Talk:Electrician

First entry
I think this page could use more information. I'm planning a write up about the different types of electricians. I'm sure that globally we in the trade are aware of the wide spectrum of skills that comprise elctrical work. I primarily specialize in Machine tools and industrial wiring in factories namely 480V distribution. On the other hand I've never worked on a house or dwelling. While I could, and it would'nt burn down, I would be slow and inefficient in my install. Just an example of the specialization in the field that most people not in the trade are unaware of. 68.188.151.191 12:33, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I put this first enty in a category at the top.--Canoe1967 (talk) 19:48, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Types of Electricians
Should we have a list of "Types of Electricians"?


 * How many "types" of Electrician can you think of?


 * well in the USA theres aprentice, 2year resedential wiremen, 4year journyman, 6year master. and then the high T guys. Brian in denver (talk) 02:43, 27 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Commonly they are divided into:


 * Electrician I - knows commons things about electricity, does simple works like:
 * screws the terminals,
 * puts the cables, etc. (does all simple works)
 * requires basic school education + electrician's vocational school;


 * Electrician II - installs, setups, checks electrical appliences, checks wiring and consumer units; finds out and repairs faults; chooses tools and wiring methods by himself;
 * requires basic school education + electrician's vocational school + work experience (in my country this experience could be change to some practic works of examination);


 * Electrician III - supervises the work, traines the young electrician trainees, calculates materials, calculates terms and volumes of work
 * requires electrician's college;


 * Electrician IV - is responsible for company's personal, follows safety, warns younger (by occupation) electricians against risks and other dangers, follows electric codes and standarts.
 * requires academic degree + passed exam of competence;


 * Electrician V - designes electric circuits and substatons, acceptes exams, teaches and traines young (by occupation) electricians, certificates drawings and works with documents about work or electric units acception, checks conformity of electric units to eletrical code
 * requires master's academic degree (or higher) + passed exam of competence + suitable work experience

In fact those are enforced everywhere cause the law is written by politians (who knows nothing in electricity), so you can watch distribution boards installed by Electrician I or other pornography. Also Electrician I is absolutely useless qualification, cause they are trained to do DIYers work and as the practice shows DIYers do their work more carefully and properly than Electrician I (in my opinion such low qualification is some americanism and authorities shoud cancel it).

The same enforcement with designing - go to the google, find table with cable gauges on load and design (somethings like "plug and play") or install the software which will design for you with calculations. But only disadvantage you'll have problems with accepting your drawing if you need to get some documents due to registration missing. But some Design-It-Youself'ers solve this problem by having friends with electrical registration.

As for America, there electrician levels are named to craftman, journeyman and master electrician. And they have more perverted requirements to work experience. But all the world keeps 5 levels written above. 90.191.190.76 (talk) 18:31, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I added links to other types in the 'see also' section. But marine electrician, instrument technician, telecommunictions, etc may fit there as well. I also created Canada in the apprenticeship article. There are some ideas on how sub-divisions could be arranged here. I won't be editing this article anymore. I am here to create articles and fill gaps, not play childish editing games.--Canoe1967 (talk) 07:23, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Retention in the trade?
What are some of the tools that electrical contractors use to retain people? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.69.11.85 (talk • contribs).


 * the usual: Salary, benefits, and job security: as an electrcian (or other building tradesperson), at least your job can't be outsourced to India. Atlant 14:01, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

It depends what part of the world you're talking about. Here in Australia there is a skills shortage!--58.163.144.210 07:27, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Im a girl in senior high and thinking i might want to be an electrician. Any tips or guidance? 04:42, 27 April (UTC)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.59.190.88 (talk)


 * I guess us electricians have better job security than other careers, the skill shortage down under here has made wages better for the few of us that are left.

I think there should be some sort of dis-ambiguation between the terms "Electrician" and "Electrical Contractor" as the term Electrical Contractor often refers to the business run by the Electrician, not the electrician themselves, am I just splitting hairs?.Trumpy 13:07, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Yea you're splitting hairs, you don't have a clue what you're talking about! 122.148.67.159 04:49, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

And what on earth qualifies you to say that, sweetheart, got some qualifications you'd like to share?Trumpy (talk) 17:59, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Hey! Some of us don't edit or comment enough to justify a sign in! And don't count on not being outsourced cause they can always just bring the Indians here! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.45.46.172 (talk) 01:44, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

this page is not of any help to me, i'm doing a reasearch product and this is not helpful at all. some things your should include is: salary, working conditions, job outlook, qualifications etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.170.199.120 (talk) 13:51, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Tools of the trade?
Folks, I think that the list of electricians tools should be a bit bigger than it currently is. I would tend to diasgree with the idea that PVC insulation tape is a tool either, it is an Electrical material, like cable ties or trunking. C'mon, us electricians use some pretty specialised gear, none of which I've ever seen on the pages of Wikipedia before. What do you people think? Trumpy 13:12, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Actualy most of the gear is pretty commonplace, or example we frequtly use coathangers to find wires in places we can't reach. Don't mistake any data tools as electricians as data work is actualy distincly seprate to electric work, though is usualy carried out by electrcians because its simpler to do so.

Trade Organisations
There are other trade organisations around the world that represent electricians, and not necessarily from a union point of view either, off the top of my head, there is ECANZ (Electrical Contractors Assoc Of New Zealand), ECCA (Australia), IEEE (UK), there may be more.Trumpy 13:28, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

The German trade Organisation for Electricians is the VDE (Verband der Elektrotechnik). This association is one of the largest in Europe. Rob 17/05/08 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.86.101.148 (talk) 14:15, 17 May 2008 (UTC) Rob are you sure that VDE is an Electrical association?, I was under the impression that they were a testing authorityTrumpy (talk) 10:38, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Some more info on Canada: In most provinces (as provinces regulate trades and training) there are two main types of electrician. Construction (Building) electrician, and industrial or maintenance electrician, who works in factories or plants repairing equipment. One can hold both licenses. Minor categories include-shipboard or navy electrician, rural electrician (wiring cottages and farms). An old title from history are "plant maintenance" electrician today called an industrial electrician.

someone put a link to a contractor in the trade organisation section. this not being the yellow pages, i'm taking it out. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.232.133.58 (talk) 21:11, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Wrong Picture?
It appears that the fellows in the image are linemen, not electricians. Guy Macon (talk) 13:00, 17 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes looks like they are working on a classic Telephone pole with 48 Volt lines.. — Preceding unsigned comment added by VK3CAE (talk • contribs) 00:51, 9 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I changed the image from the obscure 48v lineman to a more abstract one from the early history of the trade. I do hope it remains acceptable. The trade is so diverse that a picture from any field may be too specific.--Canoe1967 (talk) 23:12, 11 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Pretty much anything would be better than a picture that shows linemen and calls them electricians, but is it really true that Mark Twain was a "tradesman specializing in electrical wiring of buildings, stationary machines and related equipment"? Not really.  The new picture isn't really a picture of an electrician, but at least it isn't misleading like the previous picture, so I say we should keep it while we look for something better.  An ideal picture would be someone wiring a partially constructed building; that is what most people would recognize as an electrician. Perhaps one of our Wikipedia readers who are electricians would be willing to take such a picture and release it under a CC-BY-SA license so Wikipedia could use it? You don't have to show your face in the picture. The goal here is to show something that is a very common thing for electricians to be doing.


 * BTW, that picture of the linemen would work very well in the lineman article. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:46, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I still feel that trade is so diverse that a picture from any field may be too specific, and thus confuse the public and possibly cause an image war. I feel the picture should be a concensus by those in the field, that is why I went with an abstract 'view' of humans and electricity. I hope it remains accepted.--Canoe1967 (talk) 01:08, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

I just had the fine folks at Wikimedia Commons rename the old image from File:Tvaelectrician.jpg to File:TVA Linemen.jpg ‎and fixed the description. --Guy Macon (talk) 10:50, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I seem to remember the original image as being vague on whether is was TVA or not, lol.--Canoe1967 (talk) 12:05, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
 * (more)I just read the desc. It is TVA but vague as to where it was taken.--Canoe1967 (talk) 12:19, 12 March 2012 (UTC)


 * See the description at http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/fsac.1a35245/ (which I copied word-for-word to wikimedia commons). --Guy Macon (talk) 12:19, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
 * It would never have occured to me to use a picture of Mark Twain to illustrate an article on electricians. Surely we can find a more relevant picture? At least the TVA has guys working on wires. --Wtshymanski (talk) 14:04, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I feared it wouldn't last and turn into a possible edit war. I will look for a more appropriate one and not put the Tesla/Twain one back in.--Canoe1967 (talk) 16:00, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Pickings on Commons are slim, once you skip over the 1100 US navy photos of "Electrician's Mate Gomer Pyle connects cables to the AN 347/K combat paper shredder". Navy work isn't typical of land-based electricians. There's a couple of FEMA pictures of connecting a service to a house trailer  and doing some wiring at the World Trade Center . And there's a whole bunch of East German electrcians wiring up some myserious piece of Stasi apparatus. But what I'd like is Buddy with a screwdriver in a panelboard, just like on the Cutler-Hammer catalog. --Wtshymanski (talk) 19:36, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I may shave, dig out the tools, take off my panel cover, take a pic and upload it, lol. I have a digital one of my red seal I uploaded for my electrian userbox, that may not go over as well.

--Canoe1967 (talk) 19:50, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
 * http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Red_Seal_Certification_196vi.png


 * I agree with Wtshymanski. I don't think Canoe1967's concerns about such a picture being too specific will be a problem. What we need is an image of a typical electrician doing typical electrician-style work, like Wtshymanski described. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:57, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

If I wasn't so ugly, I would just take on of me. There must be an electrician out there somewhere that wants to be glorified in wikipedia. I may try an electrical bulletin board I know of.--Canoe1967 (talk) 20:30, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Here's a couple of electricians at work but darn it, I'd like a picture using screwdrivers and dikes, not shovels. --Wtshymanski (talk) 14:55, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Aren't high-voltage electricians registered with the trades police in ManItsColdHere? Guy is talking like Linesmen are not Electricians. Apparently Alberta recognizes them as electricians also 174.118.142.187 (talk) 21:46, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
 * So does Australia but then these guys are Telegraph linesmen. 174.118.142.187 (talk) 21:48, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Applied for protection
I put the page on the list for protection from the IP vandals that are adding  links to company sites. I feel the article subject rarely needs update, therefore there is no reason for anonymous access.--Canoe1967 (talk) 23:42, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Application was denied. Vandalism was not frequent enough. I accept the decision and will try to monitor the article.--Canoe1967 (talk) 03:20, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
 * It is on my watchlist as well, plus the usual bots and new edit patrollers are watching, so most vandalism will be caught pretty quickly. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:17, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

--Canoe1967 (talk) 22:19, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Challenging the source of tools
In tools section, I am challenging the claim on how tools are supplied to electricians as far as what tools are personally supplied vs employer supplied. It maybe the culture of trade in certain regions or country but I suspect it is not a world wide practice. Per WP:ONUS, restoring editor is the one on hook for verifying. Cantaloupe2 (talk) 03:46, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

External links modified
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External links modified (January 2018)
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100124155352/http://www.esv.vic.gov.au/ForElectricityProfessionals/LicensingandRegistration/Registeredelectricalcontractors/tabid/195/Default.aspx to http://www.esv.vic.gov.au/ForElectricityProfessionals/LicensingandRegistration/Registeredelectricalcontractors/tabid/195/Default.aspx
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Replaced photo of linemen, not electricians
I replaced the photo File:TVA Linemen.jpg which is named "linemen" and the file states "linemen, not electricians" with US Navy Electrician's Mate (long file name, piped) of an electrician rewinding an induction motor. One of the few on Commons:category:electricians that show something more than a guy working in a box or just staring at a box. Jim1138 (talk) 10:34, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

UK Changes
10th March 2020 by ColinC1000. Out of date info pulled or updated and better clarity applied.

Semi-protected edit request on 29 January 2022
Please change “tradesman” and all the like terms to be inclusive. “Tradesperson” “journeyperson” “lineperson” etc. 74.70.16.22 (talk) 14:35, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
 * ✅ I hope I got them all, however some links might be changed to "worker" instead of "person," but this is a good start. - FlightTime  ( open channel ) 15:03, 29 January 2022 (UTC)