/diy/ - Do It Yourself

Tell me your reaction to this word:

Conduit.


Also, do you prefer: Knipex, Klein, Ideal, Greenlee, Wera or ?????

How much do you make annually?
How long did you go to college for?
How did you pay for it?

>>36586
in illinois we run hardpipe. it means EMT.

klein.

>>36587
this, also if you enjoy your job

>>36600
yes, I know, but how does it make you FEEL?

>>36587
i make $40.00/ hour. with overtime and sidejobs i make around 60,000. i went to a trade school, but i was hired before i enrolled. my boss paid for it.

>>36608
good.

>>36606
Yes, i really do. I like the guys I work with and I enjoy the work. The only downsides are working in hot summers and cold winters.

>>36600

Do you think their quality has gone down? I've heard alot of guys say that their screwdrivers suck now.

How long in the trade?

>>36618
sadly i do. I love their linemans but I have cracked the mini flat head on their 11 in one twice now. I recently bought a Milwaukee 10 in one and am digging it. As far as specialty screw drivers I have had the same set for a couple years with no complaints.

>>36621
11 years.

kind of personal, but in your opinion are you "built" for the job? physically i mean.

>>36625
Thanks. I've been debating buying Klein drivers. Their dikes are my all time favorite tho, most of their stuff is.

That Milwaukee is sweet too, the ECX bit is really growing on me.

>>36636
haha, nice.

>>36643
wut?

>>36638
yeah dude, totally agree. I get a hardon tightening fittings now. fucker really grabs. that wire stripper on the side is a joke though.

>>36655
my teeth are a better wire stripper

>>36666
my quads, check em

>>36666
so i take it you are an electrician. where?

>>36673
Well I know you're gonna judge me, but I'm not IBEW, I'm an IATSE entertainment electrician in Michigan.

>>36666
>my teeth are a better wire stripper
mfw this guy gets quads

>>36679
i don't care about that shit. union is union.

>>36686
word.

What do you primarily work in? Resi/commercial, some of everything?

>>36681
its true. everyone has stripped wires with their teeth and its a joke of a wire stripper. also.

>caring about quads

>>36692
like 90% residential and 10% commercial. I work mainly in Chicago for rich people. Doing a house now I've been on for 8 months, about to start trimming.

>>36698
O.o how big is the service?

>>36712
800 amps.

>>36720
have any pics?

>>36731
i have tiny pics on my flip phone that doesn't have the capability of connecting to my computer.

>>36734
>flipphone
>2011

>>36752
whatever man. i use my phone to talk.

I live in illinois in a house built in 1908. The electrical was redone somewhere around the 1950s. There isn't really a proper ground bar, so I can't use a few electronics.

I've swapped out breaker boxes before at my old job, and I've done it hot more often than not, so I'm comfortable doing it on my own, but I was wondering if illinois requires that I get a permit/use a contractor...?

Thanks whether or not you know. I only use about 90kwh/year, so it isn't a huge deal.

so, meters/powertools. Favorite brands?

>>36758
you can buy a grounding bus and just screw it to your panel and ground from there. it sounds like your panel isn't grounded though. how many amps is your service?

>>36769
I use Panasonic drills. I just bought a little 12v milwaukee impact driver that i like. my sawzall is a porter cable. hand tools i like klein, channel lock, and lennox. how bout you.

>>36784
I've been a DeWaltfag most of my life, but the newer Milwaukee stuff is winning me over.

Hand tools are Klein, Channellock and Ideal.

I try to go made in USA when I can, but what is these days?

>>36806
what ideal hand tools do you like over klein? i bought a pair of their dykes and gave them away after a day. i do prefer their fish tapes though.

>>36806
also ideal benders are superior to the new klein benders imo.

>>36772
Its standard 100A residential service.

I really doubt the panel is grounded. The original system had that ceramic insulator faggotry going on. Its super old, what wires are left are frayed, and many of the screws are locked up or missing, so I'm looking at a new panel anyway.

>>36809
Their telecomm/lowvolt stuff, entertainment tech means I could be hooking into 400 amp cam locks one day and running cat5 and coax the next.

Also, this is my favorite thing <<<

>>36809
also, this thing

>>36813
ive worked with the ceramic, floating wires a lot. its called knob and tube and its fucked up. is your current electrical system piped? 1950's illinois you should have heavy ass black pipe. its hard for me to give you advice without knowing more.

>>36818
i dont even know what that is. most of the low voltage i work with gets subbed out to specialty companies. we generally just pipe and pull their wires and they trim.

>>36824
its made to strip the outer jacket off of cables, I use it mainly on SOOW.

>>36827
thats pretty cool. ive never worked with soow. what exactly do you do day to day?

What do you know about EOT cranes ?
(electric overhead traveling)

They dont teach much about them in most
locals.

>>36822
No, there isn't any piping. The mains line comes in through a pipe in the roof, down to the panel, but that's it. The rest of the system was 90% gutted. There are still insulators all over the attic, but there are only two sets of wires. One goes to a floodlight, and the other goes to an outlet without a ground. It might be a system from anywhere between 1930 up until three prong became the norm. Most of the last major work took place on the house in the 30's and 40's, and its been abandoned off and on for the last 40 years.

>>36833
nothing at all. sorry.

whats the most advanced electrical / EM / etc concept you 1. had to learn 2. happen to know

>>36834
every electrical opening you have needs to have a ground wire going from it to the panel if its not piped. from the panel you should run a #6 wire from the grounding bus you need to buy to where your water comes into your house. you need to clamp that wire to the street side and home side of the pipe. also please tell me you at least have romex.

Just read that you mostly do res.
The crane company I work for uses
IBEW guys at the mills in East Chicago/Gary

Heavy industry sparkies are a different breed.
DC motor controls is my specialty.

Ever had to deal with any bad weather situations that required your work? Like hurricanes and tornadoes.

>>36830
Gosh, such a question.

In a nutshell, a day often includes (usually not all of these in a day, depends on the size of the event) tying in to power/metering power, distributing power, powering lighting, sound and rigging equipment, troubleshooting sound/lighting/rigging/data and repairs to any of the above.

Some days can be really boring just pushing boxes type thing, and other's can require some rather specialized skills, especially since my industry seems hell bent on finding a use for every type of connector manufactured.

>>36847
nothing really spectacular man. its a pretty straight forward trade. whole house generators and smart lighting systems are a little tricky until you learn them i guess.

>>36852
...my house doesn't have any plumbing, bro.

I have a few partial spools of romex I bought off a contractor, but all of the in use wiring is fiber wrapped(?) and more similar to power cords from the turn of the last century (the types you screwed into lamp sockets before the 60Hz convention) than anything else I've seen.

>>36864
sounds like a lot of constant training. my job is much less stressful.

>>36873
yeah, but it's also a lot of fun, meet a lot of very interesting people.

>>36872
pretty sure you're trolling me but if you have no plumbing, buy a 10' copper ground rod and drive it into the ground leaving 3 inches out of the ground. clamp your #6 wire to the ground rod and screw it to your grounding bus.

>>36872
no plumbing? wtf do you live in a crack shack?

>>36887
Not even trolling. I'm pretty sure the only reason that the steam radiators are the only thing left in the house other than the chimney is because they're over 300lbs each.

There shouldn't be a problem with driving that ground rod in the crawlspace, right? I've got access panels to get it down there, and I really don't want the scrap hawks seeing me jam 10' of copper into the ground in my lawn.

>>36894
Nah, man. Its just a regular old gutted house. I haven't decided if I'm going to tear it down, or get the foundation and frame fixed yet.

>>36919
crawlspace would be fine. also in your scenario the best thing to do would be abandon the house electric and install a new outlet near the panel with pipe connecting a metal box to the panel and run an extension cord(s) to wherever you need power and buy some lamps.

>>36933
I actually did what you suggested when I first got the house, but I took it out after about a year when I started reading into illinois electrical codes and started to get worried i'd get raped if an engineer saw it during an inspection.

I can use solar for everything I need. I've got an 800w array, a four marine deep cycle bank, and a 1000w inverter, and it powers everything from my coffee pot, to my electric blanket (awesome thing to have in a house with nothing but siding keeping the winter out). I've got the charging circuit set up so I can charge it with my car on cloudy/excessive usage days. Really only use the mains for power tools that the inverter can't handle.

sounds like you're good to go bro. good luck with the plumbing.

>>36951
It really makes me appreciate the convenience of living in a truck 330 days a year.

>>36962
if you are not in a truck only 22 days a year why not just stay in hotels instead of going to the same abandoned house with your solar power electric. is it because you are full of shit maybe?

>>36991
ya gotta cook your meth somewhere

>>36962
Why not just live in the truck the other 35?

>>36991
he's from /o/, he's legit

>>37064
his story is not believable. i don't doubt hes a truck driver but he is clearly exaggerating his road time.

>>37076
>>36991
I had to live somewhere before I started driving a truck. I own it outright, and I still need to check the mail, mow the lawn, and trim the trees in the summer, and in the winter, I have to scare off the larger vermin and try to report a roof collapse to my insurance company in a timely manner.

I stay out on the road 3-6 weeks at a time, and I'm only home as often as home ownership beckons me, typically for 1-2 days.

I've got the option of being home every 10 days, but why would I do that, especially in the winter?

Paying $400/ year in property taxes is a lot cheaper than renting out storage for 5 cars and all of my stuff, as well. I seriously looked into selling the house and storing all of my crap, and it'd cost an extra $200/year just for one parking space.

Also,
>330+22= 352 days/year
What calendar are you going by?