When my wife and I started our own electrical company (AdenBecks) I had to develop ways to do the work without an apprentice.  As a result I created a system of doing electrical feeder installations for manufactured homes working solo.

The 200 amp wire for a mobile home is heavy, even when you use Aluminum wire.  Trying to pull the 200 amp wire through 2” PVC pipe is very difficult when you have two people doing it.  The Union prefers that the validity of a conduit run be proven by pulling wire through the run.  However that is not required in the electrical code.  My solution was to lay the wire in the run and then slide the conduit over the wire.  When the wire reached the pedestal I used a technique of swinging the conduit and wire aside and tipping the end into the pedestal.

Working alone saved my customers a lot of labor money.  The word got around and I made a niche for my new company for mobile home hook-ups.  As a result I personally connected well over 200 mobile homes.  I know that, because for years I kept a list of manufactured home hook-up customers.  At one time a newly developed Manufactured Home Park hired me to hook up all the homes in the park.  For a time I was hooking up about 2-1/2 homes a day.

There were challenges involved.

I remember one job distinctly.  It was way out in the country.  A man was putting in a residence for his mother.  While I was putting the wire in the ditch, the electrical inspector showed up.  This was fortuitous because it meant that the home owner could cover the ditch immediately.  On this job I used “Direct Burial” wire.  Therefore I did not have to sleeve the wire in conduit when it was buried.  The conduit was only necessary where the wire came out of the ground.

I finished the job and everything worked beautifully.

One day in the winter, and it was a cold day in winter, the home owner called and said that the power was off in the manufactured home.  I drove out and checked the power.  There was power at the meter, but not in the home.  The connections on both ends were good.

I took a guess at a point in the ground and dug 2 feet down to the wire (the ground hadn’t frozen completely at that point).  I found that the wire had been badly chewed by small teeth.  I had some wire on my work truck that I had salvaged from another job.  However it wasn’t 200 amp wire, it was only 100 amp wire.

I made a temporary run in conduit laying on the surface of the ground and got enough power to the home to keep it heated until a permanent fix could be made with the 200 amp wire.

I showed the owner the chewed wire and he informed me that there were no gophers in the area.  Well you don’t argue with a customer.  Even if you’re correct.

I cut out a chunk of the chewed wire and took it into the L&I office.  I asked them why the wire wasn’t rodent proof.  They informed me it was designed for direct burial, not to be rodent proof.

Huh?

We found out later that the manufacturing process of the direct burial wire used a component that attracted rodents to it.  Sort of like offering them a sweet aperitif.

I lost a customer, the temporary wire, and the conduit, but I learned a few things.

We decided to put the direct burial wire in conduit wherever possible.

And I learned that gophers did not like mothballs.  For a long time I kept a supply to put in a ditch where I couldn’t sleeve the wire in conduit.  I never had proof that the practice was successful or not.

The ambient atmosphere in which we live today is full of various kinds of radio waves.  I have been told in the past, that as long as you are walking, sitting, eating, sleeping, etc., various radio waves are going through your body.

Conspiracy theorists contend that some of these radio waves are emitted by radio transmitters in secret locations.

Some of the earliest radio waves were picked up by crystals.  The crystals did not use electricity to operate, but could pick up the transmissions traveling through space.  It has been proposed that other planets, stars, etc. send out radio waves which we hear as static.

Here is an interesting experiment.  Hold a fluorescent light fixture tube parallel to a C.B. radio antenna.  Did it light up without having any electrical input?

I was working on a schoolhouse that had been moved to Spokane’s South Hill area (near all the radio transmission towers).  Before it had been moved, I had removed all the wire and all the breakers from the panel.

I set up a temporary power supply on the job site for the various trades to use during the project.  Within the building, the metal conduit runs were all empty.

One afternoon after everyone had rolled up their cords and left for the day, I could hear someone talking.  I traced it out, and it was coming from one of the classrooms.  That was the classroom that contained the panel.

I put my ear up to the empty panel and could hear a local radio station just as clear as a bell.

Another time we were moving a building to the South Hill.  I could reach up into the dark attic and move the empty conduit.  When I did I could see sparks coming from the moving conduit.  That stopped when I grounded the service.

I one time met a man who lived out in the country.  He told me that he had put up an out-building with metal siding.  When he walked into it, he could hear the local radio station broadcast in his building.  He searched it out and found a place that needed two screws to be driven, in order to tighten up the attached metal.  No more radio broadcasts.

I don’t know why he did that.

Today, on a job site, it’s not uncommon for some workers to bring a radio and “share” their music with you.  Sometimes it is so loud it almost drowns out the sounds of construction.

I don’t know why they do that either.

There are two things that make electricians worry; fire and electrical shock.  The National Electric Code is written around these two dangers.

One old timer electrician told me that it was very difficult to start a fire with electricity.  All combinations had to be just right.  To start any fire, conditions have to be just right.  For instance, try starting a campfire with damp wood.

Electrical fires do happen.  There are trained fire investigators who can get into a burned area and determine how, why, and where a fire started.  When electricity is the root cause, the NEC is adjusted to meet experience.

I have worked on a number of jobs after the fire was out.  Insulation really does make a difference.  Many times I have seen Romex (NMB) wire cable, with all of the wrapping burned off.  But where the Romex enters the insulation, the wire is in very good shape.

Making electrical repairs in such an instance, I can put in a junction box and pick up the undamaged wire in the insulation.  Thereafter I can finish the circuit with new wire.

One particular job I recall necessitated replacing almost all the wiring in the building.  I worried a lot about the area where I couldn’t get to the wiring.  After 30 years the building is still standing, so I have decided to quit worrying.

In one apartment that had burned (1 unit out of 10), the manager wanted the power turned back on before the walls and ceiling were repaired.  I devised a way to re-wire the place and leave the wall building to later, thus providing power to the area before the carpenters “renovated” the fire damage.

It must have worked, because I got paid and no one called to complain about anything.

Back in the ‘90s there was a firestorm created by outdoor, high voltage electrical wires.  It took a combination of high winds and trees that came down on high voltage power lines.  The fire spread for miles.

We wired a number of new buildings that replaced the ones that had been destroyed.