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Should I be surprised that the reactions posted here range from "I stretched a cable across the ceiling like two tin cans and a string" to "I will fly a drone i

Should I be surprised that the reactions posted here range from "I stretched a cable across the ceiling like two tin cans and a string" to "I will fly a drone into my attic". Instead of: "I took my $500k/year tech salary which I formerly spent on Teslas and cardboard apartments and just hired a competent electrician or other tradesman to pull cable to every room."

ethbr1 3y ago
Finding a competent electrician these days, for a residential job, can be the difficult part.
- Baeocystin 3y ago
  I work with several low-voltage guys on different jobs, both new development and retrofit. It is exceedingly difficult to find good cable guys. Running parallel to romex, staples through the middle of the cable, minimum radius as a non-existent concept... Like you say, the competency is the hard part to find. And before anyone adds on with 'lol pay more', they try. The people just aren't there.
  - ethbr1 3y ago
    Almost all homeowners can't pay more than commercial jobs (for the same amount of billable work). Ergo, if they can, tradespeople take commercial jobs. Which leaves residential tradesperson as something of a lemon market. (And I wouldn't want to put up with one-off job, haggling about payment, if I had commercial options)
    - lazide 3y ago
      Post COVID burnout (or maybe it’s cognitive dissonance issues?) seems to be a thing too. Just finding a contractor or business owner able to think clearly is reaching near impossibility. Like on even the most basic things. It’s quite concerning.
      - ethbr1 3y ago
        I'd question the correlation to COVID on that one. The breakdown of the apprentice model ~20 years ago and now-due generational consequences of that change seems more to blame. Community expertise evaporated with retirement of folks who have been doing it 30+ years. And without anyone receiving it... many of the folks out there are "let me look up plans at Home Depot before doing the job" types.
        lazide 3y ago
        It correlated exactly with Covid. And the folks I’m talking about are the same folks pre-covid. They didn’t retire, they’ve lost their minds, very noticeably increasing in particular over the last 3 years. This fall is part of a steady escalation. It appears to be heavily correlated with the insane propaganda floating around too.
ryandrake 3y ago
You should not be surprised. A lot of us are DIYers, and see no need to pay someone to do something we can do ourselves. Running low-voltage ethernet through an attic or crawlspace is within the skills of anyone with functioning limbs. There is zero reason to pay someone to do it. I don't really understand people who pay others to do every little thing they need done around the house, but I suppose they have different values than I so live and let live...
- wannacboatmovie 3y ago
  > Running low-voltage ethernet through an attic or crawlspace is within the skills of anyone with functioning limbs. Except the whole point of his post was that he didn't know how to do it competently, there's no way he wants to enter the crawlspace, so has resorted to wacky workarounds. So, no, it clearly isn't within the skill (or desire) of anyone, but many would rather resort to hackery and hubris rather than pay someone to do it correctly. I'll counter that and say there's probably minimum wage coders in India who write equal or better code than you at 1/10th of the pay, certainly possible as they have two functioning hands.
- globular-toast 3y ago
  Well... I retrofitted a whole UK house with Cat6A, about 20 runs, longest run about 25m. The walls were dot and dab construction so quite a bit harder than drywall, but a lot easier than solid. I had my electrician brother to help for a weekend to do the cable runs. It was an entire two solid days of work just to do the runs, and this is with someone with the right tools and experience plus me having already planned it carefully. It would have taken me a week to do it alone. After that it was a full week of evenings terminating everything at both ends and another couple of weekends filling a repairing the walls. Definitely not for the faint hearted! Worth it, though, and would do it again.
- rtsil 3y ago
  > I don't really understand people who pay others to do every little thing they need done around the house I realized that it is cheaper for me to pay someone do some things than doing them myself. Instead, I can either work or do something fun or more interesting.
globular-toast 3y ago
Careful with electricians and data cabling. Here's why: https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeNetworking/comments/tzh00l/daisy_chained_ethernet_installation_by_electrician/ https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeNetworking/comments/tzh00l/dais... A place I used to live had structured cabling built in and half of it was CCA. I could tell immediately when I cut the cable to terminate it just by seeing the silver ends. It even said CCA on the casing so wasn't even fake. Electricians are definitely better than you at running cable and knowing where to cut the holes. But make sure you choose the cable and terminate it yourself.
thomastjeffery 3y ago
Believe it or not, many of us don't make huge sums of money.
thereisnospork 3y ago
>Instead of: "I took my $500k/year tech salary which I formerly spent on Teslas and cardboard apartments and just hired a competent electrician or other tradesman to pull cable to every room." You'd have to pay me that kind of money (amortized) to deal with vetting/hiring/managing/scheduling/QC'ing someone else and their work.
- lazide 3y ago
  Yup, which lately is often much harder/riskier than DIY if you already know how to DIY.

ethbr1 3y ago

Finding a competent electrician these days, for a residential job, can be the difficult part.

Baeocystin 3y ago
I work with several low-voltage guys on different jobs, both new development and retrofit. It is exceedingly difficult to find good cable guys. Running parallel to romex, staples through the middle of the cable, minimum radius as a non-existent concept... Like you say, the competency is the hard part to find. And before anyone adds on with 'lol pay more', they try. The people just aren't there.
- ethbr1 3y ago
  Almost all homeowners can't pay more than commercial jobs (for the same amount of billable work). Ergo, if they can, tradespeople take commercial jobs. Which leaves residential tradesperson as something of a lemon market. (And I wouldn't want to put up with one-off job, haggling about payment, if I had commercial options)
  - lazide 3y ago
    Post COVID burnout (or maybe it’s cognitive dissonance issues?) seems to be a thing too. Just finding a contractor or business owner able to think clearly is reaching near impossibility. Like on even the most basic things. It’s quite concerning.
    - ethbr1 3y ago
      I'd question the correlation to COVID on that one. The breakdown of the apprentice model ~20 years ago and now-due generational consequences of that change seems more to blame. Community expertise evaporated with retirement of folks who have been doing it 30+ years. And without anyone receiving it... many of the folks out there are "let me look up plans at Home Depot before doing the job" types.
      - lazide 3y ago
        It correlated exactly with Covid. And the folks I’m talking about are the same folks pre-covid. They didn’t retire, they’ve lost their minds, very noticeably increasing in particular over the last 3 years. This fall is part of a steady escalation. It appears to be heavily correlated with the insane propaganda floating around too.

ryandrake 3y ago

You should not be surprised. A lot of us are DIYers, and see no need to pay someone to do something we can do ourselves. Running low-voltage ethernet through an attic or crawlspace is within the skills of anyone with functioning limbs. There is zero reason to pay someone to do it. I don't really understand people who pay others to do every little thing they need done around the house, but I suppose they have different values than I so live and let live...

wannacboatmovie 3y ago
> Running low-voltage ethernet through an attic or crawlspace is within the skills of anyone with functioning limbs. Except the whole point of his post was that he didn't know how to do it competently, there's no way he wants to enter the crawlspace, so has resorted to wacky workarounds. So, no, it clearly isn't within the skill (or desire) of anyone, but many would rather resort to hackery and hubris rather than pay someone to do it correctly. I'll counter that and say there's probably minimum wage coders in India who write equal or better code than you at 1/10th of the pay, certainly possible as they have two functioning hands.
globular-toast 3y ago
Well... I retrofitted a whole UK house with Cat6A, about 20 runs, longest run about 25m. The walls were dot and dab construction so quite a bit harder than drywall, but a lot easier than solid. I had my electrician brother to help for a weekend to do the cable runs. It was an entire two solid days of work just to do the runs, and this is with someone with the right tools and experience plus me having already planned it carefully. It would have taken me a week to do it alone. After that it was a full week of evenings terminating everything at both ends and another couple of weekends filling a repairing the walls. Definitely not for the faint hearted! Worth it, though, and would do it again.
rtsil 3y ago
> I don't really understand people who pay others to do every little thing they need done around the house I realized that it is cheaper for me to pay someone do some things than doing them myself. Instead, I can either work or do something fun or more interesting.

globular-toast 3y ago

Careful with electricians and data cabling. Here's why: https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeNetworking/comments/tzh00l/daisy_chained_ethernet_installation_by_electrician/ https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeNetworking/comments/tzh00l/dais... A place I used to live had structured cabling built in and half of it was CCA. I could tell immediately when I cut the cable to terminate it just by seeing the silver ends. It even said CCA on the casing so wasn't even fake. Electricians are definitely better than you at running cable and knowing where to cut the holes. But make sure you choose the cable and terminate it yourself.

thomastjeffery 3y ago

Believe it or not, many of us don't make huge sums of money.

thereisnospork 3y ago

>Instead of: "I took my $500k/year tech salary which I formerly spent on Teslas and cardboard apartments and just hired a competent electrician or other tradesman to pull cable to every room." You'd have to pay me that kind of money (amortized) to deal with vetting/hiring/managing/scheduling/QC'ing someone else and their work.

lazide 3y ago
Yup, which lately is often much harder/riskier than DIY if you already know how to DIY.