# What other jobs are electricians qualified for?



## Fiki (Sep 28, 2010)

My instructor was talking about other things electricians are qualified for. He was saying that we could join a company that just specializes in LED replacements for businesses especially in California with Tidal 22 restriction on energy consumption to bare bones minimum. He was also talking about being a maintenance mechanic (I think it was a maintenance mechanic). Or just to get a job installing solar cells or bloom boxes for residential or commercial application. He had some good points about commercial and residential, that there is little work to be had in residential and that commercial can be spotty, depending on how much work a contractor can find before you jump to the next contractor. He was saying as a commercial electrician, a good month would be waiting 4 days to a week before the next job and a bad month was having no work at all and then for the next 6 months. At the moment I am leaning towards being industrial but joining a LED light installation company also seems promising considering my state making such drastic cuts to energy expenditure. I would of also liked to do residential since it seems more straight forward to me and I like working with romex more than I do conduit and loose wires. I just hear it pays way less. So I guess what I am asking, if any of you more seasoned vets had to choose a field to go into within the qualification of being an electrician. What would you do LED or bloom box installations seem great but being an industrial electrician seems to come with a great amount of job security which is really important to me.


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## HARRY304E (Sep 15, 2010)

Fiki said:


> My instructor was talking about other things electricians are qualified for. He was saying that we could join a company that just specializes in LED replacements for businesses especially in California with Tidal 22 restriction on energy consumption to bare bones minimum. He was also talking about being a maintenance mechanic (I think it was a maintenance mechanic). Or just to get a job installing solar cells or bloom boxes for residential or commercial application. He had some good points about commercial and residential, that there is little work to be had in residential and that commercial can be spotty, depending on how much work a contractor can find before you jump to the next contractor. He was saying as a commercial electrician, a good month would be waiting 4 days to a week before the next job and a bad month was having no work at all and then for the next 6 months. At the moment I am leaning towards being industrial but joining a LED light installation company also seems promising considering my state making such drastic cuts to energy expenditure. I would of also liked to do residential since it seems more straight forward to me and I like working with romex more than I do conduit and loose wires. I just hear it pays way less. So I guess what I am asking, if any of you more seasoned vets had to choose a field to go into within the qualification of being an electrician. What would you do LED or bloom box installations seem great but being an industrial electrician seems to come with a great amount of job security which is really important to me.


Motors and Controls..That is where the money is at...:thumbup:


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## Rockyd (Apr 22, 2007)

Fiki said:


> *What other jobs are electricians qualified for?*


Whatever they put there mind to do...:thumbup:


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## knowshorts (Jan 9, 2009)

It's Title 24, by the way. The outfits that do lighting retrofits, typically pay piece work, and it's balls to the wall. I would rather be supervision, rather than a worker in that field.

Solar. Sounds nice. You would think it's a money maker. Not yet. In the residential market, typically a solar outfit will sub all their work out. Electrician is only needed for connections. And is usually an under-employed C10 who has no idea what his costs of doing business are. 

Regular resi - really competitive. New housing - pretty much non existant and way under paid. Custom homes are few and far between. Service and repair is competitive also. 

Any experience you can get in commercial will help you. It will make it easier to move up into heavy industrial. Money and security is there.

Maintenance mechanic. Not for me. If I wanted to hope to stay at the same place and look at the same ugly people everyday, I would have went to college and got a degree.

The key is to stand out from the other 2,434,548 "electricians" (and I say that loosely) in CA.


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## SparkYZ (Jan 20, 2010)

Get as much knowledge and experience as you can, in as many niches of the trade as you can. Things are tough, you need to be able to pick any job you can get. Well, its tight in Los Angeles county anyways.


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## erics37 (May 7, 2009)

Best bet is to get really good at a particular field where not many people are very knowledgeable. Control design, PLCs, instrumentation, etc. Industrial stuff. We've got one guy that has designed all the controls for and written PLC programs for pretty much every municipal water plant, sewer plant, lift station, pump station, and everything in between up and down the entire Oregon coast. He's nailed down a niche in this area and doesn't have any competition. 

When he retires everyone is screwed :laughing:


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## HARRY304E (Sep 15, 2010)

erics37 said:


> Best bet is to get really good at a particular field where not many people are very knowledgeable. Control design, PLCs, instrumentation, etc. Industrial stuff. We've got one guy that has designed all the controls for and written PLC programs for pretty much every municipal water plant, sewer plant, lift station, pump station, and everything in between up and down the entire Oregon coast. He's nailed down a niche in this area and doesn't have any competition.
> 
> When he retires everyone is screwed :laughing:


Thanks erics37 that is well said...:thumbup:


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## erics37 (May 7, 2009)

HARRY304E said:


> Thanks erics37 that is well said...:thumbup:


Why the hell are you still up? :blink: It's late even here :laughing:


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## Fiki (Sep 28, 2010)

Rockyd said:


> Whatever they put there mind to do...:thumbup:


Be a bit more specific. At the present I am researching cosmic rays that will allow power to be created through the millions of cosmic particles going on around usual the time. I am a tinkerer, I make lasers, steam punk lighters anything; I was to create innovations in our field. Cosmic rays with tweaks to current solar panels. Double efficency and I made my first million. I am a devouit follower of tesla. I want to make his ideas happen. Im hungry for breakthrough. I want to make my 30-60k job into something brilliant.

edit: did not make my first million...lol... working on a new panel to utilize cosmic rays and generate power in night and morning conditions.


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## erics37 (May 7, 2009)

Fiki said:


> Be a bit more specific. At the present I am researching cosmic rays that will allow power to be created through the millions of cosmic particles going on around usual the time. I am a tinkerer, I make lasers, steam punk lighters anything; I was to create innovations in our field. Cosmic rays with tweaks to current solar panels. Double efficency and I made my first million. I am a devouit follower of tesla. I want to make his ideas happen. Im hungry for breakthrough. I want to make my 30-60k job into something brilliant.


A Tesla fan, huh?


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## Jlarson (Jun 28, 2009)

erics37 said:


> Best bet is to get really good at a particular field where not many people are very knowledgeable. Control design, PLCs, instrumentation, etc. Industrial stuff. We've got one guy that has designed all the controls for and written PLC programs for pretty much every municipal water plant, sewer plant, lift station, pump station, and everything in between up and down the entire Oregon coast. He's nailed down a niche in this area and doesn't have any competition.



That's a really fun and awesome niche to be in :yes: 

Like right now I'm tweaking the design for a system wide electrical/control upgrade of a water utility, all groundwater with multiple storage and pumping sites. Gives me something to do instead of just sitting around cause I can't sleep.


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## Mr Rewire (Jan 15, 2011)

They have an electrician on the space station.


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## Wirenuting (Sep 12, 2010)

I have found that most electricians are a bit brighter then other trades. We are more likely to look at a bigger picture when examining a problem. We are by training less likely to shoot from the hip with a solution. It's probably due to the danger of electrocution we deal with and the need to make safe all things around us. 
I was trained as a gunnersmate in the navy with an extra 9 months of schooling for one type of gun mount. This exposed me to electricity, pneumatics, hydraulics and computer control of a large automated machine. 
I would agree that you should expose yourself to as much as you can in as many fields as you can. And lean heavy towards computer controls and how they interact with the world. I see this as the next wave of technology we are heading for over the span of your career. 
New energy and how we save energy will be important in the coming years. 
Keep in mind that anyone can be taught to bend pipe and pull wire. But it takes more training to learn how to control the processes we create. It takes experience to be able to walk up to a machine and feel that something is wrong and be able to correct a problem before it costs more $$ to repair due to down time. 

Being an electrician IMO is the best trade to be in. You have many directions you can go in.


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## miller_elex (Jan 25, 2008)

HARRY304E said:


> Motors and Controls..That is where the money is at...:thumbup:


You been smoking something?? 

The $$$ is in time jobs.


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## knowshorts (Jan 9, 2009)

miller_elex said:


> You been smoking something??
> 
> The $$$ is in time jobs.


Nope, you are limited by the hours you work. If you have a specialty, you have a greater shot of dictating your worth. You can work less for more money, rather than working more for more money. Work smarter, not harder.


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## macmikeman (Jan 23, 2007)

Angry Birds. Made millions and millions. 



Create something unusual and unique that pre-teens and teenager's like and there you go, your all done......

Or something that every yuppie just has to have since they saw somebody else who has one, and now they can't live without it....

Or a real hair restorer.

Or a Chevy van that the door knobs do not fall off of at exactly 31,0000 miles.


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## drsparky (Nov 13, 2008)

Gigolo, wino, assistant french fry salter.


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## 220/221 (Sep 25, 2007)

> What other jobs are electricians qualified for?


I'll say it.








Plumbers. :jester:


It's basically the same thing. Electricity goes in one end and comes out the other.


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## Fiki (Sep 28, 2010)

220/221 said:


> I'll say it.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



My instructor says the only things you need to know as a plumber are:
1. S*it rolls down hill.
2. Payday is on fridays.
3. Don't bite your fingernails.


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## mattsilkwood (Sep 21, 2008)

I agree that industrial is the way to go. But in order to be great there you have to be as good of a mechanic as you are an electrician. 

You need to understand how things work and why first. Then with that information you can understand how to control things.


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## brian john (Mar 11, 2007)

Fiki said:


> but joining a LED light installation company also seems promising considering my state making such drastic cuts to energy expenditure. .



In all seriousness where I am from they train monkeys to do lighting retrofits and the pay is bottom of the barrel.


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## Fiki (Sep 28, 2010)

brian john said:


> In all seriousness where I am from they train monkeys to do lighting retrofits and the pay is bottom of the barrel.


Yep, thats how my instructor put it too, but he said the benefit of it is that the LED market is only going to get bigger. So being paid low but having a ton of jobs might be appealing to some. I was kind of hoping for anything above $15 an hr as starting.


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## SparkYZ (Jan 20, 2010)

Fiki said:


> Yep, thats how my instructor put it too, but he said the benefit of it is that the LED market is only going to get bigger. So being paid low but having a ton of jobs might be appealing to some. I was kind of hoping for anything above $15 an hr as starting.


A first year will make somewhere around 12-13$ an hour out here.


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## HARRY304E (Sep 15, 2010)

Fiki said:


> Yep, thats how my instructor put it too, but he said the benefit of it is that the LED market is only going to get bigger. So being paid low but having a ton of jobs might be appealing to some. I was kind of hoping for anything above $15 an hr as starting.



Remember you have to start some where Don't worry about the money till you get three years in and learn everything you can #1 moters and controls

Learn hard work hard..you will be top Dog in no time...:thumbup::thumbup:


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## Shockdoc (Mar 4, 2010)

Plumbing. I can run plumbing faster and cleaner than most plumbers, and the best part, no level is need for the waste side.. I replumbed my basement yesterday after the third pinhole in the old copper system. drilled out all instead of the original install run under the joist. Took me all but 1 1/2 hour with pex and sharkbites. Done.


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