Pro tip: Hit 500 panel installs and found a pattern

I crossed 500 residential installs last Tuesday and noticed my biggest time sink is running wire through finished basements. Turns out spending an extra 20 minutes planning a path before cutting saves me about an hour on average. Anyone else track their efficiency like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

sean_barnes249d ago

Ngl that 20 minutes of planning pays off way more than people think. I started doing a similar thing where I walk the whole basement route first and mark the joists before I even pull out the fish tape. Cut my wire pulling time down a ton, especially in houses with finished ceilings where you gotta be real careful not to mess up the drywall. Tracking the hours on my phone for each job showed me pretty quick which steps were wasting time. It's one of those small changes that adds up fast when you're doing multiple houses a week.

hannah_west399d ago

Funny how that same principle shows up everywhere - spending a little extra time upfront saves you from wasting way more time fixing mistakes later. Makes you wonder why we're all so quick to jump into things without thinking first.

flores.emma9d ago

Yeah exactly. People think they're saving time by rushing in. But that's usually when you make the dumbest mistakes. I've seen guys blow through a whole day fixing stuff they could've avoided with 15 minutes of thinking first. Take a breath, look at the problem, maybe draw a quick sketch. It's not complicated but it saves your back in the long run. That upfront time is cheap compared to redoing work.