A DAY IN THE LIFE OF AN ELECTRICIAN | ADVICE and Q&A ON HOW TO BECOME AN ELECTRICIAN

[Music] do do do so hey guys so I'm here um at a home that my husband is helping to renovate he's an electrician and wanted you guys to sort of see like what a day in a life is like um now this isn't typically the work that he does this is residential as we are in the house he is typically an industrial electrician he does that like his nine to five every um you know every week this is a project that his longtime friend and co-worker that he met through working with him during his regular nine to five known him for a few years now he's a great electrician himself and he has like his own side business and he was um you know contracted to work with some companies and one of them had a house that they needed help with so he was doing the electric work so my husband was helping him out with this my husband is just here himself doing this and you know he was just going to be in his house by itself and um asked me if I wanted to come I said sure so um I'm Vlogging today because I thought this was a great opportunity for people to see what the life of an electrician is um from my husband's experience there aren't a lot of black electricians especially in a lot of the jobs that he's on he's a contracted electrician he's been an electrician since 2015. so in 2023 now so I guess um maybe that's eight years so he's been doing this a while and like I said he mostly does industrial it's funny because he doesn't really like residential I don't know if it's like he doesn't really have the patience for it he's just like I just like he just doesn't really want to do it like that but he's good at it it's really great to see his progress and to see how far he's come and he's on his way to become a journeyman electrician he could have become one a long time ago um and I'll probably let you hear him talk a little bit more about that and how to become a journeyman electrician if you guys also have any questions for him please comment I'll make sure that I'll get an answer from him if you guys ever want to see like a sort of like a q a video for what he does as an electrician as an industrial electrician and like even working in residential areas like this um let me know in the comment section maybe I'll just do a q a video with him so he can tell you a little bit more about what he does if you're interested in seeing does as an electrician then just keep on watching thank you oh [Music] do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign they're really not supposed to use uh drills like doing this because it can over tighten it and strip the screw but how to finger tap it okay I need means finger tapping he's talking about when you press the button on the drill you just basically just tap it that seems good the warning tape off because this is a single one it's not Downstream this one on my circuit okay I'm not gonna test this yet because do some other stuff that's on this circuit that I need to tie in first okay so I'm gonna come back to here second once I have wired up the kitchen because the kitchen and this is on the same circuit okay [Music] what can you tell them a little bit about your background and how you became an electrician and actually the work that you do because guys this is not the main work that he does he's an industrial electrician but I can let you let him tell you more about that so where did you go to school well I went to the I went to a trade school out in Philly on 30th and Market it was called Capital Career Institute it was good to go to school and learn some trades and everything but really out of school where I learned everything right you know you graduate 2015. right out of there I got lucky to start working with an industrial contractor that did solely conveyor belts so I was doing that just with conveyor belts for like 2015 2018. and then I'm gonna travel no more around the states because I used to travel a lot but now I don't like I don't just primarily in New Jersey Philadelphia what I do I really is really industrial stuff like big pipes and like I don't know if you've ever seen well of course you've seen them all right remember back in the day you would have those green boxes in front of your house everybody would come by then maybe once in a while you'll see some guys working on it big stuff like that the pipes that go underground that go back to the Distribution Center you know things like that that's what I ended up doing that's what I do at work running big pipes on the ground and uh you know wiring up the services and what's the switch boxes gears that's when the wires the wires are probably just as big as my arm oh my gosh I love that to tighten it you got to put like a rod in it and turn the whole flipping Rod just to get it tight wow good stuff like that [Music] light fixture multi picture that got taken down [Music] so it's a pretty rainy pretty rainy day outside too so my husband asked me to grab asked me to get this bag in the back of this trunk it's a black book bag with some more stuff in there that she needs trying to be helpful [Applause] switch now I got the bathroom light working I got the bathroom fan work in the bathroom outlet the uh I got those covered in the lights there you go everything is done he did everything that he needed to do coming here and it's like four I'm sorry it's like 3 30. today you did a lot of what is it called troubleshooting yes where you're trying to like sort of diagnose the problem and stuff like that I know sometimes that takes time to figure out but um is that often what you're doing as an industrial electrician yes and no well I mean yeah you're always gonna have to troubleshoot at some point you know as electrician so troubleshooting is what just kind of figuring out it's part of it's part of the job because you can wire something up when you're doing industrial it's like you might be doing a hundred Outlets you know what I'm saying oh I see and if my three of them not working why are three of them working you go back and see like the same problem that we have over here the wire wasn't stripped all the way so it wasn't making a good connection and it could be something like that troubleshooting right whole plethora of things it's just troubleshooting just making it work that's all why is it working making it work okay I talked a little bit about your journey to becoming a journeyman electrician so could you tell um me a little more about the process of becoming a journeyman electrician well really it's just the amount of schooling hours you do plus work in the field experience so since I started in 20 I did a year of schooling uh you know most people doing I didn't do it in apprenticeship you know technically I went to trade school got a certification and that was enough schooling hours to get me the certification to allow me to get on to job sites right to become an electrical Apprentice yeah totally okay yeah then technically I was an apprentice but technically I wasn't in an apprenticeship oh I see it that's the difference you don't have to necessarily go on an apprenticeship apprenticeship is just like technically I wasn't in apprenticeship because yeah I'm about to say like this but it wasn't an official because the contractor that I worked for wasn't licensed with the state to say that he trains apprentices you see what I'm saying right you know even though he can have apprentices on the job yeah you know what I'm saying and technically it's because he's a licensed master electrician he would be able to um to train me and that's that's what I did so I recently contacted him and got my work hours from him and so essentially in the state of New Jersey to become a licensed uh journeyman you have to do a certain amount of school hours and work experience and I've completed both of those it's just literally just going to school for that get my foot in the door and then working for five to seven years okay you know practical work experience right so now it's basically it's just paperwork right it's just getting the paperwork together and then you'll become a licensed Journeyman Electrician I'll get my it's kind of like a certificate to saying that stating that I've done you know if there's certain amount of hours and school hours that you've completed yeah that I'm a certified journeyman you know you can only be licensed if you actually take the licensing test so your position now is you're like a certified electrician yeah certified I'm a certified electrical technician yes okay certified electrical technician all right so the main difference between a journeyman and an electrical technician is just a bump in pay or is it just or will or will you receive more um duties and opportunities because you're a journeyman well that it goes hand in hand when you are a journeyman you've got the state is saying that you've done enough time and you've done enough work hours that you know you should be getting paid more because you you can tell this the state that you know I've done this XYZ you know they're going to pay me for that like I've known I know some people who've been electricians all their lives but never got any type of certification or anything and technically have enough knowledge to be a mass electrician or just electricians because they never care to get the licensing you once you've got that experience you can say you've done this for 20 years you know they're going to hire you off that experience they right right that's true yeah they're not you know even though you can say I've been a I'm a master electrician but you can become a master electrician in five years that's true you know because you only need five years to be you just stay in there yeah the minute you become a journeyman you can go take your license exam right like you're you kind of have knowledge of a lot of different things being in this field so like you already kind of mentioned it like if the welder has to work around this part and or you know I know like the engineer but like y'all kind of all have to be on the same page and and sort of be working around each other and like I know you mentioned like mechanics too like all of you guys together I feel like you come back home learning a little bit about other fields because because of you're constantly like you're around them yeah can you talk about the three different types of electrical work I know in the past you told me there's industrial there's um commercial and it's residential and then talk about like the three different ones and then just explain why industrial is like your favorite wow residential I came in doing electric work doing industrial so I just enjoyed it you know steel pipes everything's like out in the open brand new usually industrial is brand new you know you're doing tear outs and putting new things in big stuff you know what I'm saying so it's you know usually those jobs tend to last longer you know that's why I like industrial commercial is a little bit more tedious you know what I'm saying like commercial is like you were saying like in a football arena or something no uh well it just depends like a commercial job would be like doing renovating an office building like if uh this building was used for meetings and you know business meetings you want to put in that's commercial you know um industrial would be like your warehouses your Amazon buildings massive buildings that just have lights Outlets switches and everything I mean they all residential out residential industrial and uh commercial all have light switches Outlets all regular electrical stuff it's just the sizing of it you know what I'm saying okay and then like locations like you're not going to be an industrial you're you're most likely not going to be doing a lot of and Industrial gonna be running a lot of steel pipes EMT underground residential you're probably just using Romex thin wires you know like and then commercial using metal clad MC and you know it's just like pretty much the real differences it's like relatively all about the same work it's just different um supplies used to do the same things every anything that needs power needs to feed into it right so if these houses have wires right you see these wires hanging in the back of the house you know I'm saying those are carrying wires from the distribution but all right there's a wire going to the top of the panel right and that's like it for all of these houses and obviously there's like that at warehouses like that at Office Buildings and everything right usually since those are bigger facilities stuff is usually done underground you have big pipes underground six feet underground boom yeah it'll come up you put a box on top of where it's coming up and then you connect it up and then out of that box that's out the ground you go to wherever you need to and that keeps things safe so what would you tell anybody wanting to become an electrician um any advice to the young ones coming up anybody can get into this field you can you know learn you know let me tell you some benefits of uh being an electrician yeah you know you know the pay is good it is good depending on what you're doing or who you know as far as who's paying you okay um the pay is usually good you usually can get a lot of hours you know um the bad part about it is you know it's hard work at times you know you may be pulling wire you know yeah and you know you can't you can't be weak you know what I'm saying you got to have some type of strength to you because there's a lot of stuff carrying this going up steps you know and you got to be able to stay calm as far as thinking on your feet and staying calm because you you might be doing something like what do you do now you know you got to stay calm think on your feet being able to ask for help when you need it yeah to be able to always have a job wherever you are like if you fly to California and you want to you want to work you know you if you learn electrical stuff you learn how to bend pipe you learn how to read prints you learn how to um troubleshoot if you can do those three things you'll last a really long time as electrician to make a good money too because you know if you can troubleshoot you know like plcs and stuff like that and just knowing that then you don't have to be able to physically work with your hands you know direct people there's so much you can do with becoming an electrician you know I've been able to support my family for a while now I mean the sad part about it is like this most mostly white males that dominate this field and they're they got their family they got yeah he's my friend that's all I got oh yeah he knows this oh yeah I'm dating the boss's daughter and he I needed a job and well you know sometimes it's been working for them you know and that field their father is electrician you know there's you know how many father-son Duos I've worked with you know what I'm saying that we're Caucasian so so much okay I just want to say thank you for letting me come along today it's been fun so yeah um so I hope you guys enjoyed this video and um let me know if you have any questions um I can definitely ask my husband he'll be able to answer them for you and then yes and um I'll post the answers to some of your questions that you have and like I said before if you want like a q a video um you know you can drop your questions below and we can just do a separate video of just asking some more questions about what he does um and just a little more knowledge that he has um because I know over the course of these last eight years he's learned a lot and um and he's in the process of becoming a journeyman electrician so um you know some more opportunities were hopefully going to be coming his way soon also I mean I've worked with people who have felonies and I've worked my boss has hired well my former boss had hired somebody who was a murderer you know and and this field you can work with people who have done all types of things you know so if you had a checkered past you can find work in this field right and make a good living you know you know make really good money I know a guy mine was in jail for 10 years got out in his 30s you know now has a 300 000 house his own business you know his wife doesn't work he's take care of all four of his kids and he has you know he's he's flipping properties renovating them he's doing the work himself got some of his buddies right and you know if that just goes back to my point like you know it doesn't matter what you've done with electrical you can you know get in there and make some money like even if you know you are an electrician and something happens to you let's say you're you can't do electrical for five years or something like that you break your leg you know you know it's like riding a bike once you get back on it you're gonna be fine right so well thank you for that positive message so basically saying that being an electrician is for anybody and anybody no matter where you come from no matter what you've done and um that's really important too so so I got home and I realized I never closed out this video properly so I just want to thank you guys for watching um this was a really cool video to do I'm glad my husband was able to sort of take me to work today and um it's the first time I've kind of really experienced him doing this so um it was fun for me it was fun for us so I hope you got some enjoyment out of it anybody wanting to become an electrician um and received a positive message from a lot of his experience and knowledge that he's gained over the course of these eight years so thanks so much for watching and I'll see you in the next video bye everyone [Music]

Channel: Ethan Roberts

Views: 37,728

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Id: 7IQOdpUPUR4

Length: 23min 23sec (1403 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 25 2023