Think your saving money buying materials from a Big box Hardware and hiring a tradesman to do install or doing it your self think again your getting ripped off.

 So you watch one of those home remodeling shows and it looks easy enough to do small electrical or plumbing project no problem go to the big box hardware buy what you need and install it  and it looks good but your neighbor hires a tradesman to do same job and when you go to see what neighbor has done the quality of his parts he bought especially the electric lights and plugs thou same manufacturer are of a better quality at same price you payed the big box for lesser quality . So what the hell is going on.

That's right you where ripped off by the big box selling you a consumer grade product instead of a professional product the tradesman bought at a local supply house.  

The problem the Big Box store can not buy a professional grade product then mar-kit up enough to make the desired profit they must make on each product they sell. 

Take this supposed   Commercial spec grade switch 

Its really Not this is a  Consumer Grade  Switch  they sell to big Box and hardware store who sells them for around $6.00  a piece retail

 

 

Now look at a real spec grade switch I buy at supply House twice the weight back wire capable  heavy duty construction.

which would not fall apart like one above.

This switch I buy wholesale at $6.50 is  $15.00 retail well above what average consumer would pay for a wall switch so the buy this piece because It looks like a much better switch when it is not. 

This goes on with many items you buy at Big Box and Hardware stores you are not getting for your money what you think you are getting.  

Shop at a retailers outlet stores same game is being played you think your buying overstock  1st qualty or items than had small flaw.

Not the case at all at one time that was true but now manufacturers make a lesser quality item and pass it off at outlet stores as 1st quality take a good look your getting ripped off. 

You really need to read specs on items compare them before you buy them or you will get ripped off. 

 

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A disturbing trend of Young Electricians using Impact drills to tighten screws on outlets and switches which is damaging them

 Back when I was a rookie electrician  there was no concern for Wrist Injury's and Carpal Tunnel Disease .everything was done by hand  oh there where fancy twisting screwdrivers that helped but for most part it was all hand and wrist work.

But that's not the case today most young electricians carry and use a small battery powered screwdriver or drill .

That's fine it does cut down on wrist injury's but it has also caused another issue . over-tightened switches and outlets which cause them to fail and break creating a  shock and fire hazard.

Take this gang of supposed spec grade  switches installed everyone broken or cracked after being installed only a year ago. 

To make matters worse some of these compact drills have an impact setting and if your not careful or lazy you see the above result every switch in that gang switch is cracked and damaged. 

luckily the worker operating the switch was not hurt when switch collapsed into box ,but this is not always the case .

The only way to make this stop happening is for supervisors and inspectors to crack down on bad job habits or outlaw the drills all together.  

I have one of those small drills and I have never cracked or broken a switch. its called take your time and do it right. but too many employers are all about speed and speed gets you killed.

A very Big Mistake by Lighting manufactures which allows High output T5 fluorescent bulbs to be used in Normal Output T5 fixtures and Fire danger it imposes

 I have a customer where they installed T5  high efficiency lighting in their office space  and down the street they installed High-bay T5 lighting  in their Warehouse.

Now the T5 high Bay Lighting has worked very well never an issue turn it on in morning it comes on and have to change an occasional bulb when it burns out after a couple years.

 

The office on the other hand has been a Nightmare .they installed offset 4x8 lay in lights and they constantly blow bulbs and transformers. 

They where mainly changing the bulbs themselves then I took over doing it and that's when I discovered a major problem.

I went to change out a ballast and had to do a retrofit as the smaller ballast in picture  was not available and when I started matching up numbers to get something to work that's when i also looked at bulbs and realized what was going on.

The supply house was supplying the wrong bulbs.The office fixtures use a 28 watt cool white bulb  normal output bulb . while the supply house was sending them 54 watt High output Bulbs  

T5-54 watt bulb 

 

T5-28 Watt  bulb

Which is why they sometimes worked and fixtures where overheating and sockets burning up. in essence they where creating the problem of the old  Edison based conventional light bulbs where socket maybe rated 60 watts but people where putting 100 or 150 watt bulbs in them .

But this should not be possible T12 and T 8 bulbs which are normal out put and High output have different ends to prevent this but T5 do not . How could Underwriters Lab  UL and NFPA allow this to happen. If these T5 fixtures are installed close to combustible materials and wrong bulb put in the overheating fixture could easily cause a fire. 

Once again someone asleep at the switch .