Why do commercial sparks bash house bashers?

[Electrics]

I've just started an apprenticeship with a decent sized firm (I got taken on full time - hooray!) and was thinking this week about how a lot of people, mostly online, turn their nose up at people who do domestic work.

I was wondering why, since at my work everybody seems to do the bare minimum but with most decent domestic sparks i know, they tend to go the extra mile.

Is there a difference in quality of workmanship simply because people want to do a better job for their own customers as opposed to commercial sparks who are simply getting the job done and aren't personally responsible for the final job?

Just seems to be a lot more 'just get it done' mentality on the commercial side.

Another thing i noticed is hardly anyone has the correct tools for the job and the tools they do have are mashed up.

So people will be using blunt cutters where the tip of one side has shattered off, or drivers with half the shaft insulation hanging off. Then there are other things which not bad but just 'doing it the hard way' like cutting PVC conduit with a hack saw having 3m of it flapping about instead of just buying a £10 pipe cutter, or using hammer and chisel/pad saw to cut out for back boxes where the wall is double skinned chipboard/plasterboard because nobody has a multi tool. Putting up conduit? Simply measure out from some maybe straight maybe wonky reference point and use your 6 inch torpedo level to get it right, instead of simply using a proper spirit level, making the job ten times easier.

When in the domestic setting it seems most people have the basic tools that make life easier.

Is it simply a case of 'not my job, don't care that much' on site compared with running private jobs directly in people's homes?

 

[Midwest]

I take it your employer does mainly domestic work?

Domestic work is pretty cutthroat, where the customers shop around for the cheapest price, without concerns for standards, so that doesn't help.

Well done on getting your apprenticeship by the way.

 

[Electrics]

I take it your employer does mainly domestic work?

Domestic work is pretty cutthroat, where the customers shop around for the cheapest price, without concerns for standards, so that doesn't help.

Well done on getting your apprenticeship by the way.

Cheers mate.

And we do everything - heavy industrial, commercial, domestic, call outs, emergency testing, the lot.

Right now i'm on a commercial job. The lads i'm working with are all great lads but i just noticed there's not much investment going on in the tool department and if appropriate materials aren't provided then they don't get used so ie if all they can find in their bag is a not-so-ideal-sized connector block, it will do.

Not provided with ferrules where imo they're needed, so they're not used. If wago's will speed the job up but the supervisor wants to save money then they won't be used and we have to join in other ways like blocks.

I just find it weird that instead of providing wago's that take literally less than 5 seconds you'll be made to use blocks with stranded cable which imo is shoddy and takes like 10 times longer. Or that there'll be one person on site with an SDS but its battery will be half dead at all times because it needs a new one but nobody will buy it lol.

Anyway the point of the thread was a lot of commercial sparks laugh at domestic sparks but i'm finding out that the commercial side is hardly a haven of electrical engineering so i'm wondering what gives. Is it just banter or is it just the typical tradesman thing of thinking you do it best and everyone else is crap? We all do it. I go in a house and i'm looking for one thing that's slightly out of shape or not quite level so i can go 'look at the state of that' - i've been a builder since leaving school so its bred into me haha.

 

[loz2754]

I read it that the OP has got an apprenticeship with a commercial firm. And that he has noticed a difference in work ethic between commercial and domestic.
Either way, I'd guess it's more to do with whoever runs the company than it is the individual tradesmen. There are good companies and less good companies in both fields.

 

[nicebutdim]

'Get it done' could stem from deadlines that entail financial penalties on commercial contracts, if handover isn't on time.

There's also the fact that materials supplied will tend to be the materials used - whether your colleagues are employed directly or sub-contractors, they'll have an uphill struggle claiming for additional materials. If 30A connector blocks are supplied, then that's most likely what they'll use as alternatives would be funded out of their own pockets.

Not sure I've ever seen a length of conduit installed using a torpedo level - generally it's quickest and easiest to throw up a line from a laser level.

 

[Midwest]

With regard materials, your employer provides them for you, so you have to use them and make the best job of it you can. Remember connector blocks were around before Wago's, although I agree with you.

The tools, I take you provide your own hand tools? If you do, be careful of your envious work colleagues!

 

[Electrics]

'Get it done' could stem from deadlines that entail financial penalties on commercial contracts, if handover isn't on time.

There's also the fact that materials supplied will tend to be the materials used - whether your colleagues are employed directly or sub-contractors, they'll have an uphill struggle claiming for additional materials. If 30A connector blocks are supplied, then that's most likely what they'll use as alternatives would be funded out of their own pockets.

Not sure I've ever seen a length of conduit installed using a torpedo level - generally it's quickest and easiest to throw up a line from a laser level.

Yep....problem is literally nobody has one.

I take in a 4ft level because it does the job but everyone else uses torpedos. Very difficult to get it bang on straight with those.

 

[Electrics]

With regard materials, your employer provides them for you, so you have to use them and make the best job of it you can. Remember connector blocks were around before Wago's, although I agree with you.

The tools, I take you provide your own hand tools? If you do, be careful of your envious work colleagues!

I provide all my own tools (mainly because i have them all already) and so do the other lads but some of their toolkits are falling to bits.

There's one guy and i don't think he has anything that's not half broken or malfunctioned in his bag. You know like screwdrivers all taped up with mashed ends that don't fit properly anymore, he's using a 6 year old blade in his knife, he's got two pairs of cutters - one has half one cutting side snapped off and the others need a whole can of WD40 spraying on them because they're so rusty they can barely be used.

Regardless of fitting everything is tightened using one pair of grips, usually resulting in mashed up fixings.

That sort of crack.

 

[westward10]

I've noticed on here people who have obsessions with hand and power tools with some threads stretching on for weeks, I really don't get it. Judge a person by their work and not the age and quality of their tools. Here are my cutters for everyday, the Channellock ones I bought in the early 1980s and the red pair seem fine to me.

 

[buzzlightyear]

i call the some commercial sparks fairy bottle boys cause they dont like there hands dirty, i do both saw i know one day a can keep clean and some days i get dirty when i was young and sprite i had blond hair chasing out go home ginger and now old grey is go home ginger ,so ginger rules ok.