More difficult than working under a mobile home, in muddy and wet conditions, in the cold, on rocky ground, is working in a hot attic.  I have never taken the temperature of an attic I was working in, but I know they are always several degrees hotter than the outside ambient air temperature, and in the summer that means Extremely Hot.  The sun bakes down on the roof, there is no air movement, and (usually) no insulation under the roof.

On top of that (literally), attic insulation is blown in.  Some are blown in insulation is very bad.  And all of the various kinds of insulation stick to you when you are working in an attic.

One job I had to do in an attic, in warm weather, involved a building where the access hole to the attic was about 60 feet (as the electrician crawls) from the panel.  The access (or “scuttle”) hole was located in a new addition that I was wiring.  The panel was located in the original building structure.  To get to the area above the panel I had to crawl about 15 feet through the addition attic, then take a 90 degree left turn and go another (approximately) 30 feet through the gable structure of the original building, and finally take a 90 degree right turn for another 15 feet to get over the panel.

Both attics (old and new) had blown in insulation all the way, and blown in insulation packs when you put weight on it.  Packed blown in insulation loses insulating value.

I crawled into the scuttle hole with a hammer, staples, the end of a long run of NMB 10/3 wire, one end of an extension cord, an electric drill (battery powered drills were still in the future) with a wood bit, a light, and a wooden paddle.  I believe I added 50% to my body weight.  I crawled through the attic moving insulation out of my way as I went.  My helper (this time it was my wife Becky) fed the cord and cable through the scuttle hole to me.

When I got to the place above the panel I hung the light near me, cleaned the insulation off the top plate of the wall, and drilled a hole through the plate.  I dropped a fish chain through the hole.  It was attached to the 10/3 NMB and the NMB had a cable connector on it.  Becky caught the fish chain and pulled it and the cable connector into the panel.

As I backed my way out of the attics, I stapled the 10/3 to the exposed trusses and covered it up with the insulation, using the paddle to make a proper “blown in” effect.  By the time I exited the scuttle hole with my tools, light, drill, extension cord, etc., I was covered with sweat, insulation, and dust.

I drove home, took a shower, changed into clean clothes and then went back to the job.

Attics are inconvenient, uncomfortable, difficult, … and HOT!

After several years in numerous other occupations, my oldest son came to work with me as an electrician.  I was teaching him the trade.  Sometimes it wasn’t the lesson I intended.

One day the job involved wiring in a club house.  This club house had been constructed from an old school house with an added section.  In time another addition was built to house a walk in cooler.  The walk in cooler was built with heavy insulation and heavy doors.  The actual refrigerating power unit sat atop the walk in cooler.

As it turned out the most critical information that we needed was not immediately observable.

The refrigerating unit, sitting atop the walk in cooler, was sitting free.  Not fastened down.

In order to facilitate getting power to the refrigerating unit, sitting free atop the walk in cooler, we had to move (slide) the walk in cooler a short distance.  In the course of sliding the cooler, with the refrigerating unit atop it, sitting free, the refrigerating unit came into contact with a low sitting roof beam.  Consequently it (the refrigerating unit sitting free atop the walk in cooler) slid on the roof of the walk in cooler until it overbalanced and came down.

On my son’s head.

It was not a light-weight piece of equipment, and for a moment I thought I had killed him.

He was alright except for a nasty bump on the head.  I still sometimes wonder if I damaged his health more than we thought at the time.

Such accidents are not unusual.

I know a carpenter that was working with his father.  He accidently severed his father’s finger with a skill saw.

One contractor I worked for was building shelving with one of his employees.  The boss was standing behind a large piece of pegboard.  He held up a small piece of wood.  The employee thought he saw the white wood through one of the peg holes.  Using an electric screw gun the employee drove a screw into the boss’ wrist.  The boss told him to back it out.  The employee did so and the boss drove himself to the ER at the hospital.

I am sure that it was occurrences like these that brought about the safety laws that we review, depending on the scope of a job, each week or each job.

Today one of our guiding principles is “safety first.”

The NEC (National Electric Code) requires different grounding methods depending on whether or not an addition is attached or separated from the one which has the electrical service.  If a building is separate, a ground rod (or rods)  is required at the point of the disconnect.  If the building or addition is attached, a ground wire is run alongside the wire feeder.

For some time this requirement changed every three years with the code update.  Often there were times that the new code change reverted to a previous requirement.  As a result I was often required to go back to a job site and change the grounding back to the method I had used 4 years before.

I had numerous discussions with inspectors regarding this particular code requirement.  It was particularly aggravating when an inspector had not kept up on the code changes.  I am afraid I sometimes lost patience with them.

There was one particular inspector with whom I had a hard time regarding the code requirement.  So I called up a different inspector to get his input.  The second inspector agreed with me in the way I had done the grounding.  At the next code cycle, the code was clarified to indicate the way I had done the grounding was correct.

When I started my own electrical contracting business, I had to pass a test to be an Electrical Administrator, which is required in the State of Washington.  I took portions of the test 8 different times before I passed all of the sections.  It cost about $500.00 to take and pass all the testing required.

At that time the State of Idaho did not require the same license.  So I also acquired my Idaho license to run an electrical contracting business.  Today the requirements in Idaho are more restrictive than in Washington.  In fact more restrictive than Washington ever was.

At one time most states had a grandfather clause, which stated that if you have passed the testing in a particular state, the licensing would be reciprocal.  By passing the testing in one state you could acquire the licensing for several states.  For instance, for awhile Wyoming was reciprocal with seven other states.

Today that is no longer the case.  Washington is not reciprocal with any other state.