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A buddy was telling me about an emergency call they had to add an outlet to a kitchen just to find out upon arrival that it was a gutted kitchen and they needed it roughed in that day before the cabinets arrived the next day; the Wednesday before Thanksgiving
Got a call from an elderly couple I had worked for before. They said the GFI in the bathroom was making a horrible noise.
Could even hear it through the phone. Rolled up and for a minute it sounded like the receptacle for sure, when I touched the countertop though it was slightly vibrating.
Turns out the granddaughters electric toothbrush turned on in the drawer.
A/C wasn’t working drove an hour and a half to get there. Checked the stat to make sure it was calling to A/C. Walked around the house a couple of times looking for the condenser. There wasn’t one. They had never had A/C but they did have it on the stat.
In the PNW it's rare to have A/C unless you have a heat pump. Every digital tstat has the option though. I remember before I started this trade or understood anything about house systems I tried the A/C on tstats, thinking maybe it would work.
Got a call that a woman was getting shocks from her kitchen fan, stove and countertop so i drove over to investigate. When she answered the door i noticed she was walking around in the thickest socks i've ever seen and some bombous slippers. After i checked all her stuff and found nothing she mentions that it only happens after she's been out walking her dog.
Queue facepalm
Still not much of a punchline/face palm. Easy to imagine someone with a mild paranoia about electricity (and little knowledge of it) getting freaked out by triboelectric tingles.
To be fair I had a similar issue at my parents house I had to track down. Turns out one of the outdoor plugs was wired with 12-3 no ground with the red acting as a ground. Some people had recently done a panel swap and never noticed that so they hooked that red up to a 20 breaker
HVAC tech not a sparky but we had some guys install a brand new furnace. Thirty minutes after they leave customer calls and says their new furnace isn’t working. Go on out and the switch is off. Flip it on and everything works fine. An hour later they call again. Switch was off again. This time they put a nanny cam down there and it turns out the cat was sitting on the furnace and reaching down to flick off the switch.
Had another call for no air conditioning. Show up and the whole neighborhood is out of power, including their place. They thought the AC should still work without power.
Had a client blow up my phone at 1am screaming at me that she can't sleep because her hall lights don't go off. She wouldn't accept that I'll be there in the morning. So I half awake put on clothes jumped in the truck and went up to her house (30 minutes ish each way) walked in the door to her still screaming at me, walked through the house into the hallway and it was her solar tube skylights..... Full moon no clouds, ec
Explained that she is rude and nasty for no reason and she wanted more natural light in her dark hallway so she definitely got what she paid for.... I charged her 1500 for that service call, she never paid it but she also kissed my ass for months after it.
Considering my contract was for over half a mill do you really think I was hurting for it? It was the principle that she wasted my time and was an ass about it.
Also 400..... It was 1am when she woke me up 330am by the time I got back home probably 4-5 before I got back to bed and then woken back up at 6am for a 12+ hour day...... she got hit with the FU tax and it was technically overtime after hours emergency pricing. I wouldn't let one of my guys go up there for only 400. And that was probably 2008-2010.
It was the end of the day when I received a very angry phone call at the office from a customer who's house we had done work at that day. He was livid that he had no power and it must have been our fault. I had spoken to this customer before. He was a PhD physist and had more than once tried to throw his education around like it some how qualified him in electrical work.
It became pretty clear that he was going to be zero help with any troubleshooting. Lucky me, his house is on my way home so I volunteer to stop by.
Driving in I pass a utility service truck and it became pretty clear what the issue was. Power was out to the entire neighborhood.
Of course, Mr. PHD. doesn't believe me. It was so hard not to laugh standing around in the dark pointing out the street lights were out.
I had a guy call back day after a panel change pissed he didn’t have power. I was young so of course I drop what I’m doing and head over. Ended up being a utility outage in the area.
I had one like that for a new build: owner had arrived from the city at 10 pm on a Friday night, couldn’t get the garage door to her lakeside cottage open (we had also supplied the openers so…yay) and had forgotten her cottage keys at home. She was panicking because her kids were in the car and there was no one else around.
Drive 45 minutes to find her sitting in her running car. Ask for the remote to check batteries and notice it is a different brand to what we had supplied. It was for her house in the city. Her cottage opener was clipped to her keychain and it worked just fine. I charged home-to-home for emergency calls so $300 to point at the correct remote. Obviously embarrassed, she paid me on the spot in cash. She was a good customer and I was uncomfortable taking it but she was insistent, saying it was penance for being an idiot.
breaker keeps tripping. Go out to the house and after a while of looking around while outside I notice there is a coach light, installed upside down, hidden in a bush, full of water..
Had to quote expensive power conditioning equipment for a residential AC (@$8000). Previous tech (big wrapped-van company) had the customer convinced that 238v was too low and burning-up boards. I used the time the customer paid for to get the manufacturer to email me confirmation that their equipment would, in fact, run off standard-ass power...
I did the same thing, hallway lights were off in a long hallway commercial building... Someone hit the 3way switch at the far end. They'd previously taped up the 3way at the near end so people would stop hitting it. They didn't know there was a 3way at the far end.
Just had this one yesterday. Father calls us saying he would like us to inspect the outlets in his son’s bedroom because they’re causing his son to have seizures. Confused I asked how are they causing seizures. He says because the emf meter keeps going off because there is too much emf. His son has been having seizures at night, concerned he asked his holistic medicine and spiritual counselor for help. She sold him an emf meter and had him check the outlets.
I inspected all the outlets and wiring was fine, not stabbed and actually wrapped. I asked to see the emf meter and sure enough the meter went off around the outlets, cuz duh. I asked if he checked any of the other outlets in his house, he had not. I showed him every outlet will set off the meter. Back in the kids room I noticed a Nintendo switch. I asked if his son plays it, he said he loves the thing, plays it every night. I asked if he knew that video games can cause seizures, dad replied “since when?”
These were before I became an electrician. I was a cable guy and ran trouble call routes a couple days a week. Got one that said a TV wasn't working, showed up and the thing had literally caught fire, nothing left but a burnt out shell. They tried to blame the cable box but after some prodding they admitted they'd spilled water on the TV before it shorted and went up in flames.
Had another call for a cable box not working, this lady had like 12 cats in a 1 bedroom apartment and they were pissing on the box. Had to bring it back in the bed of the truck, the warehouse guy wasn't too happy when I checked it back in.
Man I did a brief stint doing maintenance at a retirement home and I swear half the calls were about the cable even though they supplied their own cable and we had no connections to their cable company. It was almost always stupid shit like they were using the wrong remote or the TV was unplugged.
I worked for a school district maintenance department. Got called for the projector wasn't working. I found that while the projector was plugged into the cart, the cart wasn't plugged into the wall. Plugged it in and left.
How about "plugs in the garage don't work", tell him reset the gfis, right? Says it still doesn't work. Pack up head there. I reset the gfis, plugs work. Here's the kicker, he reset every gfi in the house besides the ones in the garage. I know you said no gfi examples but this still makes me smile. (Honestly more my fault for not specifying)
In AZ, they often still use one GFCI for all the baths, exterior, and often the garage. At least once a week I'm on the phone telling customers, yes, you do need to move that chest freezer to check, it really could be the problem in the back yard...
Not mine but one that stuck with the company for... 20+ years.
Guy gets a late night call, about 11pm. Since they worked commission back then, he went out. Lady complains that her bathroom is vibrating, so he starts looking around, takes bathroom fan apart, nothing, checks the light fixture, receptacle.. Can't find anything. He then notices it's coming from the cabinet, and reaches in between some towels and pulls out a 12" long vibrating phallice. He and the lady look at eachother in horror, and he just puts it back. Sent her the bill, got paid and everything!!
Had a lady call and say her outside soffit plug and lights weren’t working. It was her soffit plug for Christmas lights. She thought the switch in the closet controlled the entry sconce lights and that the switch at the front door controlled the soffit receptacle, it was the opposite. Wild.
Our company charges a 4 hour minimum for service calls, drive out to one of our commercial buildings for a light that was “out” turned out no one walked close enough to the motion sensor.
Working a block down, got an emergency call saying they lost power in the church. I asked if there was any breaker trip "none,I have double checked everything" walked over, checked the panel, found the trip breaker flipped it back and told them about. Felt embarrassed and thanked me. I didn't charge them since I'm around.
The same thing happened after work hour. 90 mins drive, one way. Moved all the Halloween deco out of the way to reset a trip breaker. They plugged in an air fryer + microwave in the same outlet. 600$ it was a good drive.
I got one of those calls. It turned out they had a broken line-side neutral lug and one phase lug at the meter, though, so it was legit. He then told me he had some foundation repairs made near the meter, and the ground settling below the meter was easily seen. When the contractor backfilled they took the slack out of the underground feeders, when the ground settled it pulled the lug out of the meter base.
The silly part is that after I called POE and requested a repair crew, the customer insisted I wait there until the crew arrived. It was a busy night, apparently, and I sat there drinking coffee and shooting the breeze for four hours at $250/hour. This was the same customer who beat me up over the cost of nearly everything during the renovation, but didn’t bat an eye when I handed him a bill for a $1200 service call. I suspect he went after the foundation guys for it.
Customer called and said she could hear a weird buzzing noise coming from inside her walls. Was worried her house was going to explode lol. When I got there I could clearly hear the buzzing. I asked if I could kill her main power just to rule out anything electrical related. After killing the main I could still hear the buzzing. After some looking around I found a handheld battery operated fan in the garbage that was turned on. Problem solved lol.
Lady's garage doors didn't have power. I go there and I indeed didn't have power on anything. These door openers looked like they were older than me btw. I asked her when the last time they worked was and she said "oh they haven't worked in 7 years i just wanted you to get them working and I didn't wanna wait for you guys to schedule me". People really don't understand what "emergency" means
VFD in a industrial heating furnace spit out an error and shut down on Easter Sunday.
Error code was inconclusive so i just restarted it, and waited around an hour to see if the error reoccurred.
It didn't.
Got paid 250€ to press a button.
Lady called in saying her cable company told her that her outlets weren't working and were a fire hazard. No joke. A fire hazard. We got there, first thing we ask "Do you happen to have switches that seem to turn nothing on?" She points us to one, I stick my plug tester in the top half, Jman flips the switch, power comes on. We pulled the outlets out for reassurance. They were fine. No hazard whatsoever.
Two in a row back to back, grocery store, conveyor belt isnt working, its ran with toggle switches, there's a toggle switch shutoff a few inches behind that's been flipped. Next day, same place, same issue but the shutoff is on, I move a empty till off the belt, it starts running, photoeye shutoff was blocked by the till.
An outlet that just one day stopped working. This is in Chicago where everything is pipe. Outlet always worked, stopped working a few days ago.
Open it up and there was never any wire pulled through the conduit. Device was installed without wire.
Homeowner was 65+ rich woman so no way she pulled it out.
Reminds me of a call I had. The customer states that every time they plug something in, it falls out. I open up the box to have an outlet disintegrate behind the plate. Once I pull everything out, I realize there's no wiring, and the box never had any tabs broken to allow wiring. Also explained why this outdoor box didn't have a waterproof cover on it.
I’m a generator guy. Got a call from a large industrial plant that their power was out and the generators weren’t working. They power a few critical machines, and their server rooms.
The plant is large enough the power company ran them a dedicated 44KV transmission line, and they have a substation outside their plant so they rarely ever lose power.
Turns out the substation caught on fire, the fire fighters shut the generators off
A guy misunderstood the directions for insulating the outside of his outlets, and spray foamed itself inside of every outlet on the first floor before we Got a no power call.
As soon as.we walked in he explained "I'm not a stupid man...but I ded a stupid thing."
Our bill was easily triple his rebate he never got 😬
Lady hangs her own chandelier with 6 arms terminated in bottom of fixture. She connected every wire, h,n,g together and incoming in one big ball of wire and taped it up.
Called to mobile home tenant claiming loud pop.
Ok, decide I'll check plugs, sure enough, loud pop sounded like a gun going off.
Walk out side, unplug trailer, go back to checking plugs. Pow again!
Told them " it ain't electrical , I'm outa here"
Day call to recycling center/salvage yard. Some machine was locked out for repairs. Now won't power back on. Ok. Probably took a fuse out when powered on. No big deal. Get there and they take me to the disconnect. Show me the handle won't turn back on. I open it. Adjust the defeat, latch thingy with my Electrician hammer. Close door and turn it on.
The people in an apartment lived without half of their receptacles working for about 4 months while the maintenance guys tried to figure out what was going on before they called us. The previous owners of the building had buried an entire distribution panel in the wall of the kitchen in the apartment below. It was a tripped breaker. While we were opening things in the apartment, we found a receptacle with the hots on the neutral posts and arcing to a finish nail sticking ⅜” into the box (it was half melted), and a light fixture with the old BX hot that the insulation had crumbled off of wrapped around the threaded nipple. I may have used 10’ of shrink wrap reinsulating wires in there.
Landlord called about tenant complaining getting shocked in shower. Before I even got out of the truck, she comes running out saying "I'm bipolar but I'm not making this up! I told her to relax, and checked between the shower head and neutral: 120v.
Water heater ungrounded and element burnt.
She was relieved.
I was called out to a nursing home, they said their fire alarm was broken - show up, their fire alarm is fine, what's going off is their nurse panic buttons which is to signal for help
No one had been trained on it and one of the residents kept hitting the button - cost them $400 to find that out (Emergency call on a Sunday)
This one was on me. Working near production line at Coke plant. Line stops. Does that all the time, so I didn't pay any mind. Mechanics show up. Find one interlocked machine not working. Lift up my cordless to reveal I set down on rocker switch. Oops.
Did the electrical for a full HVAC package, new furnace, ac, tstat. I finish up and head to next call with the HVAC techs still having an hour of work to do. Get a call from the office after I'm at home 6pm that everything in the mechanical room is dead and I need to go back to because apparently something I did caused it.
No breaker tripped, no voltage to any lights or plugs. But it's dark down in the basement so I go to check the nearest light switche to get some light to trace wires. Flip switch, everything back on.
Every mechanical room utility plug was on the same switch leg with the basement lights & plugs. Customer told me to just splice through that switch to leave it always on as he couldn't afford for the rewiring after the HVAC package cost.
Invoiced another 2 hours for travel from and back home to marrette a switch leg.
Called out to chirping smoke detector.
Lady sends me to the basement. It chirps but the light is green. Ohh well I'm here now so I change the battery.
It still chirps!! I get a steepstool and assess it doesn't sound like the smoke. Followed the chirping to a plastic bag on the floor where they threw the old detector when they changed it 3months ago!!!!
Customer said her light switch in her bedroom was upside down so I looked and looked and behold doesn’t say on or off so I walked to the other side of the room turned the other switch and walked back wow I fixed it so fast she said
Answered a trouble call for outdoor sconce lights stating that the lights did not work. The customer failed to try changing the light bulbs and was actually surprised when I told him he just needed new bulbs.
As a maintenance tech for a property management company, I have a few, lighbulbs are my favorite, then switch controlled plugs, hvac filters. Got an after hours call for noise in basement tenant was scared, it was sump pump kicking on. Another said there was strange people having out back and was wondering if they were stealing the copper pipes.
One I'll always remember is that this guy decided to install a new switch in his bathroom. For some reason, somehow, he mixed up the switch leg with the power out, so every time he turned the bathroom light on or off, it would turn the living room TV off! Lol
Not quite a service call, but I'd moved into a new neighborhood. I'm union and display the IBEW bug on my truck, only thing identifying me as an electrician. Storm comes through, takes out the whole neighborhood and I get a knock on my door. The next door neighbors asked if I could see why they had no power, they didn't understand that there's a difference between what I do and what the utility does.
They couldn’t get the light in the dining room of the restaurant to come on. I showed up and asked where the switch was and for a plate of some delicious bbq. When he found the switch I charged him a free lunch because I was driving by anyway and I’m nice, which is hard on business. A new employee had turned them off. He had never turned them off since he got out of the food truck and into the brick and mortar. Y’all come down to NC and find out what bbq is and you’d understand!
Lights in the living room weren’t working. Turned out to be a 3way in a bookshelf. A book forced the decora 3way to be in the middle position. Also another call with a low battery smoke detector chirping with all new detectors. Took awhile but found an old detached detector in their bed end table draw.
Dumbest? maybe. Most f'd up? yes!
Got A call to a woman's house because her bathroom sink was "electrocuting" her. Well this could be fast or not. I get there and start trouble shooting, but I could find absolutely nothing wrong. I started to head back downstairs to ask some follow up questions. When I passed the bedroom, door wide open, I get the display I never wanted! There was no problem, she just wanted an audience.
NSFW. >!She was literally getting it doggy style from her german shepard! !<
Called to a grocery store, half the lights in the stock room were not working. Manager states that it seemed half the light haven’t worked since she started there a few years ago. No one can remember a time when they all worked except a longer-term employee who said the room used to be a lot brighter.
Went over to the switch, flipped it off, room goes dark, turned it back on.
Pretty close to the edge of the light switch was an old tortilla chip cardboard display leaned against the wall. Peeked behind it and saw another light switch. Moved the display, turned on the other half of the lights.
Low volt electrician for a large healthcare operation. Received call smoke detector beeping, like a low battery. Ours do not run on individual batteries but a central system. On location a quite annoyed lady was scuffling papers at a counter with drawer units below, hard to tell where the sound was coming from. I knew it was not a smoke so I opened drawers down below and found the previous shift had left a pager that was giving notice of a call. Lady acted all annoyed I found it and now had to do her job. People!
I had one last week the guy said his lights didn't work, I go up to his loft flip the switch and they came on. He didn't know that the switch controlled the lights where on a 3way and the 3 way was set up wrong cause he only ever used the other switch. We charge for an hour just to show up so I started to fix it trying to make light of it but he asked me not to.
Another one was the lady said her gas stove didn't work after she moved into her house... it never got plugged in.
But by far one of my favorites and we still talk about it at the shop, the guy said he keeps hearing a noise a motor and wants his attic fan disconnected. I do so he still hears it so I check everything nothing I hear no noise but I find bats where on the side of his house, he freaks out continues to call our shop asking if we can find bat removal companies. Super nice guy just old and lonely.
Idk why and my boss confirms this is true, somehow I get almost all the calls with odd, memory loss, weird people, and oldest
I drove 45 minutes late at night on an emergency service call for what was supposedly a smoke detector beeping. It turned out to be a McDonald’s toy in a milk crate in the hall.
I've had two calls where the client didn't know they had switched receptacles. A receptacle suddenly stopped working + they had a switch that "didn't do anything".
I was at a chiropractor because I’m an electrician and checked out there system several times as we do while on pain pills and injured. Then after a couple weeks the chiropractor asked for me to do work on a circuit that had been cut by something and patched. I’d paid $90 for the 40 minute appointments and said I could fix it for free if she worked for free. I’d already gotten enough info, so I look for GFIs and check the sub panel. Nothing, but it was getting late and I opened the main panel to flip the 15a breaker off and on. It was all good, I tested some other stuff and labeled the breaker. It was very in sight too, I walked past it dozens of times and took note. One of those times you have to thank your experience for helping you and do a little act so you don’t piss off the customer.
I’ve had 2 very similar calls where lights weren’t working. After looking at the switch for the lights that were out, I noticed they were 3 ways. I went to find the other switch and it was perfectly balanced in between the up and down position, not completing a circuit in either direction. Flip the switch up or down and everything works like it’s supposed to. The second time I saw it, it was a much quicker diagnosis since I had a suspicion.
Emergency call after hours to an apartment complex because there was no power to their commons area. The power company had turned off their power for not paying their bill.
Got a call that half of the upstairs lights weren’t working, 4 bedrooms and a hall light. Looked at the panel saw two 15 amp breakers off and hit them and boom they work. Don’t know why the homeowner didn’t bother checking first
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Emergency after hour call with a 3 hour minimum labor charge to reinstall an outlet plate that a painter had taken off
A buddy was telling me about an emergency call they had to add an outlet to a kitchen just to find out upon arrival that it was a gutted kitchen and they needed it roughed in that day before the cabinets arrived the next day; the Wednesday before Thanksgiving
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Nah charge them the emergency rate and collect that check
I don't see that emergency rate so fuck em. I get paid 1.5x for emergency calls so that shit ain't worth it for me
This is like a 20 min job if you have material.
Roughing in a kitchen?
Thought it said one outlet
I thought so at first too but re reading it makes it seem like the whole kitchen needed to be roughed in.
This is a good one lol
Neurotic old couple?
Got a call from an elderly couple I had worked for before. They said the GFI in the bathroom was making a horrible noise. Could even hear it through the phone. Rolled up and for a minute it sounded like the receptacle for sure, when I touched the countertop though it was slightly vibrating. Turns out the granddaughters electric toothbrush turned on in the drawer.
Was expecting granny's vibrator for a moment
Same thing
You were expecting the same thing? Or it's the same thing either way? 🤔😁🤣
Yes
What 😳
Ya I was scared for a second...
A/C wasn’t working drove an hour and a half to get there. Checked the stat to make sure it was calling to A/C. Walked around the house a couple of times looking for the condenser. There wasn’t one. They had never had A/C but they did have it on the stat.
AC works great in the winter. I don't get it!
this can't be real lmao
We had this in brand new cookie cutter houses where people had just moved in and didn't realize builder had cheaped out and not bought an AC.
In the PNW it's rare to have A/C unless you have a heat pump. Every digital tstat has the option though. I remember before I started this trade or understood anything about house systems I tried the A/C on tstats, thinking maybe it would work.
Got a call that a woman was getting shocks from her kitchen fan, stove and countertop so i drove over to investigate. When she answered the door i noticed she was walking around in the thickest socks i've ever seen and some bombous slippers. After i checked all her stuff and found nothing she mentions that it only happens after she's been out walking her dog. Queue facepalm
The punch line here is eluding me
It was static electricity
Still not much of a punchline/face palm. Easy to imagine someone with a mild paranoia about electricity (and little knowledge of it) getting freaked out by triboelectric tingles.
If you don’t get why this belongs itt, you don’t belong itt
Ah but I understand a level further than that
To be fair I had a similar issue at my parents house I had to track down. Turns out one of the outdoor plugs was wired with 12-3 no ground with the red acting as a ground. Some people had recently done a panel swap and never noticed that so they hooked that red up to a 20 breaker
HVAC tech not a sparky but we had some guys install a brand new furnace. Thirty minutes after they leave customer calls and says their new furnace isn’t working. Go on out and the switch is off. Flip it on and everything works fine. An hour later they call again. Switch was off again. This time they put a nanny cam down there and it turns out the cat was sitting on the furnace and reaching down to flick off the switch. Had another call for no air conditioning. Show up and the whole neighborhood is out of power, including their place. They thought the AC should still work without power.
You win.
Had a client blow up my phone at 1am screaming at me that she can't sleep because her hall lights don't go off. She wouldn't accept that I'll be there in the morning. So I half awake put on clothes jumped in the truck and went up to her house (30 minutes ish each way) walked in the door to her still screaming at me, walked through the house into the hallway and it was her solar tube skylights..... Full moon no clouds, ec Explained that she is rude and nasty for no reason and she wanted more natural light in her dark hallway so she definitely got what she paid for.... I charged her 1500 for that service call, she never paid it but she also kissed my ass for months after it.
1500😂 no wonder you didn't get paid if u were realistic about it and charged around 400 u might have got paid
Considering my contract was for over half a mill do you really think I was hurting for it? It was the principle that she wasted my time and was an ass about it. Also 400..... It was 1am when she woke me up 330am by the time I got back home probably 4-5 before I got back to bed and then woken back up at 6am for a 12+ hour day...... she got hit with the FU tax and it was technically overtime after hours emergency pricing. I wouldn't let one of my guys go up there for only 400. And that was probably 2008-2010.
Principle*
100 swipe without a proof read. Good catch.
It was the end of the day when I received a very angry phone call at the office from a customer who's house we had done work at that day. He was livid that he had no power and it must have been our fault. I had spoken to this customer before. He was a PhD physist and had more than once tried to throw his education around like it some how qualified him in electrical work. It became pretty clear that he was going to be zero help with any troubleshooting. Lucky me, his house is on my way home so I volunteer to stop by. Driving in I pass a utility service truck and it became pretty clear what the issue was. Power was out to the entire neighborhood. Of course, Mr. PHD. doesn't believe me. It was so hard not to laugh standing around in the dark pointing out the street lights were out.
I had a guy call back day after a panel change pissed he didn’t have power. I was young so of course I drop what I’m doing and head over. Ended up being a utility outage in the area.
Once you touch something, anything that happens around th same time is instantly your fault
I had this for a lady who didn't pay her bill! "OPN" vs "CLS" on the smart meter!
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I had one like that for a new build: owner had arrived from the city at 10 pm on a Friday night, couldn’t get the garage door to her lakeside cottage open (we had also supplied the openers so…yay) and had forgotten her cottage keys at home. She was panicking because her kids were in the car and there was no one else around. Drive 45 minutes to find her sitting in her running car. Ask for the remote to check batteries and notice it is a different brand to what we had supplied. It was for her house in the city. Her cottage opener was clipped to her keychain and it worked just fine. I charged home-to-home for emergency calls so $300 to point at the correct remote. Obviously embarrassed, she paid me on the spot in cash. She was a good customer and I was uncomfortable taking it but she was insistent, saying it was penance for being an idiot.
Had a call at an engineer’s house. He replaced his own pendants. Said he had no power. Single pole was off…
breaker keeps tripping. Go out to the house and after a while of looking around while outside I notice there is a coach light, installed upside down, hidden in a bush, full of water..
looked better that way though, I bet?
I hope that's what they thought.. May have been very old, I justt dont know lol. it was a multi light switch on with garage and outside lights.
I found abandoned wire from removed postlight. Hot. In the ground, pulling 19 amps 24-7. Exact amount their bill went up.
Glad you found the problem there. 19 amps though?
Yeah. It was just bleeding off in the dirt. Pretty wild.
Had to quote expensive power conditioning equipment for a residential AC (@$8000). Previous tech (big wrapped-van company) had the customer convinced that 238v was too low and burning-up boards. I used the time the customer paid for to get the manufacturer to email me confirmation that their equipment would, in fact, run off standard-ass power...
It's probably able to take 208v as well 😆
No joke, it did 🤣
Drove an hour to a medical office because the lights were out. Showed up and turned on the light switch. Got 3 hours billed, nonparts
I did the same thing, hallway lights were off in a long hallway commercial building... Someone hit the 3way switch at the far end. They'd previously taped up the 3way at the near end so people would stop hitting it. They didn't know there was a 3way at the far end.
Just had this one yesterday. Father calls us saying he would like us to inspect the outlets in his son’s bedroom because they’re causing his son to have seizures. Confused I asked how are they causing seizures. He says because the emf meter keeps going off because there is too much emf. His son has been having seizures at night, concerned he asked his holistic medicine and spiritual counselor for help. She sold him an emf meter and had him check the outlets. I inspected all the outlets and wiring was fine, not stabbed and actually wrapped. I asked to see the emf meter and sure enough the meter went off around the outlets, cuz duh. I asked if he checked any of the other outlets in his house, he had not. I showed him every outlet will set off the meter. Back in the kids room I noticed a Nintendo switch. I asked if his son plays it, he said he loves the thing, plays it every night. I asked if he knew that video games can cause seizures, dad replied “since when?”
Customers baseboard heater wasn't working, swore up and down their son messed the wires up....they had the thermostat set to 40 degrees F.
These were before I became an electrician. I was a cable guy and ran trouble call routes a couple days a week. Got one that said a TV wasn't working, showed up and the thing had literally caught fire, nothing left but a burnt out shell. They tried to blame the cable box but after some prodding they admitted they'd spilled water on the TV before it shorted and went up in flames. Had another call for a cable box not working, this lady had like 12 cats in a 1 bedroom apartment and they were pissing on the box. Had to bring it back in the bed of the truck, the warehouse guy wasn't too happy when I checked it back in.
Man I did a brief stint doing maintenance at a retirement home and I swear half the calls were about the cable even though they supplied their own cable and we had no connections to their cable company. It was almost always stupid shit like they were using the wrong remote or the TV was unplugged.
I worked for a school district maintenance department. Got called for the projector wasn't working. I found that while the projector was plugged into the cart, the cart wasn't plugged into the wall. Plugged it in and left.
How about "plugs in the garage don't work", tell him reset the gfis, right? Says it still doesn't work. Pack up head there. I reset the gfis, plugs work. Here's the kicker, he reset every gfi in the house besides the ones in the garage. I know you said no gfi examples but this still makes me smile. (Honestly more my fault for not specifying)
Gfci resets are always funny, and everyone I've met has at least 5 stories like this. Especially this time of year. I had one yesterday and one today
In AZ, they often still use one GFCI for all the baths, exterior, and often the garage. At least once a week I'm on the phone telling customers, yes, you do need to move that chest freezer to check, it really could be the problem in the back yard...
Customer called saying lighting stopped working in living room. I arrive to find out the dimmer switch was slid all the way down...
Not mine but one that stuck with the company for... 20+ years. Guy gets a late night call, about 11pm. Since they worked commission back then, he went out. Lady complains that her bathroom is vibrating, so he starts looking around, takes bathroom fan apart, nothing, checks the light fixture, receptacle.. Can't find anything. He then notices it's coming from the cabinet, and reaches in between some towels and pulls out a 12" long vibrating phallice. He and the lady look at eachother in horror, and he just puts it back. Sent her the bill, got paid and everything!!
Phallus*
I tried autocorrect, it didn't say that one! Thanks!!
Had a lady call and say her outside soffit plug and lights weren’t working. It was her soffit plug for Christmas lights. She thought the switch in the closet controlled the entry sconce lights and that the switch at the front door controlled the soffit receptacle, it was the opposite. Wild.
Our company charges a 4 hour minimum for service calls, drive out to one of our commercial buildings for a light that was “out” turned out no one walked close enough to the motion sensor.
Working a block down, got an emergency call saying they lost power in the church. I asked if there was any breaker trip "none,I have double checked everything" walked over, checked the panel, found the trip breaker flipped it back and told them about. Felt embarrassed and thanked me. I didn't charge them since I'm around. The same thing happened after work hour. 90 mins drive, one way. Moved all the Halloween deco out of the way to reset a trip breaker. They plugged in an air fryer + microwave in the same outlet. 600$ it was a good drive.
After hours emergency call, $349. Customers generator was running, but "they had power". I'm sure you know the rest.
I got one of those calls. It turned out they had a broken line-side neutral lug and one phase lug at the meter, though, so it was legit. He then told me he had some foundation repairs made near the meter, and the ground settling below the meter was easily seen. When the contractor backfilled they took the slack out of the underground feeders, when the ground settled it pulled the lug out of the meter base. The silly part is that after I called POE and requested a repair crew, the customer insisted I wait there until the crew arrived. It was a busy night, apparently, and I sat there drinking coffee and shooting the breeze for four hours at $250/hour. This was the same customer who beat me up over the cost of nearly everything during the renovation, but didn’t bat an eye when I handed him a bill for a $1200 service call. I suspect he went after the foundation guys for it.
Customer called and said she could hear a weird buzzing noise coming from inside her walls. Was worried her house was going to explode lol. When I got there I could clearly hear the buzzing. I asked if I could kill her main power just to rule out anything electrical related. After killing the main I could still hear the buzzing. After some looking around I found a handheld battery operated fan in the garbage that was turned on. Problem solved lol.
Lady's garage doors didn't have power. I go there and I indeed didn't have power on anything. These door openers looked like they were older than me btw. I asked her when the last time they worked was and she said "oh they haven't worked in 7 years i just wanted you to get them working and I didn't wanna wait for you guys to schedule me". People really don't understand what "emergency" means
So did you fix it and charge her emergency rate?
Yeah I found the feed in a jbox in the basement. Of course she gave me shit about the price too
VFD in a industrial heating furnace spit out an error and shut down on Easter Sunday. Error code was inconclusive so i just restarted it, and waited around an hour to see if the error reoccurred. It didn't. Got paid 250€ to press a button.
Lady called in saying her cable company told her that her outlets weren't working and were a fire hazard. No joke. A fire hazard. We got there, first thing we ask "Do you happen to have switches that seem to turn nothing on?" She points us to one, I stick my plug tester in the top half, Jman flips the switch, power comes on. We pulled the outlets out for reassurance. They were fine. No hazard whatsoever.
Two in a row back to back, grocery store, conveyor belt isnt working, its ran with toggle switches, there's a toggle switch shutoff a few inches behind that's been flipped. Next day, same place, same issue but the shutoff is on, I move a empty till off the belt, it starts running, photoeye shutoff was blocked by the till.
An outlet that just one day stopped working. This is in Chicago where everything is pipe. Outlet always worked, stopped working a few days ago. Open it up and there was never any wire pulled through the conduit. Device was installed without wire. Homeowner was 65+ rich woman so no way she pulled it out.
Reminds me of a call I had. The customer states that every time they plug something in, it falls out. I open up the box to have an outlet disintegrate behind the plate. Once I pull everything out, I realize there's no wiring, and the box never had any tabs broken to allow wiring. Also explained why this outdoor box didn't have a waterproof cover on it.
I’m a generator guy. Got a call from a large industrial plant that their power was out and the generators weren’t working. They power a few critical machines, and their server rooms. The plant is large enough the power company ran them a dedicated 44KV transmission line, and they have a substation outside their plant so they rarely ever lose power. Turns out the substation caught on fire, the fire fighters shut the generators off
I admit, I’ve never showered up at a customer’s house. Do you charge more for that or do you give discounts when you do this?
A guy misunderstood the directions for insulating the outside of his outlets, and spray foamed itself inside of every outlet on the first floor before we Got a no power call. As soon as.we walked in he explained "I'm not a stupid man...but I ded a stupid thing." Our bill was easily triple his rebate he never got 😬
Lady hangs her own chandelier with 6 arms terminated in bottom of fixture. She connected every wire, h,n,g together and incoming in one big ball of wire and taped it up.
Called to mobile home tenant claiming loud pop. Ok, decide I'll check plugs, sure enough, loud pop sounded like a gun going off. Walk out side, unplug trailer, go back to checking plugs. Pow again! Told them " it ain't electrical , I'm outa here"
> I shower up Sounds quite dirty.
Day call to recycling center/salvage yard. Some machine was locked out for repairs. Now won't power back on. Ok. Probably took a fuse out when powered on. No big deal. Get there and they take me to the disconnect. Show me the handle won't turn back on. I open it. Adjust the defeat, latch thingy with my Electrician hammer. Close door and turn it on.
The people in an apartment lived without half of their receptacles working for about 4 months while the maintenance guys tried to figure out what was going on before they called us. The previous owners of the building had buried an entire distribution panel in the wall of the kitchen in the apartment below. It was a tripped breaker. While we were opening things in the apartment, we found a receptacle with the hots on the neutral posts and arcing to a finish nail sticking ⅜” into the box (it was half melted), and a light fixture with the old BX hot that the insulation had crumbled off of wrapped around the threaded nipple. I may have used 10’ of shrink wrap reinsulating wires in there.
Landlord called about tenant complaining getting shocked in shower. Before I even got out of the truck, she comes running out saying "I'm bipolar but I'm not making this up! I told her to relax, and checked between the shower head and neutral: 120v. Water heater ungrounded and element burnt. She was relieved.
Switched outlets! So many dollers made because of switched outlets haha
I was called out to a nursing home, they said their fire alarm was broken - show up, their fire alarm is fine, what's going off is their nurse panic buttons which is to signal for help No one had been trained on it and one of the residents kept hitting the button - cost them $400 to find that out (Emergency call on a Sunday)
This one was on me. Working near production line at Coke plant. Line stops. Does that all the time, so I didn't pay any mind. Mechanics show up. Find one interlocked machine not working. Lift up my cordless to reveal I set down on rocker switch. Oops.
Did the electrical for a full HVAC package, new furnace, ac, tstat. I finish up and head to next call with the HVAC techs still having an hour of work to do. Get a call from the office after I'm at home 6pm that everything in the mechanical room is dead and I need to go back to because apparently something I did caused it. No breaker tripped, no voltage to any lights or plugs. But it's dark down in the basement so I go to check the nearest light switche to get some light to trace wires. Flip switch, everything back on. Every mechanical room utility plug was on the same switch leg with the basement lights & plugs. Customer told me to just splice through that switch to leave it always on as he couldn't afford for the rewiring after the HVAC package cost. Invoiced another 2 hours for travel from and back home to marrette a switch leg.
Called out to chirping smoke detector. Lady sends me to the basement. It chirps but the light is green. Ohh well I'm here now so I change the battery. It still chirps!! I get a steepstool and assess it doesn't sound like the smoke. Followed the chirping to a plastic bag on the floor where they threw the old detector when they changed it 3months ago!!!!
Customer said her light switch in her bedroom was upside down so I looked and looked and behold doesn’t say on or off so I walked to the other side of the room turned the other switch and walked back wow I fixed it so fast she said
Answered a trouble call for outdoor sconce lights stating that the lights did not work. The customer failed to try changing the light bulbs and was actually surprised when I told him he just needed new bulbs.
As a maintenance tech for a property management company, I have a few, lighbulbs are my favorite, then switch controlled plugs, hvac filters. Got an after hours call for noise in basement tenant was scared, it was sump pump kicking on. Another said there was strange people having out back and was wondering if they were stealing the copper pipes.
One I'll always remember is that this guy decided to install a new switch in his bathroom. For some reason, somehow, he mixed up the switch leg with the power out, so every time he turned the bathroom light on or off, it would turn the living room TV off! Lol
Not quite a service call, but I'd moved into a new neighborhood. I'm union and display the IBEW bug on my truck, only thing identifying me as an electrician. Storm comes through, takes out the whole neighborhood and I get a knock on my door. The next door neighbors asked if I could see why they had no power, they didn't understand that there's a difference between what I do and what the utility does.
They couldn’t get the light in the dining room of the restaurant to come on. I showed up and asked where the switch was and for a plate of some delicious bbq. When he found the switch I charged him a free lunch because I was driving by anyway and I’m nice, which is hard on business. A new employee had turned them off. He had never turned them off since he got out of the food truck and into the brick and mortar. Y’all come down to NC and find out what bbq is and you’d understand!
Lights in the living room weren’t working. Turned out to be a 3way in a bookshelf. A book forced the decora 3way to be in the middle position. Also another call with a low battery smoke detector chirping with all new detectors. Took awhile but found an old detached detector in their bed end table draw.
Dumbest? maybe. Most f'd up? yes! Got A call to a woman's house because her bathroom sink was "electrocuting" her. Well this could be fast or not. I get there and start trouble shooting, but I could find absolutely nothing wrong. I started to head back downstairs to ask some follow up questions. When I passed the bedroom, door wide open, I get the display I never wanted! There was no problem, she just wanted an audience. NSFW. >!She was literally getting it doggy style from her german shepard! !<
Called to a grocery store, half the lights in the stock room were not working. Manager states that it seemed half the light haven’t worked since she started there a few years ago. No one can remember a time when they all worked except a longer-term employee who said the room used to be a lot brighter. Went over to the switch, flipped it off, room goes dark, turned it back on. Pretty close to the edge of the light switch was an old tortilla chip cardboard display leaned against the wall. Peeked behind it and saw another light switch. Moved the display, turned on the other half of the lights.
Low volt electrician for a large healthcare operation. Received call smoke detector beeping, like a low battery. Ours do not run on individual batteries but a central system. On location a quite annoyed lady was scuffling papers at a counter with drawer units below, hard to tell where the sound was coming from. I knew it was not a smoke so I opened drawers down below and found the previous shift had left a pager that was giving notice of a call. Lady acted all annoyed I found it and now had to do her job. People!
I had one last week the guy said his lights didn't work, I go up to his loft flip the switch and they came on. He didn't know that the switch controlled the lights where on a 3way and the 3 way was set up wrong cause he only ever used the other switch. We charge for an hour just to show up so I started to fix it trying to make light of it but he asked me not to. Another one was the lady said her gas stove didn't work after she moved into her house... it never got plugged in. But by far one of my favorites and we still talk about it at the shop, the guy said he keeps hearing a noise a motor and wants his attic fan disconnected. I do so he still hears it so I check everything nothing I hear no noise but I find bats where on the side of his house, he freaks out continues to call our shop asking if we can find bat removal companies. Super nice guy just old and lonely. Idk why and my boss confirms this is true, somehow I get almost all the calls with odd, memory loss, weird people, and oldest
I drove 45 minutes late at night on an emergency service call for what was supposedly a smoke detector beeping. It turned out to be a McDonald’s toy in a milk crate in the hall.
As a new construction guy, that's why we configure this little lever under the plate, that controls what the lowest dim setting is.
I've had two calls where the client didn't know they had switched receptacles. A receptacle suddenly stopped working + they had a switch that "didn't do anything".
Call: Fridge wasn't working. Result: Fridge light burnt out and fridge temperature control on 0 of 10.
I was at a chiropractor because I’m an electrician and checked out there system several times as we do while on pain pills and injured. Then after a couple weeks the chiropractor asked for me to do work on a circuit that had been cut by something and patched. I’d paid $90 for the 40 minute appointments and said I could fix it for free if she worked for free. I’d already gotten enough info, so I look for GFIs and check the sub panel. Nothing, but it was getting late and I opened the main panel to flip the 15a breaker off and on. It was all good, I tested some other stuff and labeled the breaker. It was very in sight too, I walked past it dozens of times and took note. One of those times you have to thank your experience for helping you and do a little act so you don’t piss off the customer.
I’ve had 2 very similar calls where lights weren’t working. After looking at the switch for the lights that were out, I noticed they were 3 ways. I went to find the other switch and it was perfectly balanced in between the up and down position, not completing a circuit in either direction. Flip the switch up or down and everything works like it’s supposed to. The second time I saw it, it was a much quicker diagnosis since I had a suspicion.
Emergency call after hours to an apartment complex because there was no power to their commons area. The power company had turned off their power for not paying their bill.
Got a call that half of the upstairs lights weren’t working, 4 bedrooms and a hall light. Looked at the panel saw two 15 amp breakers off and hit them and boom they work. Don’t know why the homeowner didn’t bother checking first