What Makes a Great Commercial Electrician?

It should come as no surprise that we do a lot of commercial electrical work.

I mean, we’ve worked on projects ranging from fixing up some minor wiring issues, to complete shop fitouts, to warehouse LED lighting upgrades, through to revamping entire shopping centres.

Over the years, we’ve collaborated with a bunch of other electricians – some good, some bad – and have managed to figure out some of the traits that the better electricians we’ve worked with have shared.

On top of industry news

The better electricians were always up to date on the latest in the industry, and knew the legislative news back to front.

In case you didn’t know, laws relating to the electrical industry change a lot (it’s an area that getting things wrong can result in death, so they kinda want to keep on top of it), so making sure your electrician knows the latest is pretty important.

Great communicators

The best electricians we worked with could communicate clearly. When you’re dealing with power and electricity that can kill you, you really don’t want someone you can’t understand telling you what’s happening.

Good communicators are not only better to work with, but they can keep you updated on the progress of a job and also make sure you’re aware of what they’re going to be doing and why.

Problem Solvers

As a commercial electrician, you’ll often come across weird and unusual electrical set ups. In those situations, being able to solve problems isn’t just a good little bonus skill – sometimes it’s the only way you’ll be able to complete the job.

Finding people who can just follow orders is great in a labouring job, but for electrical work make sure you get someone who can find solutions.

Attention To Detail

It probably doesn’t need to be said, but electrical systems can be tricky. If they’re not managed properly, the power flowing through them can go through your house and kill you. No joke.

So that means, when you’ve got someone who’s job is to play with those systems, they really need to pay attention. Being careless can have some really drastic consequences.

They keep their tools (and work) tidy

This one isn’t true 100% of the time, but jeez it really bothers me when I see someone who doesn’t maintain their tools properly, or does “ugly” work.

It just shows a lack of care and professionalism. Your power might flow either way, but when you’ve got a messy switchboard or cables are jumbled and not tagged properly, it makes life a lot more difficult for the next electrician coming in.

It doesn’t take much to do the job right from the start, and it does mean if you have a problem in the future, it’s a much easier fix.

Conclusion

These aren’t a complete and exhaustive list (I mean, we didn’t even really talk about the technical side of things). But it is definitely a list of traits that the better commercial electricians out there share (including our own team). So if you need a commercial electrician, use this guide to help find a good one (or just call us).