Why do people have to half a$$ jobs

[Jonnio]

So after an evening of troubleshooting why my nearly new house which, all of the sudden, can't keep from flipping the breaker in the office I ponder to myself. Why do people have to do such a half a$$ job on things that their work can't last?

Tomorrow I get to cut enough sheetrock out of a 14' wall to refish new electrical wiring so that I can redo a wire that has a short. I am betting $50 that I find a staple that was hammered in past the insulation on the wiring and has just now broken through.

/end rant

 

[Amiaji]

As an electrician I know what you are talking about. Most people only want the lowest price with no concern of the quality of the work. After 3 and a half years of being in business for myself I finally gave it up because I insisted on doing quality work but couldnt charge any more than then the ones doing ****ty work. It took more time to do it right the first time but nobody wanted to pay for it.

 

[Jonnio]

As an electrician I know what you are talking about. Most people only want the lowest price with no concern of the quality of the work. After 3 and a half years of being in business for myself I finally gave it up because I insisted on doing quality work but couldnt change any more than then the ones doing ****ty work. It took more time to do it right the first time but nobody wanted to pay for it.

Yeah, there are some things I don't want done cheaply...mainly those are the things that can burn my place down when I not home.

 

[Amiaji]

Yeah, there are some things I don't want done cheaply...mainly those are the things that can burn my place down when I not home.

Try as I might I couldn"t convince most people of that fact. Also of the fact it is alot cheaper to do it now than to redo it later....

 

[Jonnio]

Yeah, redoing wiring once sheetrock is up is the worst!

 

[BrewBrain]

Turns out my current house was one big do-it-yourself project for the previous owner. He sucked at DIY.

 

[k1v1116]

I know how you feel. Our current house had extension cords strung through the walls when we moved in. when I was a little younger I worked with my dad doing carpentry / cabinetry we saw some ridiculous things, electricians and plumbers that took all the garbage they made (sheetrock, plumbing, wiring scraps) and shoved it into a wall, floor, or ceiling that was open at the time so the next person who opens it up gets a face full of crap. Ive seen sheetrockers sheetrock right over more than half of the outlets in a house, the electrician came back the next day and smashed holes in the sheetrock everywhere they covered up an outlet and told them to fix it.

 

[Jonnio]

Well, after venting and sitting here with a glass of Octoberfest off the keg its not so bad....I am sure come tomorrow when I start cutting out sheetrock I will be ticked off all over again though

Anyway, thanks for letting me rant all, the wife was already in bed and probably didn't want to hear it anyway.

 

[Amiaji]

Well, after venting and sitting here with a glass of Octoberfest off the keg its not so bad....I am sure come tomorrow when I start cutting out sheetrock I will be ticked off all over again though

Anyway, thanks for letting me rant all, the wife was already in bed and probably didn't want to hear it anyway.

Glad we could help. It will get better I promise.

 

[Jaybird]

as an electrician myself (15+ years), have you thought about just leaving the sheetrock and pulling a new romex through the walls, and abandoning the old romex? There are ways to do that you know. I am not sure what your project looks like, but I haven’t seen a wall I couldn’t get through yet.
Just a thought.

 

[Bernie Brewer]

It's also possible that a drywall screw is what is causing your dead short, too. but that too would be the Sparky's fault for not centering it well enough in the stud.

 

[Fingers]

as an electrician myself (15+ years), have you thought about just leaving the sheetrock and pulling a new romex through the walls, and abandoning the old romex? There are ways to do that you know. I am not sure what your project looks like, but I haven’t seen a wall I couldn’t get through yet.
Just a thought.

Okay, I have to know how you do that. I have projects that could really benefit from a skill like that. Do you have a link?

 

[Bernie Brewer]

Okay, I have to know how you do that. I have projects that could really benefit from a skill like that. Do you have a link?

You come up through the basement. Or down from the attic, if you don't have a basement.........

 

[Fingers]

You come up through the basement. Or down from the attic, if you don't have a basement.........

Oh. Well, I've done that. I thought maybe you had some secret that keeps me out of my attic. Blown cellulose fibre. Yech.

 

[Jaybird]

Okay, I have to know how you do that. I have projects that could really benefit from a skill like that. Do you have a link?

There are several ways to do it. I have a ton of useful tools to do such jobs. I have drills that are 4, 5 and even 6 footers. I have snakes that are lighted and glow and even make noise and vibrate in the walls. I have an arsenal of tools of the trade. I also know you can buy some of the CHEEP versions of the tools I have at places like Harbor Freight. W/ a drill, a snake and a flashlight there isn’t very many walls you can’t get through. But every one of them takes patience and persistence.
Good luck
Cheers
JJ

 

[Jaybird]

Oh. Well, I've done that. I thought maybe you had some secret that keeps me out of my attic. Blown cellulose fibre. Yech.

Oh no brother your gonna get dirty doing it!!!!Either way
JJ

 

[The Pol]

If your house is that new, it seems that would be an item most assuredly covered by the warranty... When we moved into our new home, we had a few small items for the first couple weeks, but thankfully nothing that required knocking holes in walls.

 

[talleymonster]

as an electrician myself (15+ years), have you thought about just leaving the sheetrock and pulling a new romex through the walls, and abandoning the old romex? There are ways to do that you know. I am not sure what your project looks like, but I haven’t seen a wall I couldn’t get through yet.
Just a thought.

Word, Jaybird.

 

[Jonnio]

There are several ways to do it. I have a ton of useful tools to do such jobs. I have drills that are 4, 5 and even 6 footers. I have snakes that are lighted and glow and even make noise and vibrate in the walls. I have an arsenal of tools of the trade. I also know you can buy some of the CHEEP versions of the tools I have at places like Harbor Freight. W/ a drill, a snake and a flashlight there isn’t very many walls you can’t get through. But every one of them takes patience and persistence.
Good luck
Cheers
JJ

I thought about that Jay and I pretty much have two options. Do like you said and go buy the tools to fish like that or use the tools that I have.

Maybe you can give me some advice on what you would do in my shoes (not if I hired you to do it) because I have 3 concerns.

1) Its a 12' high (about 14' long) wall on the outside of the house, that makes drilling down from the attic very difficult because you have to fight the eves/roof etc while your in the attic and the fire blocking and the insulation the whole way down. When I had the cable company out a while ago they quoted me I think $300 to fish the adjacent wall to this one like that.

2) The wire in question likely runs under a large window, at least that is the shortest way to get from point a to point b, so I was a little nervous about adding additional holes to the 2x4 supports.

3) If I do find the cause of the short I would kind of like proof of it because I have fought with the builder on electrical issues on this house before (non GFI outlets in the kitchen is the one that comes to mind). However, if I can knock this out in an evening vs. the three that is required to cut access panels in the sheetrock and re mud/tape them then I would be willing to forgo that.

As far as warranty the house is about 2 1/2 years old, so we are just out of the warranty period for this kind of stuff, so I am just thankful that I don't have to pay an electrician to do the work and that the house didn't burn down instead of trip a breaker.

 

[wihophead]

To address the original post....One of the big problems is that not all states require electricians to be licensed and only require one Journeyman to be "on sight" to oversee the work. So what commonly happens is companies will use high school students, college students or immigrant labor to wire houses to keep labor costs down.

I don't know the exact situation of the GFCI receptacles but if they truly were not in a required area I would start to question what the hell the inspectors are doing.....


If you do decide to try fishing in some new NM-B Home Depot carries a nice variety of Greenlee products such as DVersiBITs and fish Stix. I have found that a lot of tools are cheaper at HD then the local electrical supply shop.

Good luck

 

[menschmaschine]

non GFI outlets in the kitchen is the one that comes to mind

Just in case you don't already know (and the electricians can correct me if I'm a little off here), GFCI receptacles aren't necessarily required in kitchens and bathrooms. I mean, they are required, but that doesn't mean every receptacle has to be GFCI. So, if around your kitchen countertop, you have numerous receptacles, but only see 1 or 2 GFCI receptacles, the non-GFCI receptacles are sequentially in the same circuit as the GFCI receptacles and would function the same as if they were a GFCI receptacle.

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

Just in case you don't already know (and the electricians can correct me if I'm a little off here), GFCI receptacles aren't necessarily required in kitchens and bathrooms. I mean, they are required, but that doesn't mean every receptacle has to be GFCI. So, if around your kitchen countertop, you have numerous receptacles, but only see 1 or 2 GFCI receptacles, the non-GFCI receptacles are sequentially in the same circuit as the GFCI receptacles and would function the same as if they were a GFCI receptacle.

IIRC, GFCI's are required by the NEC if the outlet is within 6 foot of a water source or in an area where water is likely to be around.

 

[menschmaschine]

IIRC, GFCI's are required by the NEC if the outlet is within 6 foot of a water source or in an area where water is likely to be around.

That's probably right or at least close, but I mean if a regular receptacle is in the same circuit, down the line from a GFCI receptacle... if something were to overload the circuit, the GFCI up the line would get tripped and shut down the circuit just like you were plugged directly into it.

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

As an electrician I know what you are talking about. Most people only want the lowest price with no concern of the quality of the work. After 3 and a half years of being in business for myself I finally gave it up because I insisted on doing quality work but couldnt charge any more than then the ones doing ****ty work. It took more time to do it right the first time but nobody wanted to pay for it.

I was a Custom Home Theater installer. I made most of my money repairing f%^ked up wiring jobs too. Builders would use their alarm companies to install the wiring. "It's all low voltage right", "Not every house has a Theater but, they all get alarms", blah, blah, blah.

The final straw for me is when I came to a house 3 months occupied. 3 story. The brilliant alarm tech ran cat 5, 300 foot of the stuff, as SPEAKER wire. The Owner kept overloading his amp. IIRC, my ohmeter resulted a reading of like 2 Ohms. The amp wanted 8.

 

[wihophead]

The 2005 NEC code required all receptacles serving a counter top surface in a kitchen to be GFCI protected.

 

[menschmaschine]

The 2005 NEC code required all receptacles serving a counter top surface in a kitchen to be GFCI protected.

I just read the IRC and it said the same thing. But the key words are "ground fault circuit interrupter protection". This doesn't mean every receptacle has to be a GFCI receptacle. It just means every receptacle on the countertop has to have that protection. So, if this can be achieved by having a GFCI receptacle up the line from regular receptacles, then that would work too.

 

[Saccharomyces]

I just read the IRC and it said the same thing. But the key words are "ground fault circuit interrupter protection". This doesn't mean every receptacle has to be a GFCI receptacle. It just means every receptacle on the countertop has to have that protection. So, if this can be achieved by having a GFCI receptacle up the line from regular receptacles, then that would work too.

This is how our house is done (2003). All of the outside outlets are on the same circuit as a garage outlet which has the GFCI, and all the kitchen outlets are on a second circuit which has a single GFCI to the left of the sink.

 

[wihophead]

I just read the IRC and it said the same thing. But the key words are "ground fault circuit interrupter protection". This doesn't mean every receptacle has to be a GFCI receptacle. It just means every receptacle on the countertop has to have that protection. So, if this can be achieved by having a GFCI receptacle up the line from regular receptacles, then that would work too.

Yes that is correct I didn't think that was a question but also ALL receptacles protected by a GFCI receptacle are required to be labeled as such....

 

[wihophead]

This is how our house is done (2003). All of the outside outlets are on the same circuit as a garage outlet which has the GFCI, and all the kitchen outlets are on a second circuit which has a single GFCI to the left of the sink.

That doesn't sound right....a kitchen is required to have two separate 20A small appliance circuits serving the counter top...

 

[Jonnio]

The 2005 NEC code required all receptacles serving a counter top surface in a kitchen to be GFCI protected.

This was my argument - the outlets were not GFI protected. They said they were too far from the sink, so they didn't need to be. I argued until I was blue in the face and just fixed it myself.

 

[Jonnio]

I just read the IRC and it said the same thing. But the key words are "ground fault circuit interrupter protection". This doesn't mean every receptacle has to be a GFCI receptacle. It just means every receptacle on the countertop has to have that protection. So, if this can be achieved by having a GFCI receptacle up the line from regular receptacles, then that would work too.

Yeah, I misworded the original post, they weren't protected, I do realize that one GFCI outlet can provide protection for the entire string of outlets if it is wired correctly.

 

[wihophead]

This was my argument - the outlets were not GFI protected. They said they were too far from the sink, so they didn't need to be. I argued until I was blue in the face and just fixed it myself.

I think that only applies to a wet bar....where in the hell was the inspector...

 

[menschmaschine]

This was my argument - the outlets were not GFI protected. They said they were too far from the sink, so they didn't need to be. I argued until I was blue in the face and just fixed it myself.

That sucks that you had to pay for it! Here's the IRC reference. It's pretty clear:

E3802.6 Kitchen receptacles. All 125-volt, single-phase, 15-
and 20-ampere receptacles that serve countertop surfaces shall
have ground-fault circuit-interrupter protection for personnel.

 

[Jonnio]

I think that only applies to a wet bar....where in the hell was the inspector...

I was wondering the same thing.

Here's the IRC reference. It's pretty clear:

I quoted that to them as well, but they just said it wasn't the same electrical code, when they said that I didn't take the time to go dig out what version of the NEC the local area used, I just chalked it up to a learning experience and moved on. Hehe, anyway, that's all done and over with.

 

[Jonnio]

For those of you following my rant -- Apparently we came a lot closer to losing our house than I had originally thought. I cut a hole in the sheetrock looking for the wire and didn't find it, so I went up to the attic digging around. Here is what I found.

 

[Chriso]

Whoa! That's scary as **** man! I'm glad you were able to find the cause - and BEFORE it became serious!!!

 

[Jonnio]

Whoa! That's scary as **** man! I'm glad you were able to find the cause - and BEFORE it became serious!!!

Yeah, I about crapped my pants when I saw that...I am very glad for the invention of arc fault circuit breakers.

 

[Bernie Brewer]

For those of you following my rant -- Apparently we came a lot closer to losing our house than I had originally thought. I cut a hole in the sheetrock looking for the wire and didn't find it, so I went up to the attic digging around. Here is what I found.

Nice! On the bright side, you are able to fix it without ripping up your walls!

 

[Jonnio]

Nice! On the bright side, you are able to fix it without ripping up your walls!

Yup, a junction box and about 20 minutes to fix the exploratory hole I cut and I am good to go.

 

[RIBeer]

We currently rent the upstairs apartment from my in-laws while we save for our own house. My FIL insists on only going with the cheapest estimate he can get for repair work, so here's where the apartment currently stands.

1. Electrical work started 2004 - contractor upgraded outlets to 3-prong grounded ones. Also ran a new 220 line for the stove. Result: 3 outlets still don't work, I had to repair the 2x2 hole they smashed in the kitchen wall to run a 1" wire, and we still have no outlets in the kitchen - everything is run on extension cords from the hallway and living room. Quote from August 2004: "We'll be back next week to finish the job". FIL won't call them back because he's not sure how much they billed him for the job and doesn't think he should have to spend any more money on it.

2. Fence installed around side yard to contain kids -we live on a busy street, and people take the corner like they're in the last freaking lap of the Indy 500. MIL didn't shut the gate and the wind blew it open and back shut, breaking the latch off and shattering a good portion of the gate. Contractor called 2 months later - showed up 3 weeks later, said "I'll be back next week - I have to order the parts" This was September of 2007....

3. Original windows were replaced 10 years ago. The seals for the double panes all failed within a year, making the windows impossible to see through. FIL called them back and they were replaced. Happened again within a year - never called them back. Stairway window and big picture window are still original and so rotten I could push them out of the house without an effort. Got a call at work yesterday that a contractor was coming to replace them that day, and that I needed to move everything away from the windows. contractor never showed. Any bets on when they will be replaced? My guess is June of 2010. Doesn't really matter though - house is on one thermostat downstairs - set it at 60 there, we have to keep 2 windows open all winter or it hits 80. Probably better off with the rotten windows.


The moral of the story is.....You get what you pay for!