Latest / Watts Up with Bowling Green Winlectric / What Your Electrician Wants You to Know Before the Job Starts
Transcript
- Savannah Gillispie: Hey guys, thanks for joining in with us. This is our newest episode of Watts Up with Winlectric and we are joined by Scott Bledsoe. Hey Scott. Hey, how's it going? I'm with Buck Electric. Buck Electric. I was gonna mention that. He kind of stole my line. But anyway, Scott, geez, wait for your time, man. Geez. But he today we're gonna talk about the things that your electrician wants you to know before they arrive to your job site. But before that. Tell us a little bit about yourself. You've joined us before, but let's Yeah, this is my second time on. let's see. Scott Bletso, Buck Electric. Mm-hmm. This year we're celebrating thirty years of being in business, which is amazing. Yeah, it is. it is. It's it's a feat in itself. so be glad to talk to you about any of that. It's things that we need to know or that people need to know before they call me. Yeah, because you guys know what you need to know when you get to the site. a lot of times on the job sites we already know what we need to. We just need to fine tune it to make it exactly what you want. You know, we just want to know your input on how you would like the outcome to look like and we can follow you through the steps to make that happen. Right. So So let's say if if a customer were to tell you, you know, I just need a ceiling fan install. So I'm just throwing something out there. I need a ceiling fan install. What are some of the things that you're worried about before you ever step foot on the job site? You know, it's gonna be funny. And and the first thing that I'm gonna qu I'm gonna ask you is how tall is your ceiling? And I think you honestly need to know dimensions a little bit. Mm-hmm. Sometimes they'll be like, Scott, you know, you gotta bring an eight foot ladder and we get there and we should have brought a twenty foot ladder because it's a two story foyer that just, you know, is just it's going to the heavens. Right, right. And so a lot of times that's just gonna create a lot of you know, excessive time. Hey, we didn't bring enough ladder here or we brought too much ladder and we really only needed a six foot instead of an eight foot or a ten. We try to load everything up, but you know, you just can't always have everything. of course. So, you know, if you kind of know your dimensions on that, which you know, when you're picking your your light fixture out or when you're picking the ceiling fan out and things like that, a lot of times like, you know, Emily at Wynn or even yourself, you know, I've seen you guys come out and actually you know, give your advice on what type of fixture to use. At that point you're you're a little bit more educated and knowing the heights and stuff like that so that you know you could tell them, Hey, you need this chandelier, the chain's gonna be sixteen foot. That's also gonna help the customer 'cause then they'll be able to tell me, Hey, when electric's already been out here, we already know that the chain they said's gonna have to be sixteen foot. So to me I know that it's gonna be a really high ceiling. So we're already gonna be prepped on that. So with y'all's help it also helps. So yeah, it's that's one of the things that I know sometimes gets left off of a job. talking about a ceiling fan is the down rod length. It's one of the things we're always trying to make sure this in the we prioritize as a question because there's a big difference in what you need between a eight foot ceiling and a twelve foot ceiling. definitely. And and as you know, there's multiple different diameters of down rods. Mm-hmm. definitely different colors. And also for for a lot of customers out there, you can't disassemble the fan where it meets the down rod. We have to be at the ceiling. We have to be up there. A lot of people will be like, Well, the fan's only at eight foot, but they didn't tell you it has a ten foot down rod on You know, so you can't you can't disassemble it backwards to make that work. And and we have that's a common question. And everybody thinks about it and they're like, you're right. But it they don't realize it until they put you put it together in front of them. Right, right. So what what are some of the the hardest or most expensive changes that can happen if you're in a if you're in a rough end situation and A question doesn't get asked. Do you happen to have some quick advice for some of the the the hardest things to remedy after the fact and maybe the most expensive things? I gotcha. Yeah. So like on we're talking new construction, of course. So what when you have the new construction, open studs, open ceiling joists, open rafter you're you I mean the sky it's very easy for us to run a wire, even if you're not gonna use it for like wall sconces. so it's so much easier. So it's it's nice when you know you think, well maybe one day I may do a picture wall and I may want some sconces down this w or wanna light it differently. It's so much easier to run that wire now and so cost effective to do that. we may spend, you know, ten minutes of running that wire and spend eight dollars worth of wire to do that in that rough end situation. But then if you thought about it after you moved in and you're like, Hey, well then we're busting boxes out to add switches. Cutting drywall, unfortunately, to get that wire where you need to be at especially if it's a two-story house with no attic access, or even you know, the basement. But it is, it's very it's it's easy. So even when you're walking through with your electrician, I ask so many questions when we do a walkthrough and it kind of gets a little bit lengthy, of course, but I want to make sure if in the future you're gonna do something, let's see if we can future proof this. Right. Let's let's run a little bit extra here now. and even if you may not use it, you may have a dead switch for a little bit, but you know that's for a future sconce or something future. So Yeah, that's that's one of the things if I if I'm involved with you know, planning on a rough end, sometimes people will be like, Well, you know, I I don't think I'll need a plug there and I'm like you w put it. Yeah, let's let's let's put that there. If if you think this is gonna be a sitting area, we may have something here, let's make sure of it. Of course, you know, the code really dictates where your receptacles go and and things like that. You you know, as soon as you walk in the door, everybody doesn't know that within six foot you have to have an outlet, you know. Right. Plug, receptacle, outlet, whatever you guys call those. everybody has their own terminology for it. But then after that it's every twelve. Of course, so if you walk into a room and you have more than twelve feet in between the receptacle, you know that's not up to code, that it needed to be a little bit closer. so If you ever know of a specific piece of furniture that you have that needs an outlet, it's so much easier now to be like, I I really wish I would have put a plug there when I did the walkthrough, you know. but if you have a a ha a bigger house or even a regular house, if you go through and try to mark every plug, it's gonna take some time. Yeah. But I always tell the clients, hey, if you know specific location, tell me and then what we'll do is we'll fill the code in around that. Yeah. You know, I mean we'll just, you know, hey, I know that I need an outlet right here, I'm gonna have a desk, but Then we'll make sure that's there and then we'll make sure we're up to code with everything else. It's not like you guys mind putting a few extra receptacles in. I mean, you know, yeah, there may be an upcharge with it, but you want your customer to be happy. You know, I agreed a hundred percent. Is is there really an upcharge to that? No, we always go above code. you know, we'll run all of our receptacle outlets in 12 gauge wire, which is above code. I actually had an electrical inspector today call me and said, Scott, did this customer actually pay to have a receptacle on every stud? And I I laughed 'cause it it does have a lot of outlets in it. I tell I told him the same thing I tell clients. If there's too many, put some furniture in the room. You'll never notice. Right. You know, so if you ever rearrange, it's always gonna be there for you. Nobody ever real let's be honest, nobody ever really pays attention to receptacle. Switches, sure. But I mean you you'd be surprised. You'd be surprised. Some people say, I do not want an outlet on this wall and I have to remind them that Don't have a choice. Electrical code does a lot of things. Right. so we'll we'll move those to the baseboard. You know, if this this wall has a lot of decorative stuff going on, we actually can move them to the baseboard. So we're still within code, but it's taking it out of sight where you're not gonna see it, where if there's like decorative w Wayne's coating or anything like that. So we'll put horizontal on the baseboard. So are there some points of information that a homeowner should know about switch placement? I mean kind of In particular about you've got three different doors coming into a living room. Yeah, those open floor plans these days, every b you you got and three's slow. I mean, there's some living rooms, you walk in, you'll have six places to come into that one living room. It just seems so crazy. It does. And so what we do is what we do is actually we try to hide those switches. We'll put in the hallway instead of putting in the all in the living room. So when you walk in, you know, before you walk into the room you can actually put turn the switch on. So I try to hide those situations. And go minimum on those. But then like going to the master, you're gonna walk in and you may have ten switches there because you can turn off the far kitchen, the dining room, the living room at the master. So when you're going to bed, you can just click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click. You yeah, good point. well, we do try to hide those. code wise, you're supposed to be able to walk from inside and turn something on from outside, of course, when you walk in, and vice versa. If you walk outside of a door, you're supposed to be able to turn a light on to actually egress outside. So And that's where, you know, people are like, Well, I don't want switches at this door. Well, it's the only door, it's your main one. We have to have something to turn on or off. So we can definitely go downsized on that. So But you you know, the good thing is is you guys, you know, have that knowledge base where you can give some insight in what can and can't be done. Of course. but the big thing is they don't necessarily have to have a switch at each doorway. You're exactly right. They do not have to. Well say I was right, I was going off what you said because I didn't necessarily know that. Yeah, so it is, it is. And then of course, you know, with what we have going on now, they have a lot of systems and forgive me, I always for I always mess the name up of what brand is it that makes the we're reprogrammable switches and I can't think of the the one that you guys sell. we we have Leviton, Lutron and Shelley. Yeah, and the Shelley one. So all those three We could we could set up one switch that can control multiple things. So then you could really downsize. But of course you're gonna have to you know, you have to have a hub for stuff like that. And sometimes it's a little bit more than what one most people want and and I was gonna use another brand, control four that i we used to use a lot of of course and things. You could set it up to where there's one switch that can control one little area that can control a lot of things. Yes but for your normal just regular switches and stuff, you can be limited if you want to. So Yeah, and that's again, that's another thing. Do th does a homeowner want smart devices in their home, which would be something they should really think about before you come on site. It is. So a lot of houses from the late nineties and early two thousands, everybody was doing these smart homes and they were running all their switches in Cat's five at the time. Yeah. So now we're going in and trying to retrofit those with other things. So if you do decide to do that, I would highly recommend wiring the house normal. Mm-hmm. And then just adding the switches that you would need. So then in in five years, if something else comes out better, you can always go to that really easy, or if you get tired of the smart stuff, you could just replace it with a normal switch and just go back to turning it on and off when you need to. So those retrofits get pretty pretty hairy. So if you're if you're on a new build situation, how early should customers start thinking about when they need to get their light fixtures ordered? Okay, so what I do is when we do a walkthrough I'll either have a notepad ready or if they have one, when we go into that room and talk specifically about that room, I'll make them put on their list this is the light fixture that we would need. So they'll say, Okay, what are we gonna do? And I'm like, Well, let's do cans in here. I'll take care of that. They're non-decorative, so don't have to worry about it. And then you want a chandelier or a fan in here and they're like, Well, I want a fan. Well, this is a large room, so we can talk about the size of the fan that they would need, and then they could write that down. So usually what happens is they'll either contact you with that list or a lot of times you guys will come out also, but then they have it on their notebook. They walk into the room, hey Scott said that I'm gonna need a fan in here. I'm gonna need a va a vanity light. so we try to do that at the beginning. Usually when we do a rough end, within three to four months I'm gonna need light fixtures. And usually if they order right then, you'll have them in stock, boxed up, ready to go, or wrapped up is what you guys do. You'll have them all wrapped up. A lot of times people ask say say, well You know, I I just hate for you guys to have to set on I would love I love setting on stuff. I think that's the reason you guys have that new storage building. Yeah, that's a hundred percent the reason why we got it there. So yeah, I don't mind we never mind ordering things early. Please order stuff earlier rather than later. It makes the whole job. Well that that's what we were talking about on the down rods and stuff. So when you're when you're trying to get it when you're forced into buying something very quickly, you may not have the right colors and things like that. So it's always best to order early and and get that taken care of. It really It shouldn't, but it kinda stresses me sometimes when a customer comes in and I'm like, Well, you know, what are you looking for? like a ceiling fan. Okay, well, you know, this is something need to be in stock? Yeah, I gotta be in stock. Okay. It's something you need right now. I got electrician coming tomorrow. Yeah. Come on. Yeah. You got coming tomorrow. And we we we deal with that a lot. You know, or we'll hey it's ready and we get there and of course it's missing half the things and we get to a point and which is no problem. We work through that. Yeah. But it is d it does affect it. You can't get a final without your light fixtures. you're not gonna be able to move in without a final, so I mean it does affect it. So Yeah, and you don't wanna pay that extra the fee for the inspector to come down. Yeah, you definitely don't wanna do that. But ordering early is always good. But you know, you guys accommodate, you guys keep a lot of stuff in stock. I mean, it's gonna be the norm, you know, that you do keep the high sellers, let's put it that way. So So, do you have very many times come up where you just walk into a place that isn't you know, it's a not new construction. You're just called for a service call or something like that. And you come in and you're like, man, I wish that I'd been involved with this job because this room is way too underlit. Of course. as electricians and probably you also, there's no place that I don't walk in where I start counting light bulbs out or, you know, counting and being like looking at the way they did it and think, man, I could have I could have done this a little bit differently. it's just our our way of And that's not always to say that what was done was wrong. Not wrong. We just think that it could be done differently. Well, everybody thinks they could do it better. And no worries at all. I always think that there and even jobs that we do. I look at the end product, I'm like, we could have done this a little differently, but helps us on the next project. Right. Nothing was wrong, nothing was against code, just once you see it completely done, if you don't have a set of plans or prints, you gotta you're you're you're just doing it. So but yeah, s you you walk in, you start looking at things, but you know, if you If you over light something, and that's what I tell all my clients, they're always worried about over lighting it. I can put a dimmer on it. That's what if I under light it, I can't help you on that. So I always tell Not without cutting drywall, not without doing something major. So I always tell Hey, let's I know you said you may never use cans or or you know, extra lighting in this room. Let's talk about Christmas. Let's talk about when all the kids are here and and you you know, you need that extra light to make sure everybody's there. Game night. Game night. Yeah. I mean you just need more light. Let's go ahead and put the cans in here. in in the new construction phase of that, you're spending a couple hundred dollars and that's it. I can put a demo on if it's too bright. We could turn it off if you don't want to use it. You know what I mean? So it's there though. And if you'd never use it, I'm sorry if you never used it and we wasted your two hundred dollars, but if you did use it, you can thank me every time. Yeah. So is there and this is Maybe not even a question that's worth asking. it's always worth. That's actually a great question. And so there the code once again, the code does not allow the panel to be in a closet. Closet. Can't have it in a closet. Never have been able to I have seen some places that have been able to put them in there somehow, some way. It cannot be of course, in a bathroom. Bathroom. So you can't have it in a bathroom. It has to have three foot of clearance in front of it and thirty inches of width. So it it could be in a it could be in a thirty inch wide hallway at the very end of that hallway with three foot of clearance in front of it. It could be there. so I always recommend to make sure that you leave your panel accessible for future. So instead of putting it on a exterior wall in a garage where you can never access underneath it, I always want to put it on an interior wall so that you could always fish wires down underneath. So and I always want it to be in a accessible area for you. So the code changed in twenty well, we adopted the code from twenty twenty three this year where all residential houses have to have outdoor disconnects. Right. So with that said, we're already have an outdoor disconnect. So then what we would run in is some service entrance rate wire To go to a panel of the location of your choice. If you still want it in the closet or in not in a closet, excuse me. If you still want it in the garage, we can definitely do it. But I would do it on the shared wall of the house. utility rooms are great. You're allowed to have them in a utility room. a pantry, unfortunately, is a food closet, so you can't have that in there. So so you could easily put it in the utility room. and a lot of c people ask questions. Well, I've got a water heater. And then the panels right beside the water heater. How could that be code? Because it's water. Once again, you're allowed as long as you have your clearances, you can have the water heater could be right beside it and you're you're completely fine as long as you have all your clearances. back in the eighties and nineties you would always see panels and utility rooms and over a washing machine or over a dryer or something. They used to frown upon or didn't did not frown upon that. They won't allow that now. You know, we gotta make sure that we have our clearances. So Like to ask a question that would kind of apply to both new construction and a remodel or a or a service call. Is there one specific thing that you know of walking into each of those job sites that is your number one like red flag of had you known this ahead of time, had you had the homeowner told their electrician or the electrician asked the homeowner ahead of time that could have called that could have saved them a a major headache? Yeah, of course. one big big thing is you you walk into a house that could be let's say three thousand square foot or less or e or maybe even a little more if if everything's gas and hey we're we're doing addition or we need a a car charger or we're you know we're gonna need more power and and the house is already completely loaded up. Right. You know, they put a two hundred amp service there, it's maxed out. You can only the the code will only allow you to have so much heat load. And then if you're adding more, that means we're doing a service upgrade. So to me, if you ever have a house that is on the cusp of needing a four hundred amp service at the rough end portion at that time of a new construction, it is very very cost effective to go from a two hundred amp to a four hundred amp. If you've got room for advancement, larger area, you're gonna maybe do a detached garage, maybe one day you want a swimming pool. Hot tub, I mean the the sky's the end you know the end. you would at that point I would always recommend going up to a service of four hundred amp. Yeah. You're not paying more on the electric bill. There's nothing that's changed on it. So it's not like they're gonna say, you're you know, you use this much power and now you have a four hundred amp, it's this much more. It doesn't. It's the same thing. Right, because you're only paying for the initial yeah, the initial charge of the install. You're exactly right. So yeah, so it it definitely works out. That is one of the biggest things, you know, and and unfortunate with car chargers that are coming out these days and and things like that. you know, we'll walk into older homes that had only a hundred amp surface. Mm. So and since that house has been built, somebody has gone in and they put an electric water heater when it used to be gas. They've they put an electric stove when it used to be gas. So we're already walking into these homes that are already too much power, you know, is is is already at that at that time where it needs to be upgraded, is to do that upgrade on the electric surface. Right. Right. Yeah, that that's definitely I that's Honestly something I don't really think about much because that's not really my thing. I'm a lighting guy. Right. Well well, you know, the you know, and I have you know, they'll be like, Well, when electric told us how to do this and you know, we've done that, you know, and I'm like, Well, they didn't tell you how to do it, they supplied the material for you to do that. So but yeah, that is one of the biggest things is making sure that electric service is the right right size for you. So Well, Scott, I think we've hit our limit here on time for this episode. I know. It's already twenty minutes and it just seemed like it's been five. Yeah. Well I know we have some good desserts here. We do. We are gonna start eating a dessert. You aren't supposed to tell them that, Scott. I wanted to. I've been staring at it and I'm a sugar guy, so it's hard for me to have sweets in front of me and not eat. Yeah. So Well, we're gonna jump off here so we can start our sweet adventure here. But before that I'd like for you to mention again your name and contact. Thirty years. Thirty years this year, actually. So if you ever need anything Yeah. We're we are available. Well, go ahead and share your phone number just in case. Okay. 270-843-9995. You can reach them on Facebook, all that good jazz as well. There's a lot of ways to get in touch with us. Yep. And I'm Sean with Winlectric for another episode in the books of Watts up with Winlectric. Thanks, guys.