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A panel swap at a VFW hall in Spokane taught me to label every zone before I touch a wire
I was doing a takeover job at the VFW hall off Division in Spokane about 6 weeks ago, and the old panel had 14 zones with zero labels on the can. I figured I could tone them out as I went, easy enough right? Two hours in I had the door contacts beeping and the motion sensors chirping at the same time and I had no idea which wire was which, because the previous guy had run everything in the same gray 22/4 and zip tied it into one big bundle. The hall manager kept walking by asking if the bar fridge alarm was going to go off during their Friday fish fry, and I could not tell him yes or no with a straight face. I finally cut the bundle loose one wire at a time and traced each run back to the device by hand, which cost me another 90 minutes I had not bid for. Since then I bring a roll of number tape and a sharpie and I tag every single conductor the second I pull it, even on a two door job. What do you all do when you walk into a can that looks like spaghetti and the customer swears the last guy was a pro?
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the_richard11d ago
The customer always swears the last guy was a pro, right up until you open the can. Did you ever find out what the bar fridge circuit actually was, or was that still a mystery when you left?
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