I’m always amazed at how many people believe themselves qualified to perform electrical installations and running wires. From freelance contractors, to home owners, to landlords, everyone seems to think that they have the knowledge and skill necessary to perform technical electrical work. I’ve seen numerous homes in which an inexperienced and unqualified person attempted to perform a simple installation and ended up costing themselves thousands of dollars. I’m making this post in the hopes it discourages any amateur electricians from trying to do tasks best left to the professionals. Here are the reasons for why you should always hire a qualified Electrician.
Safety
When an Electrician is working they take every possible safety precaution because they understand how dangerous it is to work with electricity. A qualified Electrician will wear their PPE (Personal protective equipment), check the fuse box to ensure the wires they are working with are dead, and test the wires/circuit to ensure that there is no current. They will also perform a number of other checks throughout their installations to make sure that nothing has changed. For a professional electrician, one mistake could mean serious injury and in some cases even death. This goes doubly for someone who doesn’t understand how to take the proper precautions.
Amateur electricians don’t only risk their own safety when they perform installations, they also risk the lives of those who live in the home they are working on. In 2010 there were an estimated 46,500 house fires in the United State caused by electrical failure. These fires resulted in 1,520 injuries and 420 deaths. It is likely that many of these fires could have been prevented if a qualified electrician had performed the installations in the home.
Cost
One of the most common house calls for electricians is to fix installations performed by an certified electrician. In these cases the home owners often had to pay for the initial work as well as for the professional electrician to come in after. Often time it ends up costing the home owner 3-4 times how much it would have cost if they’d gone with the certified electrician in the first place. Professional electricians will also often be able to get better deals on any parts or appliances that a home owner might need installed, whereas a general contractor would likely need to pay full price thus costing the home owner more.
In some cases, if a homeowner directly hires a general contractor to perform tasks on the homeowners property they could beheld liable if the contractor is injured. If the injury is serious this could end up costing the homeowners millions of dollars in damages. Professional electricians have their own insurance and are often hired through electrical contractors and thus the homeowner is relieved of all liability if something goes wrong.
The cost of an electrical fire in a house can be devastatingly high. In those 46,500 house fires there was a combined total of $1.5 billion in direct property damage. That comes out to an average of $32,000 per fire.
If you need electrical work done on your home or business be sure to call in a professional electrician. The quality and the peace of mind that they provide is well worth the cost.