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Ah yes, a licensed electrician advising 'amateurs' to hire hire licenced electricians. I live in Sweden where the guilds (they call themselves unions now) have

Ah yes, a licensed electrician advising 'amateurs' to hire hire licenced electricians. I live in Sweden where the guilds (they call themselves unions now) have too much say in the laws around electrical installations which means legally we're not allowed to do anything ourselves. Of course those laws are ignored by many and with reason: many electricians produce shoddy and sometimes outright dangerous work. The law allows companies who have a single licensed electrician on staff to send unlicenced trainees out to customers to do the work with the licenced electrician signing off but without the requirement for inspections. Even 'real' licenced electricians sometimes make a mess of things where a gifted 'hempulare' - the Swedish term for someone who works on his own electrical installation without having the required licences - would do a better job because he has skin in the game. I'm one of those who ignores these laws and (re)built my installation from the ground up, correcting faulty wiring done by 'professionals', adding missing lightning/overcurrent suppression, installing a 15 kW stolar installation, etc. When done with the latter I had the work inspected and signed off by a licenced electrician - otherwise I could not have registered my installation for feed-in - who did not find a single flaw and commented that he never had the time to deliver such a neat installation. I do because I live here on this farm and have skin in the game.

oliwarner 2y ago
> legally we're not allowed to do anything ourselves This isn't true. Avoid hyperbole when describing your laws. You can change fittings, switches, lights, like-for-like. You may even be able to extend a circuit. And anything that would require certification you can do but you cannot self-certify, so you have to pay a qualified electrician to check your work. As you have done. I won't disagree that even professionals can be lazy or incompetent but if they mess up, it's their insurance, their career on the line. If you did uncertified work on your home and it burned down yours and your neighbours' houses, who do you think the insurance companies are going after?
Incipient 2y ago
I'm not a professional. I'm an engineer. I don't do my own electrical work. Personally I'd be capable, but the vast majority of people aren't.

oliwarner 2y ago

> legally we're not allowed to do anything ourselves This isn't true. Avoid hyperbole when describing your laws. You can change fittings, switches, lights, like-for-like. You may even be able to extend a circuit. And anything that would require certification you can do but you cannot self-certify, so you have to pay a qualified electrician to check your work. As you have done. I won't disagree that even professionals can be lazy or incompetent but if they mess up, it's their insurance, their career on the line. If you did uncertified work on your home and it burned down yours and your neighbours' houses, who do you think the insurance companies are going after?

Incipient 2y ago

I'm not a professional. I'm an engineer. I don't do my own electrical work. Personally I'd be capable, but the vast majority of people aren't.