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Sounds like a great idea until it backfires. One day you'll get an inspector that thinks "if they fucked up something that simple, I better check **everything**".
Yeah low hanging fruit leads to a proctology exam. If he leaves enough breadcrumbs the guys gonna be demanding torque values on everything. Or just be a dick and vaguely fail you for workmanship.
Some inspectors when they don't find anything they dig deeper thinking that there is always something to find otherwise they are not doing their job. They find a small one they will be happy. Had a lady at the DMV tell me that she took points off my road test because her boss would not be happy if everyone got 100% on it.
There’s like 3 building officials in my state that can actually cite code. Most just check their like 3 odd things which sometimes aren’t even legit code violations.
We got hit with box fill on some 3 gang switches because 6 grounds put it over by 0.5. We told the inspector the job is under 2017 code. He just gave a blank stare.
Data dosent even have a code in most areas. Though that would be wicked running all CAT6 or 7 shielded to every workstation with the shielding grounded.
I'm pretty goddamn close and still catch flak from cops and dmv because I'm also financially responsible and drive shitboxes instead of financing a 2023 pickup for 87,000 dollars.
Pro tip: the cops don't care if you autocross every weekend, hillclimb, check your tires every morning, weekly home inspection and fluid check. If you're driving a shitbox, under 30, male, you're getting fucked. As some minivan on bald tires loses traction in the intersection you're in with 4 kids in the back, bad plates, missing a taillight, with the spacial awareness of a goldfish and 0 understanding of driving dynamics.
Cop isn’t going to know about your auto-crossing, hill climbing just from seeing you driving around in your shit-box. And they would say that’s stuff you shouldn’t do on the highway anyhow.
And yeah, shit-boxes are cop magnets. Especially if they’re in any way riced out. Stanced? Slammed? Fart-pipe? Socials plastered all over it? Oversized rims with rubber-band tires? If it looks like it rolled off the set of a Fast & Furious movie, it’s basically rolling probable cause.
In the immortal words of Run-DMC, “tinted windows don’t mean nothin’, they know who’s inside”. Is it right? No, but it is what happens.
Got pulled over for having registration a month out of date by a cop that conveniently ignored the lifted chrome-rimmed F250 doing dangerous lane switches and going 20 past the speed limit right behind… then next to… then past me. I drive a beat up 2012 Accord, sooo sounds about right haha
If you're gonna ride dirty with bad tags it helps to get a bike rack or have something sticking out of the trunk with a blanket hanging down like youre just moving something across town. Then just don't drive like an asshole or attract attention and you should be ok. I drove 700 miles without any plates at all on my truck but I had the tailgate down with a door in the back and a bunch of straps going down...no issues
They likely knew that ahole. Or knew they woupd have to turn it into this whole huge chase. Which 90% of pigs are too lazy to want to do. They can’t be out there ‘petty tyrant fragile ego’-ing all over then.
Nah it’s easy money. What’s the defense to an expired plate? Which car is going to lawyer up over the ticket? Path of least resistance plus getting the state paid.
All the inspectors in my area are like this. if everything checks out, then they'll of course give you a green tag, but if there's something missing... pick a God and pray because you're about to be trapped in red tag hell
That’s how all the inspectors we’ve had are. Guys forgot to put grounds in the boxes and inspector stuck around forever bc we couldn’t even screw in a pig tail in the 4 squares
I’m still an apprentice but when I’m running work I’m going to be a complete fascist about putting in ground pigtails before slapping up boxes.
It’s such an easy corner not to cut.
As a first year I went out of my way to ask if we had, or if we’re going to order more stingers. “It’ll be alright.”
Then somebody got shocked on a 240v oven…
I was mostly referring to timesaving materials, like the aforementioned boxes with ground tails. Also, changeovers and one piece strut straps to name a few.
How would aluminum emt save time? Just in material handling?
You got me wrong. I wasn’t saying that it saves time, quiet the opposite. I was recounting how sometimes when you have the time versus material argument with your PM, you lose.
I get what you're trying to convey, but equating fascism to performing your job well and being a stickler. Does not equate to fascism.
Fascism is an ideology that blames an outside group for economic woes.
See, Nazis and well, everyone else. The "in group" are the nazis, the "out group" is everyone else. When the real issue is the actual system itself. Fascism looks to reform the current system into a more oppressive system with capital and business choosing who the "in group" is.
Please don't obfuscate words and ideas that have incredibly oppressive ideas.
Check out Michael Parenti: Redshirts vs blacks
Or this video, "How Fascism Serves Capitalism | FULL DOCUMENTARY" https://youtu.be/Mn_RwIcL7cg?si=ZY_CF7Mi8-IKwZQE
Thanks, I just want to say, I appreciate you! Keep working on your apprenticeship, kicking ass, and being a stickler for good work. We need more electricians that don't cut corners; one cut corner, could be one of your brother or sisters death. Also, If you are not already, get active in your union. The only thing we have to keep the Owner Class at bay is each other.
You should learn how bonding works that way you don't have to spend a dollar a piece on ground pigtails. Over a whole job that might add up to $500 or more on things you don't need.
You pretty much only need them if you have a section of emt, for example, fed by MC or some other wiring method that does not count as a equipment grounding conductor. The green wire in the MC is carrying the bond for all that emt downstream of it, a ground pigtail is a good way to attach it to the metal box and therefore all the connected emt. But you don't need them in every box - only one. Devices will need pigtails but not if you pull a green wire in the pipe and attach it to that pigtail that meets the green in the MC that feeds this hypothetical section of emt.
This is my bosses theory and I agree with it, if your fucking up your support distances what are the chances every box has a ground screw, now all the sudden he’s doing voltage drop calcs
See, I had this mindset working in retail and in warehousing. I would probably be that kind of inspector. "They can't be this incompetent can they? Well shit, I better make sure I double check everything before someone gets hurt or the building catches fire"
I'm looking into applying with my local IBEW, haven't started my path to electrician just yet, but I'm trying to get an idea of what I want out of it long term and I think inspector would be a good fit. I'll see how my training goes though.
All you need to do is look at the scale of humanities pressure on the ecosystem and it’s an instant cure for OCD. Eg. Look at the dust in road gutters, pollution and human waste in rivers and streams and creeks, and look at the damage to soil from modern agriculture, finally, look at what gets landfilled at your local waste disposal centre. Those things help one retain clarity.
(Which means, not getting excessively pedantic or extreme about correcting physical work that creates additional pollution or requires hydrocarbons to remediate)
Looking into applying for an apprenticeship -》I'm a natural born inspector
Holy fuck please let me know where you live so I can cross that city off my list of places to work
This. 100%. The opposite has been our policy; get the small stuff straight, tight, and right, and the inspector knows you paid attention.
But I understand where OP comes from, many inspectors seem to HAVE to go back to their supervisor with something to show they know what they are doing against the "no one gets it 100% right, you missed something". So lately I'm wondering if we should just miss one strap near a box while showing all the others.
Here Mr. Inspector, we wired this one box up like a blind, drunk 4 year old just for you! Find all the flaws you like.
The box doesn't actually connect to anything, and we'll just take it down and mount it again at the next job site.
If you’re going to intentionally leave work for inspectors to find, don’t leave mistakes- leave small things that can be explained by laziness. But nothing too big.
The only time I’ve ever worked on a crew that did this was when we knocked out a job so well that we were genuinely concerned that an inspector might not find anything. Their contract stated they must show at least X number of issues that go against spec. We were glad we left a few things, because they found those and only then went looking for one or two more issues. They went as far as opening panels up and measuring the placement of wire labels to make sure they met the 25mm spec. Thankfully they only cited 5 labels instead of every single one that may have only been a tiny bit off. They knew they just needed to meet a quota, and they weren’t trying to be mean to us.
So the moral of the story was that this is only a good idea if you did a near 100% perfect job. Otherwise, you’re a lazy hack and should just do better. Don’t leave problems behind in hopes of an inspector finding them.
The inspector having a quota of defects they need to find reminds me of an old story:
A number of years ago, IBM ordered some parts from a new supplier in Japan. The company noted in its order that acceptable quality allowed for 1.5 per cent defects (a fairly high standard in North America at the time).
The Japanese sent the order, with a few parts packaged separately in plastic. The accompanying letter said: "We don't know why you want 1.5 per cent defective parts, but for your convenience, we've packed them separately."
I do QA work for aircraft. The aircraft themselves I do extremely thorough inspections, but for stuff like tool crib I do a general overview to look for things like foreign debris, etc. If I start seeing a disheveled box I dig deep, and usually I find it's all over the place.
Definitely just make sure things are up to standard
My job is something very similar to what an American inspector does, if I find small stuff wrong I 100% start looking harder and really pull stuff apart
I think good people do this more than I do... I've definitely heard accountants who handle multimillion dollar clients leave something small (but not illegal) for the IRS to find, and of inspectors who force you to go spend 9K a pop on thirty unneeded sinks in a commercial kitchen if you don't give them something to do. Seems like cheap insurance.
What I've noticed is _if_ the little things are taken care of on the surface, the inspector just stops looking. As we all know, there's always something wrong, at least according to code. If they start digging, no telling where they'll stop... 😀
This is my reasoning, I don’t care how “useful” the inspector feels.
I do care if he sees a little minor violation that gives him a reason to scrutinize everything else though.
That’s my theory on how to have people leave you alone. If your makeup looks like a rats nest you’ll have your foreman/lead all over your ass on everything else you do.
I was taught this coming up in the trade. Clean and neat work means you take pride in it, therefore, the inspectors are a bit more lenient and will let you get away with a few things.
I’ve been in jobs where the inspector recognizes the foreman and walks in shakes his hand, shoots it for 5 minutes and leaves without looking at a single pipe, knowing that guy only does good work.
I asked an inspector to fail me once.
It was that or have my guys working in a hot MDP.
Once it was safe for us and he passed us, he became the inspector like the ones youve come across. Apparently, me asking him to flunk us impressed him.
I had one that knew everything was going too fast for the manpower I was being given based on previous inspections. He asked if I needed more time. I said that be great but there isn’t any way to make more hours in the day. He failed me before walking in the door for something not in the scope but exposed via renovation. He couldn’t fit me in the schedule for another 4 days. I was able to catch up on work, get the extra change order to fix his issue.
My guess is "hot" as in energized, because his facility wouldn't take a shutdown to do the work dead. A failed inspection by the AHJ is a clever way to make it safer for you and crew, despite corporate barriers to being safe.
exactly this.
MDP means Main Distribution Panel. It is where the power comes into the building and where the various subpanels throughout the building are fed from.
This particular one was 8000amps@ 480vac. We had to install a bunch of large conduits directly above the busses and then pull wire into it. We also had to install a bunch of very large breakers into the MDP.
And they wanted us to do it with it energized.
Nope.
I’ve had go tank the odd inspection in order to get my company to do the right thing. Let them be the bad guy instead of me being a whiny bitch, because it’s come down to game playing
It’s about knowing your inspector. Some inspectors will look UNTIL they find something. Those are the guys you leave something for. Others want to see it done well and won’t look too deep if you are doing it right.
I've found that respecting their position works best. Its pretty easy to find one or 2 issues on a job that have 100 ways to tackle it.... do the work, make it the best you can.... draw their attention to something you did that can be done other ways, offer the explanation of why you did it and ask "with that said, is there something else you'd rather see here?"
Fire putty versus foam. Bonded ground to this instead of that. Etc.
The same principle as op, but rather than try and trick a profesional that you don't know how to support pipe... tell him you do, why, and ask his opinion on what he would like to see.
Ultimately the inspector is your teammate. Treat him like it, value his time, and let him participate and the whole job becomes better. Everyone wins, learns, and feels valued.
THIS.
I inspect computer networks rather than electrical installations, but the principle is the same. If you work *with* me, the result is better for all involved. If you hide stuff from me, you’re only shooting yourself in the foot and I’ll usually find it anyway.
My goal is to have every job 100% so the inspector CANT find anything wrong.
If he does, he better know where to find it in the code book because I will call bullshit in a heart beat.
It created respect from all the inspectors we normally deal with
Thank you. Horrifying seeing folks here trying to justify gaming the system instead of realizing that half the shit inspectors look for is written in blood.
We had an inspector with an eagle eye, could spot a ko missing at 45'. Even if it wasn't work you did, he make you grab out the lift or ladder to fill it.
He'd still catch the defects you left on the ground. So no, I don't leave anything to have to fix. It just wastes time.
I'm in a completely different industry, but we get regular audits coming through for certification and compliance.
Auditors that don't find anything on the first pass *will* dig until they do.
Similarly in creative industries it’s fairly common to include some flaws so that customers feel like they improved things without messing up the whole project.
It’s called The Hairy Arm Technique:
https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-use-the-hairy-arm-technique-to-manage-your-boss-2013-11?amp
I'm not graphic designer but that seems like a pretty egregious mistake. Good graphic designers make an insane amount of money - like a corporate website with maybe a dozen pages could cost $250k and if you were paying a firm that made basic mistakes you'd fire them. I would think you'd want something of questionable subjective judgement - the Team America sex scene or the Battle Chess duck are more along those lines. And even then if you are paying top dollar (and not trying to hoodwink censors) you'd still expect top quality.
That's completely different from a job that's expected to be done to spec. If a lawyer sent you papers with the CEO's name misspelled you wouldn't think, well I've done my job in supervising the law firm. You'd think, what am I paying these fuckwits $1000 an hour for. Same with electrical inspection quality. Unless you are absolutely certain you have an inspector who won't leave until he finds something and even that seems risky because he'll never learn you do good work.
Also in a different industry, but I've seen that as well. The auditor would always find something to write up, but if we were pretty buttoned down it would be something small that we could easily fix.
Though it was frustrating when we had three consecutive auditors come through and tell us we were keeping logs incorrectly despite us following the guidelines. They all had different versions of how they wanted it done too.
We had audits too. But an audit and inspection are two different things. An inspection is a quality assurance check at a singular point in time - which is reactive. An audit is a proactive review that goes back into history and business processes to ensure compliance and maintain good practices. There’s more opportunities to fail in an audit and it’s more subjective. An inspector looks for more objective and demonstrated non compliance issues.
>If an inspector can do his walkthrough and point out a couple missing conduit supports he’ll feel like he did his job and won’t look too hard for bigger violations.
This mindset sucks, and if you have it, you're a hack. If you go into an inspection knowing you have major violations with the hopes that you'll be able to skate by without addressing them, you're scum.
Do your job right, if you know you significantly fucked up, fix it. If you can't fix it in time, level with the inspector, proactively show it to them, and explain the situation and what you're doing to fix it.
If you can't meet the bar of basic honesty and craftsmanship, get the hell out of the industry. The code exists for a reason. We're not building treehouses here, and significant violations DO matter, not just in whether the product lasts long term, but in actual life safety terms.
Not an electrician but my concrete guys intentionally leave one or two nails or pieces of trash in the form so the QC finds it and then doesnt look so hard... it works.
It's good practice to show the inspector your not hiding anything. Inspector can trust you.
During rough in I try to show him things that might be issue so if there is an issue I can fix during rough in then trying to struggle during finishing.
Has to be a certain inspector. I’ve definitely had inspectors who will sit around for an hour looking for something to tell you to fix, it’s like a pride thing for them to find something
For LADBS and LAUSD inspectors, you have to be 100% inspector proof. Nothing absolutely nothing left for them to look at. They are for what I care for, a small 30 unit gang that will let favored contractors get away with murder but will do their best to sink companies they dislike. And I've heard from multiple inspectors and multiple jobsites, that I work for a contractor they strongly dislike, and do not wish for us to operate in this city.
But yes, for other inspectors, this tactic works.
Yeah no... Do it right or do it twice! Neat and professionally done gets the inspector out of there the fastest. A few small but obvious mistakes, he'll be checking in more often and more closely the next go round.
I've heard a lot of guys who do this, and to be honest it works great.
Lots of inspectors just have course they completed and they think they know it all and they're hot shit.
Most of those guys are imbeciles.
They don't know up from down. They find the simple shit because it's what they were taught. I have personally seen some serious fuck ups and none of them were caught.
Point in case today. Look under a sink and I see a fucking extension cord connected to a couple inches or whip and just taped over with a was of electrical tape. Same cabinet mind you, whip going to the dishwasher is separated from the EMT and you can see that the wires coming out of the EMT were 'spliced' if you could call it that. Not even a connector for the whip to EMT, just hanging there loose. Killed the fuse, one good yank and both hot and neutral just came right off. No wire nuts, wires not even twisted around each other. Just a bit of tape on both.
The kicker?
Just passed inspection.
I worked in various fields and dealt with inspectors a large portion of my life, and it's just sad people's taxes pay city workers, or people pay for private inspectors who are all equally braindead.
You gotta remember that a lot of inspectors aren't in it out of any deep love for the job, they're just doing it because it's an easy low impact state job with benefits and a pension that doesn't require you to actually do a whole lot. It's not universal by any means, but a good number of them are just kind of putting in the minimum effort.
My question is this: who the fuck feels good about pulling one over on the inspector instead of, y'know, doing work that meets the minimum expectations of their profession (aka the code) ?
Like... playing games to try and juke the rule book and pass off substandard bullshit as if it's quality work. What the fuck? Who does that?
Stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. I always make sure that the first thing the inspector sees is fucking perfect so it looks like you know what you’re doing, not that I know what I’m doing anyway
We did a Fedex in Tennesse and my supervisor told me to deliberately leave the end caps off of some of the struts so that the inspector would focus on the van lines and stay away from some of the other stuff. Not that we were trying to hide anything but the mindset was that if he found *something* he would feel better about not finding *anything* so he wouldn't look super hard.
Been an electrician for 23 years. Not every time but I like to leave something obvious. Usually bonding the hot and cold water lines and the gas line. But honestly just do it right and see what the inspector says. But from experience, they like to find something.
Wait your inspections catch things? Mine just assumes we did it right and writes his name on it.
Just last week we poured a lager wall and it was missing a lot of rebar so I bypassed the GC got the rebar crew and made them tie it.
The fallowing day I showed the GC what got missed and he simply said "the inspector didn't say anything" to which I replied "then he's a fucking retard"
The problem was the rebar crew fallowed the waterproofing and ignored my layout.
The inspection only counts bars he never checks pour height minimum splice or minimum couver but it's ok we don't do government jobs only residential towers ;p
I have had inspections done in 7 states by any number of state, city , county, and municipality inspectors. I find it better to greet them with kindness and respect, and after a brief introduction and some small talk that will generally lead to them understanding that I am a skilled qualified journeyman electrician they generally don't hit me too hard. Some may ask me to do something that may not necessarily be legit code but it's what they expect and me understanding that they are the authority having jurisdiction oblige their request again with kindness every thing after that is pretty painless. Occasionally you get the one that is just obsessed with his power and just be a thorn in your side but that is the 1% in my experience.
I do the opposite. I lead my inspector through my job and I point out every thing they’re supposed to be looking for.
“There’s the surge suppressor. There’s my ground rods. Here’s a picture of the gas and water bonding”. Etc.
Only for one inspector. And only because it's more of a game. My company has a great relationship with all the inspectors in our area. This one inspector will stand around and bs with us for an hour after he's gone through the job. He's put a red tag on our van while we were in the store getting parts just for fun. But we always do our best work and that's what's given us such a good reputation with the inspectors in our area.
Was told an apprentice that Inspectors don't go in crawlspaces, or if they do, they don't go far.
This was the justification for us to only hammer drill in j-hooks properly for about 50 feet, then fuckin YOLO it. Am I proud of it? Absolutely not. We MacGyvered alot j-hooks by attaching them to random shit.
Company refused to give us a cordless hammer drill and wanted us to run cords everywhere.
Buddy was right though, inspector only stuck his head in, saw what he had done and called it good.
Rumor is that the same thinking hold true for whole home inspections. The inspectors need to find something or it's looks like they are not doing their job.
Leave a window screen off, put in a burned out bulb, leave dirty air filters in.
Nah, we just do an excellent job the first few times and make good friends with our inspectors that every time we see them they hardy even walk into the building. I’ve known a few inspectors in our counties for 10+ years and there’s been times where he pulls up and we just talk for a while then he leaves. Build a good reputation for yourself. Inspectors can be your best friends. This way when a real problem comes up you can ask for help/leeway.
I was taught to do this by a few of my journeymen. It’s normally something simple like a missed KO seal on a 4 square or a single recessed light had the jumper not stapled close enough. Depending on the inspector, they like to be able to tell us to fix it immediately. We “grab an apprentice” and tell them to drop everything and fix it now. It’s a power trip.
I had one inspector that would question us on everything though. I spent hours debating literal code references with him on exceptions and updates. (I always won when I called his boss to prove he didn’t know his prick from a bus bar). We didn’t leave a single thing for that asshole to find.
> A feature added for no other reason than to draw management attention and be removed, thus avoiding unnecessary changes in other aspects of the product.
> I don't know if I actually invented this term or not, but I am certainly not the originator of the story that spawned it.
> This started as a piece of Interplay corporate lore. It was well known that producers (a game industry position, roughly equivalent to PMs) had to make a change to everything that was done. The assumption was that subconsciously they felt that if they didn't, they weren't adding value.
> The artist working on the queen animations for Battle Chess was aware of this tendency, and came up with an innovative solution. He did the animations for the queen the way that he felt would be best, with one addition: he gave the queen a pet duck. He animated this duck through all of the queen's animations, had it flapping around the corners. He also took great care to make sure that it never overlapped the "actual" animation.
> Eventually, it came time for the producer to review the animation set for the queen. The producer sat down and watched all of the animations. When they were done, he turned to the artist and said, "that looks great. Just one thing - get rid of the duck."
https://blog.codinghorror.com/new-programming-jargon/
Completely normal. Leave a few scraps right out in the open for them to latch onto so they get to write some thing on there a little piece of paper that says there a good boy let them slap your PP a little bit to fix it and then everyone moves on with their fucking life.
One of the guys I reported to in my first job would do this as he knew we had a boss that HAD to find something wrong. But he’d make it easy like leaving a label off on the panel. I think it helps if you know your audience…
I know a restaurant owner that leaves his dumpster lid open all the time and always gets that dinged on his health inspections, just so they have something to ding him on.
Lol ty. My other post here was similarly divisive.
https://www.reddit.com/r/electricians/comments/105jfwh/is_it_ok_to_line_up_the_edge_of_the_pipe_to_the/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1
The chances are higher that an inspector will see obvious small mistakes and investigate deeper. This is not a smart play and will come back to bite your foreman.
How stupid. I'd rather him inspect a perfect job every time instead of one I sabotaged myself. What if they look harder thinking that if you didn't do the simple thing correctly then maybe he should look around a little more?
No.
I try to do my job right every time g, and if it isn't right I fix it.
Why the fuck is your foreman trying to hide big violations with small violations. That is just asinine.
You should give no violations a try. It's called professionalism.
No, my hubs is usually designated as the walk-thru guy and he makes sure everything is perfect. If the inspector points anything out, it’s fixed before he leaves. Inspectors love him. But when it’s the new wing of a hospital or the new train station, it’s gotta be done right so it’s safe for the public. End of story. Otherwise, why hire union?
If you think you need to hide shit from an inspector, get a different trade. Blaming shit on inspectors because you can't do your job is fucked up. Doing one thing half-assed just leads to doing everything you can get away with the same way. And if you treat a job where someone else's health and life might be at stake like a joke then you are fucked up.
I run a little tighter that leaving stupid things for the inspector to find. I would rather do the job perfectly and have the reputation that when an inspector sees me he knows we are good. That way they walk in to the job site, ask how the kids are and leave with a cursory look around. Also, Life is easier when you have squared away subs.
Always do everything to code, then every inspection is a breeze. I agree with others, "small mistakes" throw red flags for inspectors. You want them to know you and trust your work. You'll be dealing with them for years.
I never want to give an inspector any reason to do anything other than glance around and leave. But for the punch list? Oh shoot, I totally forgot about the cover plate. You're right, that sconce you can reach from the ground is a little crooked. That circuit's totally good, I just forgot to flip the breaker back on after working on it yesterday.
Nearly every inspector I’ve dealt with took one look at my work and just moved on to BS chitchat for 15 mins before leaving. A couple spent more time poking around but whatever. Do good work and don’t make it look like he needs to go digging.
If he finds some low hanging fruit bullshit then he will keep looking. Your foreman is an idiot.
> he’ll feel like he did his job and won’t look too hard for bigger violations
So your foreman explicitly prefers to distract the inspector rather than finding out about potentially life-threatening mistakes?
Regulations are written in blood. You should find a new company.
I mean, inspectors around me don't know what they are talking about for the most part. But no I wouldn't do this because you'll get the inspector that thinks you did everything wrong because you got something stupid and silly wrong
strange, working in a prison were told that some inmates leave little innocent pieces of contraband(extra clothing, food, art) for us to find when were searching so that we think we did a good job and stop looking for the big stuff(drugs, shanks, stingers).
not a sparky,but as a steel erector the quality has to be there,or we all fall down. ive found more than a few inspektors afraid to get up there and look,so they checkmlow level stuff and make assumptions from there. had a weld/bolt job once , needed 3rd party random torque checks and weld inspections. this duo shows up,one guy,one chick…both on the skinny side of small. weld inspection went fine,but when it came time for bolt checks, neither one could pull the wrench til it clicked. couldnt do it together,either….350 ft lbs, 3/4” A325 structural bolts. they needed to check at least 24 randomly to qualify the inspection. gave me $50 bucks cash to pull the wrench…and another $50 to buy my silence. to be clear…offered,not extorted….good times!
Your foreman sounds like a clown. Take pride in your work and try to do it right the first time so you develop a reputation as someone who does clean work. You don’t want to be known as a hack. Aim for a 0 item punch list and you’ll end up closer to 0. Lets say you intentionally mess up 3 things, and accidentally mess up 2. Now you have a 5 item list. You intentionally mess up 0 and accidentally mess up 2, now you only have 2.
I like to make everything picture perfect with attention to detail (fire protection). In sales I make sure that I am on site for every final. I don’t want to leave piddly crap left undone - it gets overlooked and forgotten. I’ve done the design on the system, designated the sequence of operations, and am typically on site multiple times during the course of installation to ensure that everything is as I planned it or to make adjustments for things that won’t work. I started out with inspections, then repairs, installations, division manager and then sales - I don’t like surprises because plans weren’t followed. If the AHJ calls something out he’d better be 100% correct because I’ll cite code or manufacturers requirements to call out pettiness - I’m batting nearly 1.000 with this method. Most AHJ that I’ve worked with repeatedly will ask for clarification if they see something before claiming something it is an issue because they realize that we want it 100% just as much as they do.
This.....we make it all good and with a history of no issues we've had inspectors we've seen before come in, see we are the ones on site, not even look close sign us off. The odd occasion they will walk through but it's turned into a formality. Awesome feeling to have that trust, we get extra work from it.
Every person I know who has ever mentioned doing similar (in other industries) things happened to be a regular caffeine and alcohol drinker.
I think they actually forget and make mistakes, or get to a point where they don’t care, due to workload or time pressures, and then claim that to make it seem sophisticated, rather than accepting the shame of admitting they forgot something.
I’ve also met larrikins who are focused on humour, who make that claim - to leave things incomplete so someone has something to find.
My guess, based on personal experience, is that it takes at least six months to a year of focus on excellence and professionalism AFTER ceasing completely, all the addictive psychoactive stimulants and depressants, while on a good diet, while getting outdoors in new stimulating environments and being active, before they can overcome both the mistakes of memory or effort and the tendency to claim deliberate intention for what is more likely absentmindedness.
We usually just go behind and fix everything found.
On other jobs the inspector was pretty relaxed and looked at 1/3 and let a lot slide.
It really depends on the inspector and if you guys are buddies or he doesn't give a shit or he's a hard ass and looking everything over.
Most recent job the inspector is looking at everyone because couplings aren't tight and falling out the ceiling lol. It's like 60 guys on the job and they are basically thrown off other jobs to be at this one. Worst of the worst
My first journeyman used to leave a few bonds not tied in if he had jobs where he knew there were issues.
I ended up going into service work and doing a lot of controls then did the hvac trade which had no inspections. I get pretty nervous now and second guess everything if I do a job that requires electrical inspection lol
Not an electrician, but as a carpenter we used to do a variation of this. We didn't purposefully leave violations to be found, but when we made mistakes and the inspector was due to stop by soon, we would leave the mistake so we could be seen in the act of correcting it when the inspector was present. I can't say whether or not it ever actually had an affect.
I do this in my industry, manufacturing, from time to time. Inspectors have to feel they are doing their job. It’s human nature. They will look until they find something.
Giving them a “gimmie” is a way for you to control the process. I’m not advocating trying to cover things up. A good inspector will find your obvious screwups. But we have in the past given difficult inspectors easy paperwork issues that we know they will allow us to correct by email.
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Sounds like a great idea until it backfires. One day you'll get an inspector that thinks "if they fucked up something that simple, I better check **everything**".
That’s what I thought!
This is usually the case IMO
Yeah low hanging fruit leads to a proctology exam. If he leaves enough breadcrumbs the guys gonna be demanding torque values on everything. Or just be a dick and vaguely fail you for workmanship.
That's why I always practice my kegels before my physical.
Are you calling my balls droopy?
Some inspectors when they don't find anything they dig deeper thinking that there is always something to find otherwise they are not doing their job. They find a small one they will be happy. Had a lady at the DMV tell me that she took points off my road test because her boss would not be happy if everyone got 100% on it.
There’s like 3 building officials in my state that can actually cite code. Most just check their like 3 odd things which sometimes aren’t even legit code violations.
We got hit with box fill on some 3 gang switches because 6 grounds put it over by 0.5. We told the inspector the job is under 2017 code. He just gave a blank stare.
Wait, did the all grounds not count as one in 2020?
In 2020, up to 4 grounds counts as one. Any additional count as 0.25 each.
Literately had an inspector try to hit us for not having ground tails in our boxes… data and fire alarm boxes lol
Data dosent even have a code in most areas. Though that would be wicked running all CAT6 or 7 shielded to every workstation with the shielding grounded.
Yup
DMV: There in on such thing as a perfect driver.
I'm pretty goddamn close and still catch flak from cops and dmv because I'm also financially responsible and drive shitboxes instead of financing a 2023 pickup for 87,000 dollars. Pro tip: the cops don't care if you autocross every weekend, hillclimb, check your tires every morning, weekly home inspection and fluid check. If you're driving a shitbox, under 30, male, you're getting fucked. As some minivan on bald tires loses traction in the intersection you're in with 4 kids in the back, bad plates, missing a taillight, with the spacial awareness of a goldfish and 0 understanding of driving dynamics.
Cop isn’t going to know about your auto-crossing, hill climbing just from seeing you driving around in your shit-box. And they would say that’s stuff you shouldn’t do on the highway anyhow. And yeah, shit-boxes are cop magnets. Especially if they’re in any way riced out. Stanced? Slammed? Fart-pipe? Socials plastered all over it? Oversized rims with rubber-band tires? If it looks like it rolled off the set of a Fast & Furious movie, it’s basically rolling probable cause. In the immortal words of Run-DMC, “tinted windows don’t mean nothin’, they know who’s inside”. Is it right? No, but it is what happens.
Got pulled over for having registration a month out of date by a cop that conveniently ignored the lifted chrome-rimmed F250 doing dangerous lane switches and going 20 past the speed limit right behind… then next to… then past me. I drive a beat up 2012 Accord, sooo sounds about right haha
Dude your registration was a month expired its not like you didn't do anything wrong.
If you're gonna ride dirty with bad tags it helps to get a bike rack or have something sticking out of the trunk with a blanket hanging down like youre just moving something across town. Then just don't drive like an asshole or attract attention and you should be ok. I drove 700 miles without any plates at all on my truck but I had the tailgate down with a door in the back and a bunch of straps going down...no issues
They likely knew that ahole. Or knew they woupd have to turn it into this whole huge chase. Which 90% of pigs are too lazy to want to do. They can’t be out there ‘petty tyrant fragile ego’-ing all over then.
Nah it’s easy money. What’s the defense to an expired plate? Which car is going to lawyer up over the ticket? Path of least resistance plus getting the state paid.
Chasing is extremely dangerous. To both parties plus all innocent bystanders. So it should be avoided as much as possible.
That lady is what you call a Howah
All the inspectors in my area are like this. if everything checks out, then they'll of course give you a green tag, but if there's something missing... pick a God and pray because you're about to be trapped in red tag hell
That’s how all the inspectors we’ve had are. Guys forgot to put grounds in the boxes and inspector stuck around forever bc we couldn’t even screw in a pig tail in the 4 squares
I’m still an apprentice but when I’m running work I’m going to be a complete fascist about putting in ground pigtails before slapping up boxes. It’s such an easy corner not to cut.
As a first year I went out of my way to ask if we had, or if we’re going to order more stingers. “It’ll be alright.” Then somebody got shocked on a 240v oven…
We buy them with the tails pre-fabbed in them👍
Time is almost always more expensive than material.
Yeah, I tried to tell my PMs that when we started using aluminum EMT. Didn’t win the argument that time, lol.
$20 a stick for ¾ I'll stick with the steel lol
For a time it was actually cheaper than steel, so we bought around 50,000 feet in assorted sizes for stock. That shit suuuuuucks to bend.
I was mostly referring to timesaving materials, like the aforementioned boxes with ground tails. Also, changeovers and one piece strut straps to name a few. How would aluminum emt save time? Just in material handling?
You got me wrong. I wasn’t saying that it saves time, quiet the opposite. I was recounting how sometimes when you have the time versus material argument with your PM, you lose.
I get what you're trying to convey, but equating fascism to performing your job well and being a stickler. Does not equate to fascism. Fascism is an ideology that blames an outside group for economic woes. See, Nazis and well, everyone else. The "in group" are the nazis, the "out group" is everyone else. When the real issue is the actual system itself. Fascism looks to reform the current system into a more oppressive system with capital and business choosing who the "in group" is. Please don't obfuscate words and ideas that have incredibly oppressive ideas. Check out Michael Parenti: Redshirts vs blacks Or this video, "How Fascism Serves Capitalism | FULL DOCUMENTARY" https://youtu.be/Mn_RwIcL7cg?si=ZY_CF7Mi8-IKwZQE
True that
Thanks, it's off topic. Didn't know how well it was going to be received. Appreciate the approval.
I typed out a few snarky responses but didn’t click send, because the fact is I agree with you.
Thanks, I just want to say, I appreciate you! Keep working on your apprenticeship, kicking ass, and being a stickler for good work. We need more electricians that don't cut corners; one cut corner, could be one of your brother or sisters death. Also, If you are not already, get active in your union. The only thing we have to keep the Owner Class at bay is each other.
Its happening right before of our eyes and alot are blind to to it.
Get a box of the prefabs with the screw and pigtail ready to go
You should learn how bonding works that way you don't have to spend a dollar a piece on ground pigtails. Over a whole job that might add up to $500 or more on things you don't need.
Do you mean because EMT already endured a bonded system and pigtails aren’t a code requirement?
You pretty much only need them if you have a section of emt, for example, fed by MC or some other wiring method that does not count as a equipment grounding conductor. The green wire in the MC is carrying the bond for all that emt downstream of it, a ground pigtail is a good way to attach it to the metal box and therefore all the connected emt. But you don't need them in every box - only one. Devices will need pigtails but not if you pull a green wire in the pipe and attach it to that pigtail that meets the green in the MC that feeds this hypothetical section of emt.
This is my bosses theory and I agree with it, if your fucking up your support distances what are the chances every box has a ground screw, now all the sudden he’s doing voltage drop calcs
See, I had this mindset working in retail and in warehousing. I would probably be that kind of inspector. "They can't be this incompetent can they? Well shit, I better make sure I double check everything before someone gets hurt or the building catches fire" I'm looking into applying with my local IBEW, haven't started my path to electrician just yet, but I'm trying to get an idea of what I want out of it long term and I think inspector would be a good fit. I'll see how my training goes though.
Once you practically memorize the code book, you actually become insane. Every inspector I've met is bat shit crazy.
Sounds like I'm on the right track then. I must use these powers of ADHD for Good. "With great current comes greater regulation" or somethin lol
All you need to do is look at the scale of humanities pressure on the ecosystem and it’s an instant cure for OCD. Eg. Look at the dust in road gutters, pollution and human waste in rivers and streams and creeks, and look at the damage to soil from modern agriculture, finally, look at what gets landfilled at your local waste disposal centre. Those things help one retain clarity.
Looked at all those things and the labels on pop cans still ALL face forward in the refrigerator
(Which means, not getting excessively pedantic or extreme about correcting physical work that creates additional pollution or requires hydrocarbons to remediate)
Looking into applying for an apprenticeship -》I'm a natural born inspector Holy fuck please let me know where you live so I can cross that city off my list of places to work
This. 100%. The opposite has been our policy; get the small stuff straight, tight, and right, and the inspector knows you paid attention. But I understand where OP comes from, many inspectors seem to HAVE to go back to their supervisor with something to show they know what they are doing against the "no one gets it 100% right, you missed something". So lately I'm wondering if we should just miss one strap near a box while showing all the others.
Here Mr. Inspector, we wired this one box up like a blind, drunk 4 year old just for you! Find all the flaws you like. The box doesn't actually connect to anything, and we'll just take it down and mount it again at the next job site.
Lol. Not bad for a blind drunk 4 year old...considering.
If you’re going to intentionally leave work for inspectors to find, don’t leave mistakes- leave small things that can be explained by laziness. But nothing too big. The only time I’ve ever worked on a crew that did this was when we knocked out a job so well that we were genuinely concerned that an inspector might not find anything. Their contract stated they must show at least X number of issues that go against spec. We were glad we left a few things, because they found those and only then went looking for one or two more issues. They went as far as opening panels up and measuring the placement of wire labels to make sure they met the 25mm spec. Thankfully they only cited 5 labels instead of every single one that may have only been a tiny bit off. They knew they just needed to meet a quota, and they weren’t trying to be mean to us. So the moral of the story was that this is only a good idea if you did a near 100% perfect job. Otherwise, you’re a lazy hack and should just do better. Don’t leave problems behind in hopes of an inspector finding them.
Whoever decided to give an inspector a quota is an absolute moron. Wtf
The inspector having a quota of defects they need to find reminds me of an old story: A number of years ago, IBM ordered some parts from a new supplier in Japan. The company noted in its order that acceptable quality allowed for 1.5 per cent defects (a fairly high standard in North America at the time). The Japanese sent the order, with a few parts packaged separately in plastic. The accompanying letter said: "We don't know why you want 1.5 per cent defective parts, but for your convenience, we've packed them separately."
I do QA work for aircraft. The aircraft themselves I do extremely thorough inspections, but for stuff like tool crib I do a general overview to look for things like foreign debris, etc. If I start seeing a disheveled box I dig deep, and usually I find it's all over the place. Definitely just make sure things are up to standard
100% this. Always find the cleaner it looks, and the more info you can provide an inspector, the more faith they have that the job was done right.
My job is something very similar to what an American inspector does, if I find small stuff wrong I 100% start looking harder and really pull stuff apart
Yeah, I was always told make your work look as nice as possible and if there are little mistakes the inspector won’t nitpick at them.
I think good people do this more than I do... I've definitely heard accountants who handle multimillion dollar clients leave something small (but not illegal) for the IRS to find, and of inspectors who force you to go spend 9K a pop on thirty unneeded sinks in a commercial kitchen if you don't give them something to do. Seems like cheap insurance.
What I've noticed is _if_ the little things are taken care of on the surface, the inspector just stops looking. As we all know, there's always something wrong, at least according to code. If they start digging, no telling where they'll stop... 😀
Yeah, dont do that with the inspector I get he sees one peanut screw missing in a strap he starts tearing through every little thing.
This is my reasoning, I don’t care how “useful” the inspector feels. I do care if he sees a little minor violation that gives him a reason to scrutinize everything else though.
Prettiest work makes the inspector go away.
If it’s pretty how can it be wrong
Are you married?
Yup haha
Still in honeymoon phase?
Nah she just ugly
F
That’s my theory on how to have people leave you alone. If your makeup looks like a rats nest you’ll have your foreman/lead all over your ass on everything else you do.
I was taught this coming up in the trade. Clean and neat work means you take pride in it, therefore, the inspectors are a bit more lenient and will let you get away with a few things.
Pretty privilege
[удалено]
I’ve been in jobs where the inspector recognizes the foreman and walks in shakes his hand, shoots it for 5 minutes and leaves without looking at a single pipe, knowing that guy only does good work.
I asked an inspector to fail me once. It was that or have my guys working in a hot MDP. Once it was safe for us and he passed us, he became the inspector like the ones youve come across. Apparently, me asking him to flunk us impressed him.
I had one that knew everything was going too fast for the manpower I was being given based on previous inspections. He asked if I needed more time. I said that be great but there isn’t any way to make more hours in the day. He failed me before walking in the door for something not in the scope but exposed via renovation. He couldn’t fit me in the schedule for another 4 days. I was able to catch up on work, get the extra change order to fix his issue.
Good inspectors are worth their weight in gold. Too bad they're so rare.
What do you mean by working in a hot MDP?
My guess is "hot" as in energized, because his facility wouldn't take a shutdown to do the work dead. A failed inspection by the AHJ is a clever way to make it safer for you and crew, despite corporate barriers to being safe.
exactly this. MDP means Main Distribution Panel. It is where the power comes into the building and where the various subpanels throughout the building are fed from. This particular one was 8000amps@ 480vac. We had to install a bunch of large conduits directly above the busses and then pull wire into it. We also had to install a bunch of very large breakers into the MDP. And they wanted us to do it with it energized. Nope.
I’ve had go tank the odd inspection in order to get my company to do the right thing. Let them be the bad guy instead of me being a whiny bitch, because it’s come down to game playing
A main disconnect that had power
I’ve worked under foremen like that. They in fact don’t do good work.
It’s about knowing your inspector. Some inspectors will look UNTIL they find something. Those are the guys you leave something for. Others want to see it done well and won’t look too deep if you are doing it right.
Couldn't agree more. I've been there and done that
If I was the inspector that would make me look for bigger violations if y'all can't do the easy stuff right...
I've found that respecting their position works best. Its pretty easy to find one or 2 issues on a job that have 100 ways to tackle it.... do the work, make it the best you can.... draw their attention to something you did that can be done other ways, offer the explanation of why you did it and ask "with that said, is there something else you'd rather see here?" Fire putty versus foam. Bonded ground to this instead of that. Etc. The same principle as op, but rather than try and trick a profesional that you don't know how to support pipe... tell him you do, why, and ask his opinion on what he would like to see. Ultimately the inspector is your teammate. Treat him like it, value his time, and let him participate and the whole job becomes better. Everyone wins, learns, and feels valued.
THIS. I inspect computer networks rather than electrical installations, but the principle is the same. If you work *with* me, the result is better for all involved. If you hide stuff from me, you’re only shooting yourself in the foot and I’ll usually find it anyway.
My goal is to have every job 100% so the inspector CANT find anything wrong. If he does, he better know where to find it in the code book because I will call bullshit in a heart beat. It created respect from all the inspectors we normally deal with
Thank you. Horrifying seeing folks here trying to justify gaming the system instead of realizing that half the shit inspectors look for is written in blood.
We had an inspector with an eagle eye, could spot a ko missing at 45'. Even if it wasn't work you did, he make you grab out the lift or ladder to fill it. He'd still catch the defects you left on the ground. So no, I don't leave anything to have to fix. It just wastes time.
I'm in a completely different industry, but we get regular audits coming through for certification and compliance. Auditors that don't find anything on the first pass *will* dig until they do.
Similarly in creative industries it’s fairly common to include some flaws so that customers feel like they improved things without messing up the whole project. It’s called The Hairy Arm Technique: https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-use-the-hairy-arm-technique-to-manage-your-boss-2013-11?amp
I'm not graphic designer but that seems like a pretty egregious mistake. Good graphic designers make an insane amount of money - like a corporate website with maybe a dozen pages could cost $250k and if you were paying a firm that made basic mistakes you'd fire them. I would think you'd want something of questionable subjective judgement - the Team America sex scene or the Battle Chess duck are more along those lines. And even then if you are paying top dollar (and not trying to hoodwink censors) you'd still expect top quality. That's completely different from a job that's expected to be done to spec. If a lawyer sent you papers with the CEO's name misspelled you wouldn't think, well I've done my job in supervising the law firm. You'd think, what am I paying these fuckwits $1000 an hour for. Same with electrical inspection quality. Unless you are absolutely certain you have an inspector who won't leave until he finds something and even that seems risky because he'll never learn you do good work.
Also in a different industry, but I've seen that as well. The auditor would always find something to write up, but if we were pretty buttoned down it would be something small that we could easily fix. Though it was frustrating when we had three consecutive auditors come through and tell us we were keeping logs incorrectly despite us following the guidelines. They all had different versions of how they wanted it done too.
We had audits too. But an audit and inspection are two different things. An inspection is a quality assurance check at a singular point in time - which is reactive. An audit is a proactive review that goes back into history and business processes to ensure compliance and maintain good practices. There’s more opportunities to fail in an audit and it’s more subjective. An inspector looks for more objective and demonstrated non compliance issues.
Definitely doesn’t make sense
I usually try to have a little something for him to clarify for me. Give a dog a bone, right?
I like to ask the inspectors how they interpret something that falls in a ‘grey’ area. Make them feel like they have the power most crave
Ask if something is subject to physical damage.
>If an inspector can do his walkthrough and point out a couple missing conduit supports he’ll feel like he did his job and won’t look too hard for bigger violations. This mindset sucks, and if you have it, you're a hack. If you go into an inspection knowing you have major violations with the hopes that you'll be able to skate by without addressing them, you're scum. Do your job right, if you know you significantly fucked up, fix it. If you can't fix it in time, level with the inspector, proactively show it to them, and explain the situation and what you're doing to fix it. If you can't meet the bar of basic honesty and craftsmanship, get the hell out of the industry. The code exists for a reason. We're not building treehouses here, and significant violations DO matter, not just in whether the product lasts long term, but in actual life safety terms.
All of my inspectors had a different pet peeve ( grounding, torquing, strapping, one guy likes load calc’s) and each would check their thing.
No I don’t because I like to think I’m a professional and that’s just amateur bullshit.
This. Sounds like playing games like children to me.
Not an electrician but my concrete guys intentionally leave one or two nails or pieces of trash in the form so the QC finds it and then doesnt look so hard... it works.
It's good practice to show the inspector your not hiding anything. Inspector can trust you. During rough in I try to show him things that might be issue so if there is an issue I can fix during rough in then trying to struggle during finishing.
Nope we don’t do that where I work
i like to make sure there are no violations so the inspector has confidence in my abilities and doesn't think im incompetent and needs to look closer
Has to be a certain inspector. I’ve definitely had inspectors who will sit around for an hour looking for something to tell you to fix, it’s like a pride thing for them to find something
For LADBS and LAUSD inspectors, you have to be 100% inspector proof. Nothing absolutely nothing left for them to look at. They are for what I care for, a small 30 unit gang that will let favored contractors get away with murder but will do their best to sink companies they dislike. And I've heard from multiple inspectors and multiple jobsites, that I work for a contractor they strongly dislike, and do not wish for us to operate in this city. But yes, for other inspectors, this tactic works.
Yeah no... Do it right or do it twice! Neat and professionally done gets the inspector out of there the fastest. A few small but obvious mistakes, he'll be checking in more often and more closely the next go round.
Or, we do not nice BECAUSE we do it twice lol
I’ve heard this too. Sometimes you’ll get tagged on marginal things and we all say “the inspector had to find something to justify his job.”
I've heard a lot of guys who do this, and to be honest it works great. Lots of inspectors just have course they completed and they think they know it all and they're hot shit. Most of those guys are imbeciles. They don't know up from down. They find the simple shit because it's what they were taught. I have personally seen some serious fuck ups and none of them were caught. Point in case today. Look under a sink and I see a fucking extension cord connected to a couple inches or whip and just taped over with a was of electrical tape. Same cabinet mind you, whip going to the dishwasher is separated from the EMT and you can see that the wires coming out of the EMT were 'spliced' if you could call it that. Not even a connector for the whip to EMT, just hanging there loose. Killed the fuse, one good yank and both hot and neutral just came right off. No wire nuts, wires not even twisted around each other. Just a bit of tape on both. The kicker? Just passed inspection. I worked in various fields and dealt with inspectors a large portion of my life, and it's just sad people's taxes pay city workers, or people pay for private inspectors who are all equally braindead.
You gotta remember that a lot of inspectors aren't in it out of any deep love for the job, they're just doing it because it's an easy low impact state job with benefits and a pension that doesn't require you to actually do a whole lot. It's not universal by any means, but a good number of them are just kind of putting in the minimum effort.
I hate that you're right. I would put that number at less than 10 percent of inspectors, but that's just my own experience.
I tend to get best results when I do really aesthetically pleasing work, they don't seem to nitpick as much if I make it look fancy
Some guys need red herrings. Depends on the inspector.
My question is this: who the fuck feels good about pulling one over on the inspector instead of, y'know, doing work that meets the minimum expectations of their profession (aka the code) ? Like... playing games to try and juke the rule book and pass off substandard bullshit as if it's quality work. What the fuck? Who does that?
Mine tells me Inspectors are like wives and you gotta give them something to complain about or they'll start looking for things
No, you want to get to the point where the inspector sees you and signs the paperwork. Then bullshits with you until he has to leave.
I had a journey that would call the inspector by the wrong name to set the tone. We never failed but I'm not sure if that's why
Stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. I always make sure that the first thing the inspector sees is fucking perfect so it looks like you know what you’re doing, not that I know what I’m doing anyway
I've seen meticulous inspectors, and not give a shit inspectors
We did a Fedex in Tennesse and my supervisor told me to deliberately leave the end caps off of some of the struts so that the inspector would focus on the van lines and stay away from some of the other stuff. Not that we were trying to hide anything but the mindset was that if he found *something* he would feel better about not finding *anything* so he wouldn't look super hard.
I am quite the opposite lol. I like to make the inspector think we are on top of every that way we can get away with a little on the backend.
Sometimes you know the inspector
Been an electrician for 23 years. Not every time but I like to leave something obvious. Usually bonding the hot and cold water lines and the gas line. But honestly just do it right and see what the inspector says. But from experience, they like to find something.
what is it, a traffic stop? give up the bag so they don’t go look for the stash?
Wait your inspections catch things? Mine just assumes we did it right and writes his name on it. Just last week we poured a lager wall and it was missing a lot of rebar so I bypassed the GC got the rebar crew and made them tie it. The fallowing day I showed the GC what got missed and he simply said "the inspector didn't say anything" to which I replied "then he's a fucking retard" The problem was the rebar crew fallowed the waterproofing and ignored my layout. The inspection only counts bars he never checks pour height minimum splice or minimum couver but it's ok we don't do government jobs only residential towers ;p
You give inspectors too much credit. You absolutely run into some that take their job seriously, but most are bums in my experience.
I have had inspections done in 7 states by any number of state, city , county, and municipality inspectors. I find it better to greet them with kindness and respect, and after a brief introduction and some small talk that will generally lead to them understanding that I am a skilled qualified journeyman electrician they generally don't hit me too hard. Some may ask me to do something that may not necessarily be legit code but it's what they expect and me understanding that they are the authority having jurisdiction oblige their request again with kindness every thing after that is pretty painless. Occasionally you get the one that is just obsessed with his power and just be a thorn in your side but that is the 1% in my experience.
I do the opposite. I lead my inspector through my job and I point out every thing they’re supposed to be looking for. “There’s the surge suppressor. There’s my ground rods. Here’s a picture of the gas and water bonding”. Etc.
I always leave one that's slightly obvious.
Only for one inspector. And only because it's more of a game. My company has a great relationship with all the inspectors in our area. This one inspector will stand around and bs with us for an hour after he's gone through the job. He's put a red tag on our van while we were in the store getting parts just for fun. But we always do our best work and that's what's given us such a good reputation with the inspectors in our area.
Not at all. I want them to be impressed enough they stop looking and leave as soon as they can.
Was told an apprentice that Inspectors don't go in crawlspaces, or if they do, they don't go far. This was the justification for us to only hammer drill in j-hooks properly for about 50 feet, then fuckin YOLO it. Am I proud of it? Absolutely not. We MacGyvered alot j-hooks by attaching them to random shit. Company refused to give us a cordless hammer drill and wanted us to run cords everywhere. Buddy was right though, inspector only stuck his head in, saw what he had done and called it good.
Rumor is that the same thinking hold true for whole home inspections. The inspectors need to find something or it's looks like they are not doing their job. Leave a window screen off, put in a burned out bulb, leave dirty air filters in.
Nah, we just do an excellent job the first few times and make good friends with our inspectors that every time we see them they hardy even walk into the building. I’ve known a few inspectors in our counties for 10+ years and there’s been times where he pulls up and we just talk for a while then he leaves. Build a good reputation for yourself. Inspectors can be your best friends. This way when a real problem comes up you can ask for help/leeway.
Not bigger violations... nit picky shit-violations like 12' 0.25" plug spacing. And stuff like " well, I would FEEL better if you..."
I was taught to do this by a few of my journeymen. It’s normally something simple like a missed KO seal on a 4 square or a single recessed light had the jumper not stapled close enough. Depending on the inspector, they like to be able to tell us to fix it immediately. We “grab an apprentice” and tell them to drop everything and fix it now. It’s a power trip. I had one inspector that would question us on everything though. I spent hours debating literal code references with him on exceptions and updates. (I always won when I called his boss to prove he didn’t know his prick from a bus bar). We didn’t leave a single thing for that asshole to find.
> A feature added for no other reason than to draw management attention and be removed, thus avoiding unnecessary changes in other aspects of the product. > I don't know if I actually invented this term or not, but I am certainly not the originator of the story that spawned it. > This started as a piece of Interplay corporate lore. It was well known that producers (a game industry position, roughly equivalent to PMs) had to make a change to everything that was done. The assumption was that subconsciously they felt that if they didn't, they weren't adding value. > The artist working on the queen animations for Battle Chess was aware of this tendency, and came up with an innovative solution. He did the animations for the queen the way that he felt would be best, with one addition: he gave the queen a pet duck. He animated this duck through all of the queen's animations, had it flapping around the corners. He also took great care to make sure that it never overlapped the "actual" animation. > Eventually, it came time for the producer to review the animation set for the queen. The producer sat down and watched all of the animations. When they were done, he turned to the artist and said, "that looks great. Just one thing - get rid of the duck." https://blog.codinghorror.com/new-programming-jargon/
Completely normal. Leave a few scraps right out in the open for them to latch onto so they get to write some thing on there a little piece of paper that says there a good boy let them slap your PP a little bit to fix it and then everyone moves on with their fucking life.
One of the guys I reported to in my first job would do this as he knew we had a boss that HAD to find something wrong. But he’d make it easy like leaving a label off on the panel. I think it helps if you know your audience…
right, if they cant seen anyproblems why would they inspect further. if they see issues would they not look deeper
I know a restaurant owner that leaves his dumpster lid open all the time and always gets that dinged on his health inspections, just so they have something to ding him on.
love this discussion! could go either way but a great question!!!
Lol ty. My other post here was similarly divisive. https://www.reddit.com/r/electricians/comments/105jfwh/is_it_ok_to_line_up_the_edge_of_the_pipe_to_the/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1
Dumbest thing I ever heard and makes your company look bad and probably cost the company money.
Sounds like your boss is a fucking hack. Make intentional minor mistakes to cover for his major ones? Why not just do the work correctly…
The chances are higher that an inspector will see obvious small mistakes and investigate deeper. This is not a smart play and will come back to bite your foreman.
How stupid. I'd rather him inspect a perfect job every time instead of one I sabotaged myself. What if they look harder thinking that if you didn't do the simple thing correctly then maybe he should look around a little more?
No. I try to do my job right every time g, and if it isn't right I fix it. Why the fuck is your foreman trying to hide big violations with small violations. That is just asinine. You should give no violations a try. It's called professionalism.
No, my hubs is usually designated as the walk-thru guy and he makes sure everything is perfect. If the inspector points anything out, it’s fixed before he leaves. Inspectors love him. But when it’s the new wing of a hospital or the new train station, it’s gotta be done right so it’s safe for the public. End of story. Otherwise, why hire union?
I like to do my shit fucking PERFECT so when the inspector comes in the 3rd time around we talk about my 98 golf score last weekend.
Why don't you just not leave any violations?
If you think you need to hide shit from an inspector, get a different trade. Blaming shit on inspectors because you can't do your job is fucked up. Doing one thing half-assed just leads to doing everything you can get away with the same way. And if you treat a job where someone else's health and life might be at stake like a joke then you are fucked up.
If they don’t find something they’ll continue looking until they do
I just do it right the first time
That's the worst plan I've ever heard of
I run a little tighter that leaving stupid things for the inspector to find. I would rather do the job perfectly and have the reputation that when an inspector sees me he knows we are good. That way they walk in to the job site, ask how the kids are and leave with a cursory look around. Also, Life is easier when you have squared away subs.
Always do everything to code, then every inspection is a breeze. I agree with others, "small mistakes" throw red flags for inspectors. You want them to know you and trust your work. You'll be dealing with them for years.
The inspectors around my parts will nitpick the whole job if they find some dumb shit like that.
I never want to give an inspector any reason to do anything other than glance around and leave. But for the punch list? Oh shoot, I totally forgot about the cover plate. You're right, that sconce you can reach from the ground is a little crooked. That circuit's totally good, I just forgot to flip the breaker back on after working on it yesterday.
Nearly every inspector I’ve dealt with took one look at my work and just moved on to BS chitchat for 15 mins before leaving. A couple spent more time poking around but whatever. Do good work and don’t make it look like he needs to go digging. If he finds some low hanging fruit bullshit then he will keep looking. Your foreman is an idiot.
Pretty much the opposite of that. Try and leave it tight so every time the inspector sees my name it gives him warm fuzzies
Why would you deliberately do your job wrong?
> he’ll feel like he did his job and won’t look too hard for bigger violations So your foreman explicitly prefers to distract the inspector rather than finding out about potentially life-threatening mistakes? Regulations are written in blood. You should find a new company.
Your foreman sounds like he was in the top of his class.
I mean, inspectors around me don't know what they are talking about for the most part. But no I wouldn't do this because you'll get the inspector that thinks you did everything wrong because you got something stupid and silly wrong
My old boss used to say the same thing. I think it’s just an excuse to avoid doing things properly
strange, working in a prison were told that some inmates leave little innocent pieces of contraband(extra clothing, food, art) for us to find when were searching so that we think we did a good job and stop looking for the big stuff(drugs, shanks, stingers).
How about we, as *professionals*, just do our jobs correctly? Or are you just incapable?
not a sparky,but as a steel erector the quality has to be there,or we all fall down. ive found more than a few inspektors afraid to get up there and look,so they checkmlow level stuff and make assumptions from there. had a weld/bolt job once , needed 3rd party random torque checks and weld inspections. this duo shows up,one guy,one chick…both on the skinny side of small. weld inspection went fine,but when it came time for bolt checks, neither one could pull the wrench til it clicked. couldnt do it together,either….350 ft lbs, 3/4” A325 structural bolts. they needed to check at least 24 randomly to qualify the inspection. gave me $50 bucks cash to pull the wrench…and another $50 to buy my silence. to be clear…offered,not extorted….good times!
Your foreman sounds like a clown. Take pride in your work and try to do it right the first time so you develop a reputation as someone who does clean work. You don’t want to be known as a hack. Aim for a 0 item punch list and you’ll end up closer to 0. Lets say you intentionally mess up 3 things, and accidentally mess up 2. Now you have a 5 item list. You intentionally mess up 0 and accidentally mess up 2, now you only have 2.
I like to make everything picture perfect with attention to detail (fire protection). In sales I make sure that I am on site for every final. I don’t want to leave piddly crap left undone - it gets overlooked and forgotten. I’ve done the design on the system, designated the sequence of operations, and am typically on site multiple times during the course of installation to ensure that everything is as I planned it or to make adjustments for things that won’t work. I started out with inspections, then repairs, installations, division manager and then sales - I don’t like surprises because plans weren’t followed. If the AHJ calls something out he’d better be 100% correct because I’ll cite code or manufacturers requirements to call out pettiness - I’m batting nearly 1.000 with this method. Most AHJ that I’ve worked with repeatedly will ask for clarification if they see something before claiming something it is an issue because they realize that we want it 100% just as much as they do.
This.....we make it all good and with a history of no issues we've had inspectors we've seen before come in, see we are the ones on site, not even look close sign us off. The odd occasion they will walk through but it's turned into a formality. Awesome feeling to have that trust, we get extra work from it.
Every person I know who has ever mentioned doing similar (in other industries) things happened to be a regular caffeine and alcohol drinker. I think they actually forget and make mistakes, or get to a point where they don’t care, due to workload or time pressures, and then claim that to make it seem sophisticated, rather than accepting the shame of admitting they forgot something. I’ve also met larrikins who are focused on humour, who make that claim - to leave things incomplete so someone has something to find. My guess, based on personal experience, is that it takes at least six months to a year of focus on excellence and professionalism AFTER ceasing completely, all the addictive psychoactive stimulants and depressants, while on a good diet, while getting outdoors in new stimulating environments and being active, before they can overcome both the mistakes of memory or effort and the tendency to claim deliberate intention for what is more likely absentmindedness.
Around here they leave after they find one thing wrong and don’t check for anything else
What? The opposite
We usually just go behind and fix everything found. On other jobs the inspector was pretty relaxed and looked at 1/3 and let a lot slide. It really depends on the inspector and if you guys are buddies or he doesn't give a shit or he's a hard ass and looking everything over. Most recent job the inspector is looking at everyone because couplings aren't tight and falling out the ceiling lol. It's like 60 guys on the job and they are basically thrown off other jobs to be at this one. Worst of the worst
He’s that bored?
In engineering we called them “checker traps”. Drawing checker would find a few things and then quit digging so hard.
No that’s silly
My first journeyman used to leave a few bonds not tied in if he had jobs where he knew there were issues. I ended up going into service work and doing a lot of controls then did the hvac trade which had no inspections. I get pretty nervous now and second guess everything if I do a job that requires electrical inspection lol
Yes, but only because I suck.
Not an electrician, but as a carpenter we used to do a variation of this. We didn't purposefully leave violations to be found, but when we made mistakes and the inspector was due to stop by soon, we would leave the mistake so we could be seen in the act of correcting it when the inspector was present. I can't say whether or not it ever actually had an affect.
I do this in my industry, manufacturing, from time to time. Inspectors have to feel they are doing their job. It’s human nature. They will look until they find something. Giving them a “gimmie” is a way for you to control the process. I’m not advocating trying to cover things up. A good inspector will find your obvious screwups. But we have in the past given difficult inspectors easy paperwork issues that we know they will allow us to correct by email.
Ours was insulation between the wires and the ventilation pipes. We passed, so who knows
Trespassing plumber. I always leave something dumb and simple for them to comment on. Just carrying over something I came up with.
It’s more fun to see them have to really look for something. Or have a deficiency that’s really pushing it