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An interesting element to this is knowledge and ability to do work on ones own house. In the US it used to be required that men take shop class. It shifted into
by mfer 4y ago
An interesting element to this is knowledge and ability to do work on ones own house. In the US it used to be required that men take shop class. It shifted into being offered for both boys and girls for many years. Then it was phased out by in large.
Those who took hands on classes like these could read the simple instructions with a traditional thermostat or even a Nest and easily install it. They were comfortable with a handful of low voltage wires, some screws, and a simple diagram.
I wonder how the lack of hands on practical teaching in schools has impacted folks comfort with handling these fairly simple tasks.
- greesil 4y agoWe watch YouTube videos now for this. /shrug
- mfer 4y agoI’ve talked to a lot of people who aren’t comfortable trying even simple things. Even with YouTube videos.
- j-bos 4y agoThis would be a great study/survey to do! What percentage of how to watchers go on to practice the skills? How often? How well? Many people in my previous social circle would regularly take on personal car repair, plumbing, electrical, pest control, etc jobs based on youtube. Others including myself upskilled or got entirely new jobs with no experience beyond a youtube "apprenticeship".
- kevin_nisbet 4y agoI live in a high rise, and we've had several people do their own plumbing and do many thousands of dollars in damage. So I try to discourage people who don't have any idea what they're doing from trying to follow a youtube video.
- vineyardmike 4y agoI used to live in a high rise, and it’s a different experience than someone in their own home. Usually the high rise has their own on staff maintenance crew so there’s no need to do your own plumbing. Also in a normal home, the only things you can damage are yours. Also the repairs are probably cheaper in a normal house.
- bmitc 4y agoDepending on your state and local town/city codes, you can do a lot of damage by (a) not abiding by code and (b) being unlicensed, even for work in your own home.
- pandaman 4y agoI guess a big problem is that people who were not taught how to use tools usually don't have them and don't know how to use them so they cannot do much even if they watched YouTube. For example, my wife declines to use any power tools (other than drill, for some reason) so she prunes trees with a hand saw, even though I have a power saw, which could have done the job 100 times faster.
- ilyt 4y agoWhen I was in school (20+ years ago, Poland), we had a class with variety of just that, anything from "how to sow a mitten", thru model kits to making sandwiches
- bmitc 4y agoI struggled installing my nest, despite having electronics and wiring experience, because of the age old documentation problem. My wires at the wall are both mislabeled and miscolored, and the thermostat controller at the boiler doesn't have a diagram. One model of Nest works fine with two wires, but the cheaper and assumed less power hungry (less features) Nest does not. But back to your point, I think we should be teaching much more hands-on and life-oriented tasks at the high-school level.