A day in the life of an electrician - What do we get upto?

What's it like being an electrician?

Tough question when I haven't really got much to compare it to.

I tried mechanics for a year when I left school.

I did bookkeeping for a year after that.

I can say for me being an electrician is better than both of those jobs.

In this podcast I will go into as much detail as I can for an average week for an electrician.

Then you can compare it to your week and see if being an electrician is better?

Tool Box Talk For Electricians Helping electricians, reduce stress, gain back time and earn more money.

Welcome back once again Ben Poulter here your host of tool box talk for electricians.

This podcast is going to describe to you a day of an electrician.

The highs and the lows to being self-employed.

I would say the majority is highs, but without the lows how do we know what the highs feel like?

My alarm is set for 5:30 am. I get up early because I have always believed the early bird catches the worm and I seem to get a lot more done when getting up early.

If you sit down at the end of the day, your energy is running low, so making the most of day is my reason to get up early.

Also the house is nice and quiet, nobody rushing around to get ready for work or school.

I make myself a cuppa and start the day.

Depending on the jobs I have going on there may be a few invoices to send out. With the google spreadsheet I have created it's easy just to download a PDF and email them off to the customer.

The certificates don't get sent until it's paid, so that can wait.

If it is an EICR however I will let the customer know if its passed of failed, just so I can say would you like a quote for the remedials.

Then after an hour of that I jumped in the van to get out the house.

Usually a bit early to be turning up at people's house, so this gives me time to take the dog for a walk, he comes with me every day unless its too hot, then he has to stay at home.

I have it written down in my diary of where im going each day. This way if I ever have to go tho the wholesalers, its makes it easy enough to pick up the materials.

Its know in my local wholesalers Ben likes a box, only because I can separate the materials for each job.

There have been too many times I have 10 sockets and use 2 for some extras, then forget to replace them and turn up to a job without enough kit!

I hate that.

Wherever you are working the closest wholesalers is never the same, I like to put all the same sockets in one property.

So if theres 10 double sockets to go in, they have to be the same brand and style!

Treat a customer's house like your own, that is my moto and even though a customer can't tell the difference between a white Click socket and a white MK socket - I can and it messes with my OCD.

The job today is to change a fuse board.

Following a test on the property I found the wiring to be red and black cabling, but with good enough readings to pass.

Which made the customers happy because they assumed the property was going to need a rewire.

It's always nice to be able to give the customer some good news.

Of course I had the let the customer know the electricity was going to be off for most of the day.

The kette wont work I said - this was a hint for a cuppa, and it worked.

Now with a fuse board change it could be quick, or it could take the whole day!

So I priced it to take the whole day just in case.

And what do you know some of the cables had damage to the insolation!

One 2.5 on the kitchen ring main and one 1.0mm on the downstairs lighting.

My first thought was mice because it looked like they had been nibbled.

But after talking with the customer she said that they have never had a problem with mice, also all the other cables were fine.

So I put it down to when it was installed, the cables must have been pulled in over one another and damaged the cable!

That was a repair I wasn't expecting.

Then there was running the 25mm tails to the head!

The board was located in the kitchen with the meter in and outside box, very common in a lot of properties.

Could I use the old 16mm tails as a draw wire or would I have to fish them through the cavity???

I used the old cables! I love it when a plan comes together. Not that it always does.

On this occasion it all went to plan. I had enough RCBOs for the circuits I needed for the board.

So I didn't have to pop out to the wholesalers.

Also I had a couple of tea breaks to chat with the customer, she was actually interested in what I was doing.

I'm not sure how much she understood about SPDs and RCBOs but she did appreciate me explaining it all to her.

The plan was to spend the whole day changing the fuse board. Sometimes everything goes to plan and you're finished by 2pm.

I could have just packed up and went home, without clearing up too, the customer actually said don't bother - she will do it. Again bonus.

But I got into a conversation about modern lighting.

LED Downlights compared to the old GU10 fittings, to explain better I got one out the van and showed the customer the difference compared to the ones in her downstairs toilet.

Ok I admit it, in a round about way it was a bit of a sales pitch. I had some downlights in the van and had the time to install them there and then.

Not only to make the property saver - but to reduce the energy consumption from 50watt per lamp to 4 watts.

Of course the customer said - that would be great if you could do it now.

Nice easy job replacing 3 x downlights - how hard could it be, I would be done in 20 mins!

Well that never happened - The complete bodge the last electrician had done!

Yeah it worked, it probably had for 10 years - But I couldn't leave it like that.

Earths twisted together

Connector blocks outside the junction box!

2 hours later It was 100 x better and the customer was pleased that the lights were better and a LOT more energy efficient.

This took me to 4pm.

That's a full day for me! If i'm up early and not back by 6pm i'm not happy about it! Unless of course its job I need to get done.

Then to save me some time in the morning the next day, I take the do out again for a walk and go on to google drive and email the invoice over.

This was you can be paid for the days work, before you get home.

The work is done, the customer has the invoice - so tomorrow's another day.

When you start to build up a customer base and have a constant flow of work, there will be some customers that say “come whenever you can”

These types of jobs you can squeeze in to the end of the day when your done at 2pm.

Even though the job is booked in, you can call the customer up and ask if it's ok to come now.

This is the same with big jobs, if you have a couple of electricians doing a rewire, you can pop in to give them a hand.

Especially if it's the 2nd fix stage, having a spare couple of hours to put on a load of sockets and switches will help push the job along.

Then when I get home I'm not a fan of married at first sight or big brother, so I create a few videos for social media. Then maybe a quote or 2.

That's a typical day of an electrician. I would say it's pretty similar to a lot of others, maybe with a different job.

Don't get me wrong - it hasn't always been like this.

The jobs piled up, the quotes, invoices and certificates were a nightmare!

I hated it.

I was stacked out with work and not enough time in the world to do it.

So I changed it! I figured out where I was going wrong and fixed it.

Easy invoices and quotes.

Kept a constant flow of customers.

This is why I now have time to do this podcast and help other electricians who are in the same position.

Check out a couple of the downloads below, they may help you in your business too.

Until next time - I will see you again.