To work across a large geographical area requires planning, transportation, and the proper supplies for whatever you may come across.  Since an electrical job requires a lot of different parts and pieces (some would say the greatest single need amongst the trades) a proper form of transportation is needed.

Generally an electrical shop will provide a company vehicle for the electrician to work from.  Of course seniority usually plays a part in which vehicle a given employee is given.  In many cases I was the last man hired and the first man laid off, which tended to leave me with the “bone yard” vehicles.  One time I was given an old “re-commissioned” telephone repair truck.  That was totally inadequate.

The telephone trucks were not equipped to handle the 10 foot lengths of conduit that electricians use.  There is not a lot of “out of the weather” storage available for stock parts.   And the seating area, inside the cab, wasn’t conducive to giving your pregnant wife an emergency ride to the hospital.  But that’s another story.  I may have already told it.

In recent years work vans have been used for electrical work trucks.  A standard van type vehicle can be configured to hold a lot of parts, including 10 foot lengths of material.  However, one downfall of a standard type of work van is that there is little headroom when you are stocking or using parts off the shelves.

I have seen a lot of imagination used to set up a van for the electrical trade.  Today, our company uses either high top Sprinter Vans, or a large van type truck (similar to a bread delivery van).  Also, we can now have some parts (fixtures and the like) delivered to the job site by a supplier.

At one company we employees were directed to return from our jobs one hour early on Friday afternoons.  We were to clean out and restock our trucks for the next week.  That was always paid as shop time, and not charged to a specific customer.  That sounded like a good idea to me.

Of course if you were working on a job that had been bid at a specific price, it wouldn’t have mattered to the customer if you charged the time to the job or to the shop.  The customer’s price would have remained the same.  In the viewpoint of the customer, taking time which they perceive to be “on their job” to do necessary housekeeping or job related errands is objectionable.

We have had customers object when a workman would take off in the middle of the day to drive to a supply house for more material.  They feel it is being unwise with their money.  There may be some basis to this concern for a Time and Materials job, but for a bid job the only difference it would make would be to the Company’s bottom line.  (It’s good to note here, that Labor and Industries requires a company to pay for an employee’s time even if it is “windshield time.”)

I agree with the customer’s sentiment.  That is a good reason to have a well stocked work vehicle, with all the supplies you need for a job.  Sometimes it is prudent to have on hand supplies that can be re-purposed to substitute for missing parts and pieces.

It requires us as electricians to be adept at anticipating the needs for a job.  In an emergency, I have had the office help pick up material and run it to the job site.  Some larger shops even have someone hired as a parts runner.  Not a bad option if the demand is there.

With most of the guys I worked with, acceptance into their circle was indicated if they would pull a practical joke on you.  Many times I would walk into a shop and people would ask me for a joke.  I guess my reputation for telling stories preceded me.

For instance, in one shop where I worked, one of the office personnel in the drafting room was a man that, though young, was only able to get around with a walker.  He was no exception to having practical jokes played upon him.

I am all for employing people with disabilities.  It’s tough enough to get and keep a job without also having to fight a disability.  I believe that the young man (I’ll call him “Bob” – because I don’t remember his name anymore) appreciated that he was included.

“Bob” was working in a drafting room with about four other estimators and drafters.  I tried to avoid going in that room because you never knew what they were going to pull on you.  One day when I did go into the drafting room, one of the guys said: “Adrian, you should have been here about a half hour ago.”

I asked, “Why, what happened?”

He said; “Well, I was arguing with ‘Bob’ and he was being stubborn., so I walked across to his desk like this, and took his walker like this, and walked back across the room like this, opened the window like this, and threw his walker outside like this, and closed the window like this.”  All the while he was talking, he was demonstrating the process as he explained it.  (Usually that’s a good training method.)

After they had a good laugh and talked awhile, he went outside and retrieved the walker and returned it to “Bob’s” desk.

Those same guys knew that I was raising chickens at home.  They asked me to bring in a little bit of chicken manure.  I was suspicious about what they were planning.  (Maybe they were planning to do something to me?)

It turns out they had bigger fish to fry.  The big boss had a separate office with a window where he looked out at these estimators and drafters.  He had a picture in his office of a duck taking flight.  They intended to place the chicken dropping on the floor under the tail end of the duck.

I brought them a little box of chicken dung, making sure I left no fingerprints or other “crime scene evidence” on it.

I never knew how their plan turned out.

I was afraid to ask.

PVC has one flaw that must always be considered when using it for electrical conduit runs.  PVC has a very noticeable expansion rate when exposed to sunlight and heat.  Of course, when the ambient temperatures cool down, the PVC will shrink back.  However if the conduit is hung on the side of a wall when exposed to the sun, when it expands the conduit will droop down.  When it cools off the droop does not return to its original shape.  As long as PVC is installed in the shade or buried in earth or concrete it will not expand enough to be a problem.

One time, when I first began using PVC conduit, I installed a run on the side of a building, under an eave.  Where it remained in the shade, it would hold fine.  Where it was exposed to the afternoon sun it warped something terrible!  Another concern with the expanding PVC is that the wiring does not expand.  (at least not at the same rate.)  This can cause the longer conduit run to pull the wiring out of its connections.

About that time I discovered expansion joints.  Expansion joints are fittings you fasten at each end of the conduit with a sleeve in the middle.  The sleeve permits the conduit to expand and contract without harming the enclosed wiring.

On one occasion I was laying a long run of PVC conduit to be covered with cement.  The sun came out and bowed the conduit right up into the air above the limits of the forms.  I had to re-do the run and make sure the cement was poured before the sun became too hot.  An expansion joint would have worked very well there.

Recently there have been other advances in “plastic” conduit.  It is more expensive but it is also very useful.

Another aspect of PVC work I have learned the hard way is regarding the gluing of the PVC parts.  When gluing the PVC together, do not let the glue get inside the conduit itself.  That will produce two problems.

It can cause what you put into the conduit to become fastened to the inside wall of the conduit.  Things that can become glued in that manner are wire, fish tapes, etc.  That is annoying to say the least.  The second problem is that a buildup of glue on the inside of the conduit will reduce the available inside diameter.  Not only will that increase the resistance when pulling wire through the conduit, the reduced area can produce a wiring hot spot.  Wire-fill in conduit is predicated on enough air movement to reduce heat buildup.

Some things you have to “Learn by Doing” because they are not generally taught in classes, or the electricians that already have the knowledge forget to pass it on.

We still use steel conduit on large commercial and industrial jobs, but PVC has almost taken over most conduit work.