The Gun Counter

From the ways you all talk about your house, this guy must have been your electrical contractor.

http://youtu.be/MiwRwexGyDg

Not me. I live in what was, until recently, the most severe electrical code area in the US - we had our own supplemental code, that was larger than NEC.

No Romex, no Plastic boxes. Everything in the walls with armored cable, anything exposed had to be in conduit. Knob and tube never existed here. Everything had to have it's own ground wire, in addition to the box and cable sheath being grounded to the box. No grounding to water pipes, had to have it's own ground rod.

From what I remember from when I worked for a company that made large gauge solid strand copper wire. It was used primarily for grounding and we actually shipped some to the North East which was unusual since there were a lot of wire making companies in the area at that time.

Like many of my generation, I learned certain basic tasks from the knee of my father and grandfather. Working with and watching the old men, they'd take the time to instruct the younger generation because that was the way knowledge was passed. I learned a lot from my father and his father.

Nowadays, we have YouTube, and if a person is careful and uses common sense, there is nothing in this world that you can't learn to do from a judicious YouTube search.

Couple of years ago, I did a huge project in the back yard, a bath-house and deck adjacent to a pool. I got my permits, but did the electrical work myself. As it turned out, I had a friend over before the drywall phase and he was looking at the pool house, particularly, the electrical routing, and I realized to my horror that my friend makes his living as a code inspector.(I had forgotten what he did for a living.) He asked who my electrician was, and I told him I did it myself. "No problem" says he, "it's all better than code."

Every man should know how to wire a basic electrical circuit. That same man should also be smart enough to know when he's in over his head, and get expert help.

Built several houses , always consult the UBC and NEC and its just not that hard to keep current, and do it correctly.