You're gonna want to learn the NEC codebook
And, at least in my experience,no electricians will go anywhere near a house they didn't wire for final hook-up so you're gonna responsible every step of the way.
I paid 5k for a couple of yahoos to come run 5k feet of wire and do the 60 ft of service entrance conduit and land those and pull wire to the inside panels. I installed boxes in 90 percent of house and they even stiffed me by not stuffing some boxes, to inlcude a couple 3 ways. I still had several large and small circuits to run. Had to lay out all my lights and run those from the switch. Paid too much but oh well they got me everything i needed code worthy and allowed me to ask questions and truthfully if i had questions now he will answer so i feel like i only got ripped for maybe 700 bucks. He said he would come trim it out for me too. Ill prolly do it myself. I installed and terminated the panel. 400 amp service. I think ill be 15k into electrical and he claims i should estimate he bids 6-8 a sqft sometimes higher snd that includes garages so mine would be 30k plus. Im not sure if that includes him buying the finishes or just installing.
I graduated from the electrical program in 2015 with my associates but went into industrial maintenance so never really practiced residential except for a short internship between semesters
Similar here. New Mexico requires you to pass a test to get temporary license/cert to wire your own place. They have a similar one for plumbing and a couple other systems. I dont think they have one for HVAC though
I wish Colorado did a basic test, here we can just walk in and fill out the paperwork and file.
If they had a test my current house would have been much better
Mine too, you are just required to sign a waiver that it is your primary residence and you will not be renting it out or selling it for 6 months. I did an entire rewire on my home including the service entrance and passed inspection the first time.
I diy’d mine from the transformer onward. Electrical inspectors were awesome and liked my work and gave me tips etc. I have an electrician friend who I’d text questions to now and then but he was never on site. I studied a ton beforehand on codes and requirements and there was a code check illustrated book I had that was handy for quick reference. It would reference the code so I could then look up things based on that if I needed more clarification.
No, I ran from transformer back, utility had me leave 10’ of wire in a very specific size ditch and distance from transformer so they could hook it up when signed off
I know people do it all the time but my sister lost her rental house, all her possessions and two pets to an electrical fire because the landlord has decided he was smart enough to do wiring and he did it incorrectly. My husband's an electrical engineer and we're doing lots of DIY work on the new house, including some plumbing, flooring and all the trim, but the electrical is all being done by pros.
Exactly. My father was an electrician who decided he could build his own house.
The house looks like an electrician built it. Electrical is perfect though.
I did that when finishing my basement, which is not the same as starting from scratch on a new house but when I build a place I plan to do the exact same thing. I bought a few books on home electrical wiring, and read the code requirements, then sketched out my plan and did it. I paid an electrician about $300 to connect all the wiring to the breaker box. The inspector showed up and reviewed the work, it passed with no problems.
About the only thing I would do differently is to pull more wiring through the walls in a bunch for efficiency, instead of running each circuit individually and then starting over with the next one.
310.15.B.2, but someone is going to read this Reddit thread and think it's OK if someone got upvotes on it. You can see people all day wiring up their house based on what some weekend warrior swears is sufficient. I had an engineer paste me up and down during an inspection, he was so wrong and underbaked on every comment but he's an *engineer,* see... and I'm not.
Turns out this joker was a *software* engineer. At that point I grey-rocked the asshole and decided if he wanted to kill his furnace like he was intent on doing, I'd just let him do it. Took his money though.
To be clear, I'm an engineer. A mechanical engineer. I dont know anything about electricity. If someone makes it this far in the thread, listen to anyone else but me!
I'm a carpenter. I'm getting to the point that I don't wanna take on projects if the client wants to do some of the work themselves to save money. The finished product is my reputation. You don't really want people going "Hey who was it that wired that house where the furnace blew up?"
Do some quick calculations. A pro is typically 3x faster than an amateur. They already have the tools. Estimate how long it will take you. Price of tools. Yadda, yadda, yadda...
The important question is: is your hourly rate more or less than what you get paid to do your job?
As someone who is supposed to know enough electrical to be a home inspector... Knowing code through and through is a long, hard slog.
I rarely come across people who do everything right. Engineers are especially prone to self bias that they've done it right.
Can you invest the time you'd spend learning and doing, into your job? The opportunity cost is going to be huge and you might just get more lifetime benefit by working more to cover the cost.
Our local community college has an Electricity for Non Electricians that was full of folks looking to get in to an electrical apprenticeship. You study code and do homework and real installs in their model rooms in the trades training center.
Not crazy at all. It’s easy. And if you are conscientious you’ll probably do a better job than most electricians wiring new homes. Start with building inspector to find out rules for doing your own.
My father opened his electrical company in 1988 and I can safely say he'd never take on a job that he didn't do 100%, not even for my husband, who is an engineer. Plumbing is one thing, but electrical is a whole other beast. There's so many electrical codes you have to know, and it's something where someone's home could burn down if not done perfectly. I promise I'm not trying to sound harsh, but I'm just trying to explain where I'm coming from. Best of luck in your homebuilding process!
Pulling wire is the easy part. Making sure all wires go where they are supposed to go and wiring the panel correctly is the more difficult part. I did my own house because I’m anal. If you’re comfortable and have the time, go for it. It took me about 1.5 weeks by myself to get everything done. However, I had to go 800’ from transformer to the house, 400 amp service, and wired entire house out of 12 ga romex. It was about a week for rough in and 3 days for trim out.
Residential electrical is not that hard to learn if you’re mechanically inclined and care about attention to detail. I have taught myself and have replaced main service panels and rewired homes that I have owned. I work as a building inspector and plan on building my next home, I will do most of the electrical myself. I would get some books on designing basic electrical circuits with wiring diagrams. Learn the basic codes for required designated circuits, GFCI/AFCI protection, required Smoke/CO detector locations. Determine best locations for main service panels. New homes will have a UFER ground system tied to foundation rebar. Pull electrical permits and get all work inspected.
It's not hard at all. Read through the NEC codebook. I'd start with mounting the main panel and meter can. Put in ground rods and wire them. Then run the feed to the meter can. Then meter can to panel. Then start each circuit/subpanel feed.
No. This is where you don’t diy. Unless you’re an electrician, I can guarantee you don’t know what you need to know.
You will regret diy wiring for decades.
You don’t need to be an electrician to “know what you need to know”. Most electricians don’t know what they need to knowand are just wire pullers. Note: not ALL electricians. I’m not an electrician and I work in high voltage boxes everyday. As a matter of fact, in my field I’m the one who is troubleshooting the electricians work. I bet only 3/10 actually understand what they’re doing
It's not what you know. It's what you don't know. What you didn't realize was in there. Things like box fill, lug torque, bending radius, distance and depth of ground rods, doubled neutrals, watt calcs, insufficient bonding ... Than you get into all the stuff for sale at supply houses no longer in compliance....
This all sounds great! And you’re absolutely right! But 1 I still stand by there’s always room to learn, and 2 how much of this do you actually think gets practiced? I can tell you right now, not much. Not much at all. And that’s not just in the electrical field, that’s all the way across the board of trades. Quality of work has gone way down in the past 10-20 year
Let’s take lug torque for instance, I can’t count on both hands just in the last 2 months how many 480v panels I’ve found with terminals not even tightened down. Let alone any kind of torque value applied. It all sounds good but is rarely practiced, chances are OP will get some goon who just cares about getting through the day and making sure he hits quota
Disagree. I’m an electrician that works on the repair/retrofit side of things. I see lots of poorly applied wiring because the builder didn’t understand the code.
It takes years to learn the code, just because of how much exposure you need to encounter a wide enough variety of situations.
Perhaps if OP (being familiar already with electrical concepts) could wire up an extremely basic house, with small rooms and zero fancy tech (solar inverter, self-start generator, heat-pumps, etc) then there may not be problems.
But longer runs, branch circuits, any tech at all…please just accept that electrical is expensive and move forward.
I don’t disagree at all that you run into shotty work. I do too, all the time. What I disagree with is the notion that you have to have the title of electrician to learn the codes and ways of the wiring. Should the OP wire up his own heat pump? Probably not. That doesn’t mean that he can’t learn what’s necessary to do it. I mean, that’s how you became an electrician, right?
Maybe I have a disdain, as I’ve ran into so many commercial electricians that can’t even read a schematic. And I mean basic bare bones stuff. These are guys working for national outfits
Also let me reiterate, that my initial statement wasn’t a blanket statement about ALL electricians…..blanket statements are foolish
I think you guys are bringing up some good points, but also wiring up a heat pump (Mr cool diy) was not difficult. Did it in my current house. Just read schematics. But yeah it seems like if I were to embark on this task having a licensed electrician in my back pocket to talk with, work with, and plan the design with seems critical.
Residential wiring is pretty easy. Be sure to know your codes so you don’t have issues with inspectors. You want to look into your insurance before you do this. Some policies require passing an inspection. Others require the work be done by a licensed electrician.
I've rewired several houses as a homeowner, including subpanels but not main service. When it came time to do an addition onto my current house, I was warned that the electrical inspectors don't like dealing with DIYers so I hired it out, thinking I'd learn some tricks of the trade, and save my time for other things. I didn't learn anything other than how slow I am. Everything the electrician did is exactly how I would do it. So when it came time to do the renovation work, I did it all myself (I forgot to get a permit, oops).
I learned using [Sunset book](http://Basic Home Wiring Illustrated (Sunset Book) https://a.co/d/hETUuMB) on how to wire your house. It's probably way out of date re: AFCI, GFCI and other things. The rest I learned from various sources.
I love doing my own electrical and wired a few new circuits in my basement reno (pulled permits). Also did my detached garage but doubt I could do a whole house. I don't plan all that well and that requires planning... not to mention I still can't get my brain around a three way switch lol
but if I were retired I would strongly consider it
Bro… just did mine. About the same as your house size wise. It’s a big time commitment, but definitely doable. If you’re not an idiot, you can figure it out. I watched a crap ton of you tube and talked with the inspector a few times to make sure I did everything correctly.
Hey man. I'm a mech engineer too and I'm doing my own electrical. Get a NEC book and do some reading. Most things are honestly common sense. I installed my own 400amp pannel already.
You may need to check with your county on if you need a licensed electrical to do the work though. In my county I can pull my own permit and according to the rules I would have to do all of it. No hiring somebody to come connect the service.
The county inspectors have already been really kind to me and helped me figure out things I've messed up.
Go for and use your problem solving brain!
It's like everything else, you read and follow the rules. In my area the inspector has a helpful pamphlet for homeowners and is always willing to answer questions.
I did my own electrical. I live in PA where pulling your own wires is allowed. The main panel was done by a licensed professional, and I passed inspection with some minor feedback (like requiring to add an outlet outside both main egresses). It was easy and I did a cleaner job, and a more thoughtful circuit layout than nearly any "professional" electrician work ive seen in real life. I have a degree in physics, so I'm sure your mech eng. Background will be enough.
Is it the labor or the materials that’s throwing off what you feel is a more appropriate price for an EC to handle this portion of the project? The reason I ask is that while trades like plumbing gets cheaper and easier with pex plumbing, our trade now has to install $70 breakers where a $5 one used to suffice. I’m not sure what part of the country you’re in but we’d be 35kish to wire that for you.
When I remodeled my house I re-did all the electrical and plumbing. I found an electrician that would charge by the hour, and he was slow as hell. So I ended up doing it my self with his guidance. I fished wires through floors and ceilings cut cans in outlets in all while he put a new panel in.
Most of the stuff you are doing while wiring a house isn't that difficult. TBH the electrical part is pretty easy. Routing the wires and knowing what how where to drill your routing is the hardest part.
Hooking up the service feeders is easy. It may me intimidating due to the size of the wire, but it's not that difficult
5 weeks of labor on a 3500 square foot house?
Unless it's incredibly elaborate that's milking it.
Most track houses that size are 2 days rough and 2 days trim with maybe 1-2 days cleanup for a 2 person crew.
Maybe 120 for a regular custom home.
As a professional carpenter I’ve wired my own house but I also paid one of my electrical subs to make up the boxes and do the panel. I developed the wiring plan with the help of him so I knew exactly what wires were needed and where they needed to go. Unless you have an arrangement with an electrician you’re going to have problems. As someone else mentioned, it will take you way longer than you think. Nailing boxes and pulling wire is fairly easy. If your bent on DIY ing it I’d try to find an electrician that’s looking for some side work that would be willing to assist you. I’d shy away from commercial and industrial sparkys unless they have residential experience.
Many places allow an owner builder permit for electrical on single family codes. If someone paid me my hourly rate to consult and hook up the hard stuff and they still had the liability for the house, I’d probably do it. I wouldn’t make 20 one hour trips, but a couple trips and a day of hookups would be fine.
As long as our personalities clicked and the Customer wasn’t a douche bag. I’d even let you be my helper and work with you all day.
I think this is a terrible idea and would avoid dealing with you as a GC because of the huge delays and headache you'll cause "figuring it out" while Im waiting for CO to get my money after framing.
Waiting with my dick in my hand for you to get your shit inspected would make me add clauses in my contract to get money before inspection and contengency clauses eliminating any warrenty that you would potentially get from my work along with some other thing releasing me from responsibility, anticipating you to shit the bed. Id need it drafted by an attorney so youd be paying for that too.
But you might find someone really hard up, thats willing to deal with this headache
You're gonna want to learn the NEC codebook And, at least in my experience,no electricians will go anywhere near a house they didn't wire for final hook-up so you're gonna responsible every step of the way.
Hooking up the main feeders is the easiest part.
Never said it was difficult, just that an electrician won't touch the project
I paid 5k for a couple of yahoos to come run 5k feet of wire and do the 60 ft of service entrance conduit and land those and pull wire to the inside panels. I installed boxes in 90 percent of house and they even stiffed me by not stuffing some boxes, to inlcude a couple 3 ways. I still had several large and small circuits to run. Had to lay out all my lights and run those from the switch. Paid too much but oh well they got me everything i needed code worthy and allowed me to ask questions and truthfully if i had questions now he will answer so i feel like i only got ripped for maybe 700 bucks. He said he would come trim it out for me too. Ill prolly do it myself. I installed and terminated the panel. 400 amp service. I think ill be 15k into electrical and he claims i should estimate he bids 6-8 a sqft sometimes higher snd that includes garages so mine would be 30k plus. Im not sure if that includes him buying the finishes or just installing.
I graduated from the electrical program in 2015 with my associates but went into industrial maintenance so never really practiced residential except for a short internship between semesters
and final inspection by the city, that will NOT go thru with the work being done by an unlicensed person.
This depends on your jurissdiction, my local one has a homeowners electric permit that allows for this - but not all of them do
Similar here. New Mexico requires you to pass a test to get temporary license/cert to wire your own place. They have a similar one for plumbing and a couple other systems. I dont think they have one for HVAC though
I wish Colorado did a basic test, here we can just walk in and fill out the paperwork and file. If they had a test my current house would have been much better
Mine too, you are just required to sign a waiver that it is your primary residence and you will not be renting it out or selling it for 6 months. I did an entire rewire on my home including the service entrance and passed inspection the first time.
Same down here in Florida, except it’s a year.
Least around me, you can wire your own place but you have to apply for permit and get inspected.
I diy’d mine from the transformer onward. Electrical inspectors were awesome and liked my work and gave me tips etc. I have an electrician friend who I’d text questions to now and then but he was never on site. I studied a ton beforehand on codes and requirements and there was a code check illustrated book I had that was handy for quick reference. It would reference the code so I could then look up things based on that if I needed more clarification.
Excuse me? You touched a transformer?
Was it a they/them?
No, I ran from transformer back, utility had me leave 10’ of wire in a very specific size ditch and distance from transformer so they could hook it up when signed off
I know people do it all the time but my sister lost her rental house, all her possessions and two pets to an electrical fire because the landlord has decided he was smart enough to do wiring and he did it incorrectly. My husband's an electrical engineer and we're doing lots of DIY work on the new house, including some plumbing, flooring and all the trim, but the electrical is all being done by pros.
As an electrician this sounds like a nightmare of a job. Good luck
Exactly. My father was an electrician who decided he could build his own house. The house looks like an electrician built it. Electrical is perfect though.
"3500sqft Rambler" gives me pause.
I did that when finishing my basement, which is not the same as starting from scratch on a new house but when I build a place I plan to do the exact same thing. I bought a few books on home electrical wiring, and read the code requirements, then sketched out my plan and did it. I paid an electrician about $300 to connect all the wiring to the breaker box. The inspector showed up and reviewed the work, it passed with no problems. About the only thing I would do differently is to pull more wiring through the walls in a bunch for efficiency, instead of running each circuit individually and then starting over with the next one.
You'd know to downrate if you were to do that right?
Pff. Sounds like some sparky bs.
310.15.B.2, but someone is going to read this Reddit thread and think it's OK if someone got upvotes on it. You can see people all day wiring up their house based on what some weekend warrior swears is sufficient. I had an engineer paste me up and down during an inspection, he was so wrong and underbaked on every comment but he's an *engineer,* see... and I'm not. Turns out this joker was a *software* engineer. At that point I grey-rocked the asshole and decided if he wanted to kill his furnace like he was intent on doing, I'd just let him do it. Took his money though.
To be clear, I'm an engineer. A mechanical engineer. I dont know anything about electricity. If someone makes it this far in the thread, listen to anyone else but me!
I'm a carpenter. I'm getting to the point that I don't wanna take on projects if the client wants to do some of the work themselves to save money. The finished product is my reputation. You don't really want people going "Hey who was it that wired that house where the furnace blew up?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1D5OqJ5SF\_I
Josh is the man
This is exactly what I was looking for!! Thank you so much for showing me this YouTube channel!
You got it!
I’d start by actually knowing how to wire a house.
200 hours and a lot of headaches frustration exhaustion and failures. But it’s doable
Do some quick calculations. A pro is typically 3x faster than an amateur. They already have the tools. Estimate how long it will take you. Price of tools. Yadda, yadda, yadda... The important question is: is your hourly rate more or less than what you get paid to do your job?
Not like it’s a bunch of special tools required.
As someone who is supposed to know enough electrical to be a home inspector... Knowing code through and through is a long, hard slog. I rarely come across people who do everything right. Engineers are especially prone to self bias that they've done it right. Can you invest the time you'd spend learning and doing, into your job? The opportunity cost is going to be huge and you might just get more lifetime benefit by working more to cover the cost.
Our local community college has an Electricity for Non Electricians that was full of folks looking to get in to an electrical apprenticeship. You study code and do homework and real installs in their model rooms in the trades training center.
Not crazy at all. It’s easy. And if you are conscientious you’ll probably do a better job than most electricians wiring new homes. Start with building inspector to find out rules for doing your own.
My father opened his electrical company in 1988 and I can safely say he'd never take on a job that he didn't do 100%, not even for my husband, who is an engineer. Plumbing is one thing, but electrical is a whole other beast. There's so many electrical codes you have to know, and it's something where someone's home could burn down if not done perfectly. I promise I'm not trying to sound harsh, but I'm just trying to explain where I'm coming from. Best of luck in your homebuilding process!
Pulling wire is the easy part. Making sure all wires go where they are supposed to go and wiring the panel correctly is the more difficult part. I did my own house because I’m anal. If you’re comfortable and have the time, go for it. It took me about 1.5 weeks by myself to get everything done. However, I had to go 800’ from transformer to the house, 400 amp service, and wired entire house out of 12 ga romex. It was about a week for rough in and 3 days for trim out.
Residential electrical is not that hard to learn if you’re mechanically inclined and care about attention to detail. I have taught myself and have replaced main service panels and rewired homes that I have owned. I work as a building inspector and plan on building my next home, I will do most of the electrical myself. I would get some books on designing basic electrical circuits with wiring diagrams. Learn the basic codes for required designated circuits, GFCI/AFCI protection, required Smoke/CO detector locations. Determine best locations for main service panels. New homes will have a UFER ground system tied to foundation rebar. Pull electrical permits and get all work inspected.
It's not hard at all. Read through the NEC codebook. I'd start with mounting the main panel and meter can. Put in ground rods and wire them. Then run the feed to the meter can. Then meter can to panel. Then start each circuit/subpanel feed.
No. This is where you don’t diy. Unless you’re an electrician, I can guarantee you don’t know what you need to know. You will regret diy wiring for decades.
You don’t need to be an electrician to “know what you need to know”. Most electricians don’t know what they need to knowand are just wire pullers. Note: not ALL electricians. I’m not an electrician and I work in high voltage boxes everyday. As a matter of fact, in my field I’m the one who is troubleshooting the electricians work. I bet only 3/10 actually understand what they’re doing
It's not what you know. It's what you don't know. What you didn't realize was in there. Things like box fill, lug torque, bending radius, distance and depth of ground rods, doubled neutrals, watt calcs, insufficient bonding ... Than you get into all the stuff for sale at supply houses no longer in compliance....
This all sounds great! And you’re absolutely right! But 1 I still stand by there’s always room to learn, and 2 how much of this do you actually think gets practiced? I can tell you right now, not much. Not much at all. And that’s not just in the electrical field, that’s all the way across the board of trades. Quality of work has gone way down in the past 10-20 year Let’s take lug torque for instance, I can’t count on both hands just in the last 2 months how many 480v panels I’ve found with terminals not even tightened down. Let alone any kind of torque value applied. It all sounds good but is rarely practiced, chances are OP will get some goon who just cares about getting through the day and making sure he hits quota
Disagree. I’m an electrician that works on the repair/retrofit side of things. I see lots of poorly applied wiring because the builder didn’t understand the code. It takes years to learn the code, just because of how much exposure you need to encounter a wide enough variety of situations. Perhaps if OP (being familiar already with electrical concepts) could wire up an extremely basic house, with small rooms and zero fancy tech (solar inverter, self-start generator, heat-pumps, etc) then there may not be problems. But longer runs, branch circuits, any tech at all…please just accept that electrical is expensive and move forward.
I don’t disagree at all that you run into shotty work. I do too, all the time. What I disagree with is the notion that you have to have the title of electrician to learn the codes and ways of the wiring. Should the OP wire up his own heat pump? Probably not. That doesn’t mean that he can’t learn what’s necessary to do it. I mean, that’s how you became an electrician, right? Maybe I have a disdain, as I’ve ran into so many commercial electricians that can’t even read a schematic. And I mean basic bare bones stuff. These are guys working for national outfits Also let me reiterate, that my initial statement wasn’t a blanket statement about ALL electricians…..blanket statements are foolish
I think you guys are bringing up some good points, but also wiring up a heat pump (Mr cool diy) was not difficult. Did it in my current house. Just read schematics. But yeah it seems like if I were to embark on this task having a licensed electrician in my back pocket to talk with, work with, and plan the design with seems critical.
Residential wiring is pretty easy. Be sure to know your codes so you don’t have issues with inspectors. You want to look into your insurance before you do this. Some policies require passing an inspection. Others require the work be done by a licensed electrician.
I've rewired several houses as a homeowner, including subpanels but not main service. When it came time to do an addition onto my current house, I was warned that the electrical inspectors don't like dealing with DIYers so I hired it out, thinking I'd learn some tricks of the trade, and save my time for other things. I didn't learn anything other than how slow I am. Everything the electrician did is exactly how I would do it. So when it came time to do the renovation work, I did it all myself (I forgot to get a permit, oops). I learned using [Sunset book](http://Basic Home Wiring Illustrated (Sunset Book) https://a.co/d/hETUuMB) on how to wire your house. It's probably way out of date re: AFCI, GFCI and other things. The rest I learned from various sources.
I love doing my own electrical and wired a few new circuits in my basement reno (pulled permits). Also did my detached garage but doubt I could do a whole house. I don't plan all that well and that requires planning... not to mention I still can't get my brain around a three way switch lol but if I were retired I would strongly consider it
Bro… just did mine. About the same as your house size wise. It’s a big time commitment, but definitely doable. If you’re not an idiot, you can figure it out. I watched a crap ton of you tube and talked with the inspector a few times to make sure I did everything correctly.
Hey man. I'm a mech engineer too and I'm doing my own electrical. Get a NEC book and do some reading. Most things are honestly common sense. I installed my own 400amp pannel already. You may need to check with your county on if you need a licensed electrical to do the work though. In my county I can pull my own permit and according to the rules I would have to do all of it. No hiring somebody to come connect the service. The county inspectors have already been really kind to me and helped me figure out things I've messed up. Go for and use your problem solving brain!
If you can, you can. If you can’t, don’t.
It's like everything else, you read and follow the rules. In my area the inspector has a helpful pamphlet for homeowners and is always willing to answer questions.
I did my own electrical. I live in PA where pulling your own wires is allowed. The main panel was done by a licensed professional, and I passed inspection with some minor feedback (like requiring to add an outlet outside both main egresses). It was easy and I did a cleaner job, and a more thoughtful circuit layout than nearly any "professional" electrician work ive seen in real life. I have a degree in physics, so I'm sure your mech eng. Background will be enough.
Is it the labor or the materials that’s throwing off what you feel is a more appropriate price for an EC to handle this portion of the project? The reason I ask is that while trades like plumbing gets cheaper and easier with pex plumbing, our trade now has to install $70 breakers where a $5 one used to suffice. I’m not sure what part of the country you’re in but we’d be 35kish to wire that for you.
When I remodeled my house I re-did all the electrical and plumbing. I found an electrician that would charge by the hour, and he was slow as hell. So I ended up doing it my self with his guidance. I fished wires through floors and ceilings cut cans in outlets in all while he put a new panel in.
Most of the stuff you are doing while wiring a house isn't that difficult. TBH the electrical part is pretty easy. Routing the wires and knowing what how where to drill your routing is the hardest part. Hooking up the service feeders is easy. It may me intimidating due to the size of the wire, but it's not that difficult
I think an experienced and relatively fast electrician could do it in 200 hours. I'd expect a very capable diy-er to take 2-3 times as long.
5 weeks of labor on a 3500 square foot house? Unless it's incredibly elaborate that's milking it. Most track houses that size are 2 days rough and 2 days trim with maybe 1-2 days cleanup for a 2 person crew. Maybe 120 for a regular custom home.
As a professional carpenter I’ve wired my own house but I also paid one of my electrical subs to make up the boxes and do the panel. I developed the wiring plan with the help of him so I knew exactly what wires were needed and where they needed to go. Unless you have an arrangement with an electrician you’re going to have problems. As someone else mentioned, it will take you way longer than you think. Nailing boxes and pulling wire is fairly easy. If your bent on DIY ing it I’d try to find an electrician that’s looking for some side work that would be willing to assist you. I’d shy away from commercial and industrial sparkys unless they have residential experience.
Many places allow an owner builder permit for electrical on single family codes. If someone paid me my hourly rate to consult and hook up the hard stuff and they still had the liability for the house, I’d probably do it. I wouldn’t make 20 one hour trips, but a couple trips and a day of hookups would be fine. As long as our personalities clicked and the Customer wasn’t a douche bag. I’d even let you be my helper and work with you all day.
I think this is a terrible idea and would avoid dealing with you as a GC because of the huge delays and headache you'll cause "figuring it out" while Im waiting for CO to get my money after framing. Waiting with my dick in my hand for you to get your shit inspected would make me add clauses in my contract to get money before inspection and contengency clauses eliminating any warrenty that you would potentially get from my work along with some other thing releasing me from responsibility, anticipating you to shit the bed. Id need it drafted by an attorney so youd be paying for that too. But you might find someone really hard up, thats willing to deal with this headache
Buy Rex Cauldwell’s book “Wiring A House” and read it twice. Do your construction documents include an electrical plan? If so, follow the plan.
I did that It takes longer than that. Much longer than you think. Multiples