[hedora]

It takes an absurd number of hours to wire a house in California because the code is insane. That multiplies with high labor costs.

Wiring a simple / small home, it takes well over four electrician months, minimum.

Also, they have to pay licensing fees to the state, insurance premiums, etc, etc.

Of course, the $40-60K also includes materials, which are a small percentage of the cost, but non-zero.

[sokoloff]

I’m a slow as hell perfectionist DIYer and I can’t see any way I could take even 2 months of full-time work to wire a small, simple new construction house. How can it take a pro 4 months? (Or 2 months solo and 1 month with a journeyman electrician?)

My parents place was new, custom construction (not small, but only 3BR/3Ba) and there were 2 sparkies there for 1 day to set the temporary power, 4 or 5 days to rough the house in and, after drywall, they were back for 3 or 4 days to trim everything out.

[whartung]

I watched my house being built. We'd visit the site pretty much once a week or every other week.

One day we showed up, and all of the electrical had been done. Power, internet, pre-wired home alarm, panels, the whole kit. Plumbing was the same way. One day, plumbing. (It uses that flexible plastic tubing internally, that has to go up fast.)

Did I see it being done? No. For all I know 50 folks showed up and wired it in a day. "2 man months". But, I'm guessing that's not what happened.

The most interesting anecdote from this is that I actually met one of the guys that did the work. He did, at least part of, the internet wiring.

Know how I met him? He was driving a dump truck delivering landscaping material. He liked the work better, I guess his family owned the hauling business.

I don't know what he was getting paid to route CAT 6 cable, but, apparently, all told, driving a dump truck is better.

[bombcar]

You pay $300/hr for electrical work, and by the time it trickles down to the actual apprentices doing the grunt work it’s $20-40/hr. Even the electrician officially in charge is $100/hr at best unless he owns the company (and then it’s often lower due to bad accounting).

[paulcole]

Where in California was your parents’ house built?

[matthewmacleod]

Wiring a simple / small home, it takes well over four electrician months, minimum.

It’s hard to take these numbers seriously - they don’t pass the sniff test for anyone who has had it done. Wiring a 1000sq ft home is a job that is measured in days, not months. While I only have experience of the UK, it is difficult to see any possible regulation which would mean installation being quite literally an order of magnitude slower.

But let’s use some Fermi estimation. California builds around 100,000 new houses a year, give or take. This suggests we’d need an absolute minimum of 400,000 electrician-months a year. The Bureau of Labor Statistics thinks there are 70,000 electricians in California in total. Assuming they have an availability of 90%, then we could say that California has about 750,000 available electrician-months a year in total.

This would mean that over half of all available electrician time in California would be spent wiring new-build houses, if we assumed they were all small properties. It seems clear this can’t be a credible result.

I’m not saying you’re necessarily wrong, but it’s hard to swallow without some idea of what possible thing could cause this betone vague hints about “code being insane“

[dazc]

He may just have gotten bad contractors. A friend of mine lives in a council run appartment in the UK and some simple jobs that have been carried out on his building have run into years, with multiple people on site every day (mostly doing nothing or doing stuff so badly that it needs another team to come in and rectify).

Recent example, upgrade to fire doors in corridors on 3 floors. Halfway into the job they realise each corridor is a different height and the doors they have already bought are the wrong size. Some levels of incompetance are hard to imagine until you see it happening in real time.

[KerrAvon]

I’m a little skeptical. California code is not that dissimilar to the national code in terms of labor and materials. I’ve had extensive work done to my California house by electricians for a (fully-permitted) remodel and it’s been pricey but not that slow or pricey.

[bushbaba]

In California it Cost me 3k to upgrade an electric panel from 120 to 200amp service. Was a one day job with a single electrician.

[YATA0]

That's probably the cheapest upgrade in the history of the state. PG&E claims the average service upgrade in California is costing somewhere between $8k to $25k.

[pkaye]

I had panel upgrade in the bay area back in 2019 which cost $3200. Changed the service panel, weatherhead and ground rods.

[YATA0]

Overhead service is definitely the cheapest upgrade. No trenching and underground conduit required.

[bombcar]

Probably depends on if you have to pay PG&E for their side or if it’s just a panel swap.

[bushbaba]

It was just a panel swap. But I did have PGE come out to disconnect and re-connect service. It also required a permit and inspection from the city.

[YATA0]

Ah. Yes that's about right for a panel swap. Upgrading the service conductors is what costs $$$.

[catmanjan]

This is very surprising, in Australia I understand we have strict codes and I have never heard of it taking this long

What exactly does the electrician spend all that time doing in California?

[pkaye]

Personally I think they are exaggerating how long the actual work takes. However trades are in high demand due to significant remodels and commercial construction so it might long time to find someone.

[antattack]

Some state codes require use of galvanized steel piping (called EMT) for electrical conduit.

[Schroedingersat]

On an unclad, sanely sized house that's still like two days for the apprentice to install and pull cable, tops. $200 for the poor sod doing the work, $80p for his boss, and $2k for the company is still nowhere near 2 electrician months of labour.

[CapitalistCartr]

Every state requires pipe in many places, industrial, most commercial, large multi-unit buldings. The only place in the USA that I know requires pipe in resi is Chicago.

[kelnos]

That seems... not true? The wiring in my 12-year-old home in CA does not seem to be particularly complicated, and I doubt code has changed much in the past decade. With all the drywall off, I can't imagine it taking more than a few days (for 2-3 people) to completely wire my (~1900 sqft) home.

[sethammons]

I worked some construction. It was 15 years ago, but I, me, nobody else, wired up the whole small house in a couple days. The walls were open. It was fast, easy work. The only thing I didn't touch was the service panel and the connection to the pole.

This was in Southern California.

[CapitalistCartr]

Materials are not a "small percentage of the cost". Wire and switchgear are painfully expensive these days. On the other hand, two guys with hustle can rough in a typical house in 2-3 days.