Having been fortunate to learn my trade across the domestic, commercial, healthcare and industrial sectors I find the perceptions that some people have of the different sectors quite interesting to say the least
There is far more to the industrial sector than just the "metal munching" that some believe it is all about, the company I served my apprenticeship with and stayed with for a few years post apprenticeship quite often sent electricians and sometimes apprentice's on loan to the big industrial companies locally when they needed electricians to cover for staff holidays or just needed an electrician or two to help out with plant upgrades, the work varied from minor installation work to fault finding on machines some of which were quite complex and occasionally with the added pressure of stopped production. There is something that is quite satisfying about turning up to a machine fault, picking up the wiring diagram and fixing the problem in less than an hour never having seen the machine before
I always remember one fault many years ago, customer rang up and asked us how quickly we could fix a fault at his site as he was likely to lose a £25k machine full of glue if it was off for more than 2 hours as the glue would set solid, I arrived on site about 10 minutes later and found the main 3 phase switch fuse to the factory had a burnt out switch contact, got someone back at our office to locate a new switch fuse of the same make and model and get it to me while I started stripping out the damaged switch after persuading the DNO to let me pull the cut out fuses and prepare it as much as possible for the new switch fuse when it landed. When the new switch fuse arrived we only had about 30 mins to meet the 2 hour deadline which we did make just much to the customers relief. With domestic you don't get those pressure moments
Every sector has it's pro's and con's, it's positives and negatives and a lot of the techniques used do crossover and can be effectively adapted between all the sectors of the industry
Do I have a preference over the sector I work in and the answer is no, I just enjoy solving those faults that others have failed to find and fix
My question would be what makes a good all round electrician these days when there are those who are hell bent on splitting the the industry up into domestic, commercial and industrial etc. I'm not a ................(insert an industry sector) Electrician, I am and consider myself an Electrician as it was taught when I went to college trained so they could work in any sector they chose
There is far more to the industrial sector than just the "metal munching" that some believe it is all about, the company I served my apprenticeship with and stayed with for a few years post apprenticeship quite often sent electricians and sometimes apprentice's on loan to the big industrial companies locally when they needed electricians to cover for staff holidays or just needed an electrician or two to help out with plant upgrades, the work varied from minor installation work to fault finding on machines some of which were quite complex and occasionally with the added pressure of stopped production. There is something that is quite satisfying about turning up to a machine fault, picking up the wiring diagram and fixing the problem in less than an hour never having seen the machine before
I always remember one fault many years ago, customer rang up and asked us how quickly we could fix a fault at his site as he was likely to lose a £25k machine full of glue if it was off for more than 2 hours as the glue would set solid, I arrived on site about 10 minutes later and found the main 3 phase switch fuse to the factory had a burnt out switch contact, got someone back at our office to locate a new switch fuse of the same make and model and get it to me while I started stripping out the damaged switch after persuading the DNO to let me pull the cut out fuses and prepare it as much as possible for the new switch fuse when it landed. When the new switch fuse arrived we only had about 30 mins to meet the 2 hour deadline which we did make just much to the customers relief. With domestic you don't get those pressure moments
Every sector has it's pro's and con's, it's positives and negatives and a lot of the techniques used do crossover and can be effectively adapted between all the sectors of the industry
Do I have a preference over the sector I work in and the answer is no, I just enjoy solving those faults that others have failed to find and fix
My question would be what makes a good all round electrician these days when there are those who are hell bent on splitting the the industry up into domestic, commercial and industrial etc. I'm not a ................(insert an industry sector) Electrician, I am and consider myself an Electrician as it was taught when I went to college trained so they could work in any sector they chose