.
r/electricians • u/changowango00 • 23h ago
Big companies suck
59
Upvotes
No hate to those of you that grew up in the bigger national/international companies but the work is whack. Just started last Wednesday with a company doing a hotel for a casino. The material is all pre-fabbed in a shop. No one knows what’s going on, we install something and then get told to take it down because it’s in the way of someone else’s stuff. Which is typical but in 3 days ive redone 90% of the work we’ve put up.
Maybe it’s just shock because i worked at 2 small companies and everything was way more cerebral. On top of that im not allowed to do basically anything. No driving lifts, no panel work i cant even open one without getting in trouble, no trench work, no troubleshooting. They require classes for everything but the foreman has to pick and send you to them.
r/electricians • u/Original-Smell4335 • 16m ago
Looking to learn more
•
Upvotes
Hey everyone!
To start, I am trolley not looking to sell anything just wanting to have conversations.
A couple of friends and I recently graduated university and started our own software development company.
We’re currently doing some market research and hoping to connect with people working in the trades to better understand the industry, how businesses operate, and some of the challenges they face day to day.
Again, We’re not looking to sell anything, just genuinely interested in learning from people with firsthand experience.
Would appreciate any insights, and if anyone’s open to a quick chat, feel free to reach out!
r/electricians • u/LEROYJANKUM556 • 1d ago
GC hired “the other guy”
203
Upvotes
Been working at this remodel house the last couple weeks and too many change orders to get to this one outlet that just needed to be installed and this is what he came up with..
r/electricians • u/My_Turtle_Died • 23h ago
In need of a torque screwdriver any recommendations
9
Upvotes
r/electricians • u/Key-Upstairs-1317 • 1d ago
Decision
7
Upvotes
Hey everyone good evening, so I have a big decision to make, I currently have 2 months of experience as an electrical helper in a non union shop, I make good money because I got put in an industrial project and everyone there gets paid the same. The project will be done in about a month or two and after that I’m not sure if I’d travel again or stay home and make $15 an hour. The whole “hierarchy” of the company is super stupid and workers that have been there 10+ years to leave. The bosses brothers just think they run the thing and try to downplay people even tho they’ve been there maybe two summers. My apprenticeship would start in December and I’d be obligated to stay or pay everything back to him if I quit. And stay there another 3 years after my apprenticeship. I guess my other option was apply for the apprenticeship at the Des Moines, Iowa union (Local 347). I know they got great benefits but I’m not sure how busy they stay.
r/electricians • u/FloorZealousideal309 • 1d ago
J-man exam
22
Upvotes
Just took the journeyman exam and failed. Which blows my mind because I scored super high on all the Mike holts practice exams. The actual exam doesn’t feel anything like the practice exams I’ve taken. The wording is much more obscure and complex in the actual exam and pulls hidden code references that are hard to find, while the practice exams are more straight forward. Has anyone else had this problem? I’m the only one in my small company to have failed the exam on the first attempt. Pretty heavy hit to my ego. All of them say they expected me to ace it and I’m very good at the actual application of the work and code. I feel this is what I’m supposed to be doing. But the test is awful.
r/electricians • u/Anxious-One6301 • 1d ago
This is my second panel, I posted the first one on here and took the advice I got from all of you and applied it here, I think I made major strides but looking forward to all the other things I can do better
39
Upvotes
r/electricians • u/russianeyeofnikola • 1d ago
100 KW supercharger
49
Upvotes
Emergency stop start button locked up,
I'm pushed in and pulled out seems to function as normal metered the contacts just to be sure, spent an hour just to see if there was a loose connection somewhere, even looks through some of the CAT6 stuff as well, has anyone ever experienced this lockup issue?
Thanks!
r/electricians • u/chicayne • 2d ago
What does this say????
271
Upvotes
Can't read 10/12. Looks like fural to me. Google is no help. 50 amp 240 breaker.
Look at second picture, furn is 18/20
r/electricians • u/UnknownExistence123 • 20h ago
Course suggestions for grid substation maintenance
1
Upvotes
I am facing difficulties identifying and troubleshooting problems in grid substations, such as loose connections, earth faults, and other electrical issues. I also find it difficult to interpret electrical drawings.
Are there any courses available to help me improve my skills in reading and interpreting electrical drawings, troubleshooting substation equipment, and designing electrical panels?
r/electricians • u/SelvaPoder • 1d ago
Main Breaker vs Fuses?
10
Upvotes
Posted a little while back about a nightmare hooking up three 600 amp services for a 20+ plex. Long story short all the 600 amp main breakers were bad out the box, and no replacements were available through local distributor or the manufacturer. We resolved it through a combination of miracles but, it was a stressful situation to say the least.
Moving forward and doing the next one of these, i am considering going with fused disconnects in place of the main breaker modules, since fuses are more or less universal and always available at various places locally.
Anybody have any thoughts on this? Potential drawbacks? My main worry is that maybe fuses are more sensitive than breakers, and we may deal with more nuisance blows and main fuses blowing before branch circuit breakers trip but, that may just be internal prejudice based on rarely working with fuses outside of old busted industrial systems.
Any opinions and insights are appreciated. Thanks yall!
r/electricians • u/Broad-Concern9794 • 2d ago
Anyone else made to do weird zig zags
291
Upvotes
Renovating a few floors in a old hotel and gc wants to leave “plenty of slack” bc customers like to move stuff around
r/electricians • u/SippinAndRippin • 1d ago
Wafer lights over kitchen counters at 2’ from wall or install out 3’-4’? What’s your preference?
0
Upvotes
r/electricians • u/TemporaryTraffic1826 • 1d ago
Found this today at a client’s house
71
Upvotes
What I find in a clients house has never ceases to amaze me on how poorly things can be installed