In this video, we're looking at my professional electrician tool setup. These are the tools and containers I use everyday working as a professional master electrician.
I have been an electrical contractor for 27 years. Started out as a young kid and grew up over the years with hard lessons. I have moved over from large contracts to doing more service work for multiple reasons (mainly payment reasons). I am primarily 70% service, 30% construction. I always wanted to be fair to people but after letting myself get taken advantage of way too many times over the years I have finally grown up and always make sure I get what I am worth now. If I have to quote small jobs then we quote them plenty high with any extras or unknowns stated clearly including plenty of money for time quoting. I don't get "pinched" any more. I am good at spoting and stating the exceptions to my quotes. I am finally coming out of the hole I have been in for years, (Previously buried in work with little profit.) Most contractors do not see the cost of overhead, and especially their accounting (not just taxes but the time spent invoicing, getting payment, depositing those payements, paying sales tax if any, etc.). It takes a significant amount of office workers to keep track of everything. Most contractors also do not fully account for the use of their trucks, their property, storage facilities or warehouse space. They typically give all that cost away and end up with little profit if any at the end of the month or year. A good heavy duty utility service truck costs around $55-65k now not including fully stocking and equiping it with tools (in our case that cost is an additional $5k with conduit boxes, truck bed mats, additional lights, electrical material, emblems, and tools). If you divide that by a 5 to 6 year life span at 20 work days a month then that truck is costing you somewhere between $35 to $55 a day, not including gas, tires, maint or insurance. The truck is costing you at least $8 an hour to operate with tires, gas and maintenance costs. Then the labor/time to change the oil or take the truck to get the oil and or ties changed also needs to be considered. These costs do not even take into account the time getting rid of the truck when you are done with it. You have to be making up these costs somehow or your trucks and their maintenance will eat up your profit and you will end up "just turning dollars" while thinking you are making money. You have to know what everything is costing you and make sure it is producing or get rid of it. If any investor was investing $60k he would want a return on this money, he would want the return/profit plus his investment, he would not want to just get paid back for that investment. Yet many times we as contractors do just that, we just get paid back for what we spent rather than make money on the truck we are sending out into the field as well as make money on the technician or worker we send out. I now rent any and all tools that are above normal hand tools. I pretty much want my money back from my investment the first year if possible and the rest can be profit. I rent electric benders, any larger drills, and any wire tracing equipment beyond stardard electrical equipment. I also charge almost a dollar per wire nut or screw, this is because of the losses by having these on the trucks or go out on jobs. In my early days of starting up had an old man look at one of my early invoices and ask to give me advice of which I agreed to listen. He said, "Young man, years ago I operated a shop downtown whereby we went out and installed stoves and appliances and we learned a hard lesson in our former business that you have to be charging at least double what an employee is costing you JUST TO BREAK EVEN." A the time I thought he was crazy, double just to break even? No way. Yet now, after all these years I now know that to be completely true. My employees cost me around $30-$35 an hour and I have found that I have to charge at least $85 an hour plus a minimum $35 a trip for a truck not including any additional mileage. Any Our rate varies between $85 an hour for basic work , $95 an hour for control work and $125 an hour for industrial work or automation work. We are located in a small town of 25k people yet the rate has to be at least this high or I might as well quit what I am doing. I know in a larger city next to us they charge $120 an hour per human and it does not matter if he is licensed or not, they get $120 an hour per person. I watched a video on the contractor fight channel and he brought out that most contractors do not price the stagging and handling of the job, nor the finalizing of the paperwork or coordination on the job. They only price out the actual work and the prep and finalizing labor eats their profit up. He is totally right. You need to be doubling your costs and make sure you include all the costs in the project. Yes you will lose some projects but those will be projects you do not want. I am at a point in my business where I would rather lose the job and go drink coffee than to work my tail off on the project and just turn dollars. If we are not going to be making money I do not want anything to do with the project no matter how nice the customer, it is just not worth it anymore.
That milk crate 'bag' idea is great. No zippers. No having it fall on it's side and dump your tools. No absorbing liquids. I noticed that you avoided fiddly stuff like flip out utility knives, all in one tools, etc. It's probably quicker for you to swap tools than for somebody to figure out which part has the bit they need in a multi-tool.
I used to do the same thing with the milk crate! I switched to using a Walmart basket with an old leather green lee pouch! It was a game changer switching to the Walmart basket as it came with actual handles. Nick from Toronto, Ibew 353
Like everything but the porter cable impact and milk create just feel like it look a little unprofessional as handy as if might be. And all the 100s of hours we spend using power tools I think it’s justified to spend a $50 more a tool to get Milwaukee or dewalt cordless tools that you’ll you have in your hands for years
I like how to talk about tool value. You aren’t a carpenter, so it makes sense to not buy the “best” impact driver. It’s refreshing to see someone save a little money where they can.
Very practical keep doing what you do. We certainly want to see more of what you do when you do residential installs, rewires, testing, fault finding. Tips on techniques in terminating conductors in panels, in outlets light fittings. New products, new tools. Best piece of advice is look at the quality of materials being put out by the UK electricians like artisan electrics, DSS electrical, Nick Bundy, Thomas Nagy they do a lot of excellent material on their days to day work. There really isn’t in my view anything by any US electricians to that same degree and quality. Take a look.
Your doing great I am convinced you will succeed, attentions to detail and quality are really difficult to find.. One of the things I have been telling Mike Holt and his team is to push more aggressively for installation safety testing and power quality testing in residential setting for installations at least to have the NEC have standards around that like they do in UK and Europe. It tends to happen in USA in more hospital and industrial testing but it’s way behind UK and Europe. We are entering a new age of mixture of smart DC and AC semi-conductor devices moving away from electromechanical devices including low voltage power over Ethernet devices the range of that area is boundless. Power quality testing as we move to more low voltage mix and dealing with surges, transients, will become really significant. That’s where the industry is heading it also adds to professionalism and sophistication of electricians.
@@S33Electrical , Good videos. 👍 What percentage of your work is residential / commercial ? I was in North Austin / Cedar Park / Leander last December and noticed a crazy amount of new homes being built. Do you contract with the big home builders (like KB) on new sub divisions? I also own an LLC and it also has its ups and downs....
@@RuskyHuskyful overtightening terminals & lugs in a panel can flatten the wire which can lead to heat buildup and electricity waste-age. Plus, it’s better to do consist work
@@arlynnmast8790 I am aware. the sad reality is that most people in our field half ass things so they can do things faster to try and impress or appease their bosses. safety and workmanship go right out the fucking window.
@@RuskyHuskyful I just reread your OG comment and realize I misunderstood you. Sorry. Yeah, I’m fortunate to have a boss that wants it done right instead of super fast
It looks pretty good. Sure that a lot of work gets done with that set up. My only comment is to be careful with that Milwaukee meter. I'm an industrial electrician and had a demo one a few years ago that would give me a delay when troubleshooting. That could potentially be dangerous and give you a false negative which caused me to delete it. Never had that problem with my fluke.
If you're working with high voltage or work on buildings with circuits that pull heavy loads, I will recommend buying a high end volt meter. I tend to rely on my tick tester for residential branch circuits, but I don't recommend anyone do that unless they're qualified to make a decision. I use the meter mostly for Ohms and checking circuit breakers. In a more serious situation it's best to check power with a tick tester and a good reliable meter and after you've confirmed it is cold, touch it to ground!
