Electrical Outlets And What You Need To Know!

In this episode I am joined by Isaac Colon the owner of Electric Brothers Co. located in Pico Rivera California.
 
I hired Isaac to do a major electrical upgrade on my home. I found his company searching on google, I am 200% satisfied with the work they did and their professionalism before, during and after the electrical upgrade.

I highly recommend Electric Brothers Co.

Isaac explains what we all need to know about electrical outlets aka receptacles & plugs in your home including todays electric code.

What is a tamper resistant receptacle?
What is a GFCI Receptacle?
What is a weather proof receptacle?
When should you upgrade your receptacles?
What is the latest receptacle code?

Isaac Colon
562-354-8900
Residential & Commercial
https://electricbro.com/

Transcript

John Laforme: 0:00

Buying a home. Don't panic. Just listen to the rest of this podcast. Alright, everybody. We're back. Today we have Isaac colon of electric brothers company. I met Isaac, by Googling and looking for an electrician for a major upgrade I did on my house. And after talking to several electricians, I chose the electric brothers. And so I'm sitting here with the one and only Isaac. I do a man.

Isaac Colon: 0:36

Good. I'm doing good to yourself, John, how you doing?

John Laforme: 0:38

All right. i Well, first of all, I want to thank you for providing the lighting for this podcast. Thanks to you. We now have Adjustable LED lights in here. Before I met you, I had a strip bar. I remember that on one side. And it would just blast light one direction. And it just wasn't the best lighting. But now this looks awesome.

Isaac Colon: 1:01

It does looks clear. It looks good. Looks looks crisp. Yes.

John Laforme: 1:05

And it's not even full blast. It's had a nice set a nice level. And we also put the ceiling fan in with the LED circle light above. That was pretty cool. Yeah. So that's really cool. Thank you for that your crew was awesome. Your crew was awesome. That one and and David. Yeah. And then chewy, right. Got chewy also? Yeah, yeah, those guys did some great work. Very respectful of the house. They didn't they didn't break my house, which is great. And yeah, they you guys showed up like every day on time, I was blown away by that. That's

Isaac Colon: 1:40

the hard thing of contractors is finding someone that is one responsible one that is going to be answering your phone calls emails. If they don't answer it, if you do any of those three imagined when the job starts, you know, it's gonna be hard for them to come on to the job on time. If you're the change, and you're not getting the answers on time. They're not showing up on time. It's just nightmares.

John Laforme: 2:04

Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. It's like it's like a it's like a warning. Well, I'm trying to hire this guy. And but he's not answering my emails and not picking up the phone, you probably want to find somebody else. And that's just gonna get worse. And

Isaac Colon: 2:17

that's what I tell customers. Like, how many people have you interviewed is what I tell them. This is why I come about is how many people have interviewed for this electrical work and they'll tell me, You know what, we have a guy that was gonna show up, but he said he was in check his emails and let me know. I'm like, wow,

John Laforme: 2:29

I remember you asking me that. Oh, good. Ask me that. Hello.

Isaac Colon: 2:32

Okay. What about other people? Oh, what do you need it? They need to see what was going to come? He never came. It's just right. Right.

John Laforme: 2:39

And real quick, the reason why I chose you, it wasn't because of your price. It wasn't because of your price. It was because of your responsiveness. Yeah. You actually walked my job three times. And three times you told me the exact same thing that was worth. That was priceless.

Isaac Colon: 3:01

In that in the way we try to set things up in the office for customers. Yeah, there's always someone they can call in the office and get a hold of there's always scheduling with appointments with emails, confirmation, and that's what people are written

John Laforme: 3:14

in a written estimate with details. Yeah. That's, that's always fun. But today, we're gonna get right into actually we're gonna nerd out. Okay, on these little guys right here. Oh, yeah. So I'm gonna ask you first question and we ask you is what is the technical name of this?

Isaac Colon: 3:31

Of the of the plug? Yeah.

John Laforme: 3:34

What is it a plug? Is it a receptacle?

Isaac Colon: 3:37

There's different terms to it. It's like everything if you're on, everybody calls it different. Exactly. That style is a yoke style plug. Because it's oblong. Yeah. People call it different things on the trade. Alright, so

John Laforme: 3:52

this here is obviously a grounded plug. Correct? Because it's got the third, the third opening there. So what can you tell a homeowner about what they need to know what does a homeowner need to know about plugs? If

Isaac Colon: 4:06

they're buying a home, which most people are, when I'm going to these walks, people are wanting to investigate some of the stuff that electrical wanted you to see is how bad is the maintenance in the plugs and throughout the whole house? I mean, regardless, when I tell people maintenance on plugs and switches, you got to change them out when they're gonna buy the house, even if the whole person was here and everything was working fine,

John Laforme: 4:28

right? You mean like a really old plug? Yeah, just get rid of it. They can get they can get loose and on the inside, like you plug something that's really loose. It's got a poor connection that could spark Yeah. And that could cause a fire. So well.

Isaac Colon: 4:39

You got to remember to these things have little pieces of a pin of steel that's compressed, right? So when you're sticking in your prong on the steel, it's gonna grab it's because it's compressed or after a while with the heat and the load. Like if you have space heaters on it. Well this little portion is going to heat up Yeah, after a while and after a while heating up and demand till the metal will get softened up, right? Yep. So that's when you see a plug, you plug it into the plug in and it's false. Right? And that's where you started getting this connectivity. You get shorts, you get those little arcs on on the walls and people are seeing it. I don't know what happened. I had a space heater. And then it just sparked up one, I looked around in the rooms, and I'm looking at all the plugs, and they got old style plugs. And I go, Well, you know, pretty sure you had some new connections in the plugs, and it fell out. Because yeah, we know that is true.

John Laforme: 5:28

And then you have the homeowner who thinks she's a painter, and paints everything. They fill the holes with paint, they don't even try to clean it out. I'm over there trying to try to put my test around. And I can't I can't even get past the ground part. See the ground parts a little bit longer than the other two. And I'm like, Okay, I'm done. I read it up. I know you can't even use this receptacle. Now you don't want to stick something in there and try to clean it. The worst

Isaac Colon: 5:52

one I've seen all the time is when I go to apartment buildings and they want us to do like a maintenance or update or and stuff is when I'm going inside to look for the solar panels. They take off the covers and they spray paint the walls and you spray paint all the breakers all the good. Yeah.

John Laforme: 6:08

No brains, man. No brains, no brains whatsoever. But yeah, they did that years ago too. And these older buildings too, when I pull off like an old old panel cover like on a condo, notorious for spraying boxes. Everything's got the it's the knock down. It's not just spray paint is the knock down from the phone to the drywall. Yeah, it's a little bit

Isaac Colon: 6:29

of everything. You'll see some mud spray paint, and the breakers don't work that good because he started getting paint on him. So yep,

John Laforme: 6:34

yep. So one thing that's a new requirement now, and that's tamper resistant plugs for kids, right? Residential, resident residential. So as a home inspector, when I'm talking to my customers, I always ask them, Do you have any little ones? And they're like, oh, most people are like, Yeah, we do. I'm like, Well, you want it, you know, you want to upgrade these? And now why? Well, because they're protective. You don't have to run around the house and put those little plugs on everything. So these take the place of putting the plastic protectors, correct? Correct. Okay, so some of you may have have kids, and you may have already done this, you go to the store and you buy all the plastic protective covers, you stick on all the outlets. Well, with these new upgraded, tamper resistant type. You don't have to do that anymore. Because there's a plastic. How can I describe that? Is that one there? You can see the plastic inside. Okay, you can see that one. All right, Brad, you brought one. Awesome. That's

Isaac Colon: 7:30

a tamper resistant right here. Yep.

John Laforme: 7:32

Okay, so you can see the little plastic right inside there. Yeah, that makes it really difficult for a small child to stick something sharp in there.

Isaac Colon: 7:42

And even when people are still using these, but after we install them in people's homes, they are hard to plug stuff. And it's the whole point. Yeah. The thing you got to do just kind of wiggle it side to side. And it'll it'll Sweezy Yeah, I can't push it in. And you just gotta we get a little bit it'll slide in. It's, it's made for yeah,

John Laforme: 8:02

there's nothing more annoying to me than going into a house and every single plug has a plastic cover on it. I won't even touch those plugs. I'm not going to sit there and pull all those off. We don't have to do that. We're not required to do that. So I'm just like, you know, maybe one I'll do and then. Okay, I'm done. Yeah.

Isaac Colon: 8:18

I mean, I see so many of these. I see about four to five houses a day, we I do about four or five walks a day. Right now we're about doing about three, it's a little bit slow beginning here. But usually when summertime kicks up, I'm doing four or five walks a day. Yeah. So Joe commercial everything now

John Laforme: 8:35

is what's the requirement of where these new tamper resistant need to go?

Isaac Colon: 8:39

everywhere in the house? Everywhere? Yeah. Okay, everywhere in the house ever even even GFCI is going to be tamper resistant to when you're putting them in residential. So this is like a 15 amp load what normal people would use an original house that's not a dedicated circuit in the restroom because most homes don't have them back right now. Restrooms are supposed to have dedicated so when it's a dedicated GFCI that's when you have the little mark on the side letting you know that that's for a dedicated plug means you can take more of a load just on this one plug.

John Laforme: 9:09

So what are you referring to? You said Does the indicator there?

Isaac Colon: 9:12

Oh yes. You see how the 15 amp doesn't have the little line on the side. Okay, see how this one has a little line? Okay, that lets you know that it's a 20 amp dedicated plug, meaning it's a little beefier, okay, it's made just for one load of one circuit and that's it. It's not like resor plugs in rooms are the daisy chain does it chain does he chains that's why you can use safety net plugs on those because they're daisy chain throughout the load, right or the house. Alright,

John Laforme: 9:37

so let me explain daisy chains for anyone who doesn't know what that means. If there's five or six plugs, and this one's at the front, and all those five or six plugs are connected to this one that's daisy chained which means that when this trips they all shut off,

Isaac Colon: 9:53

right like that know what you're talking about there? That's usually like on kitchen counters. Yeah, yeah. On kitchen counters. When we do that if the plugs still on the same counter, but you don't want to waste money on GFCIs because they're pretty expensive, you can still use one by code trip the other one too and be protected on the same side, you just still have to put the GFCI sticker on that regular plug. So people know that it's GFCI protected.

John Laforme: 10:16

Right, right. And one thing that annoys the shit out of me on a new construction is I've been in the houses where the range is connected to the GFCI. Circuit. Why would you want to put a GFCI range on a GFCI? circuit?

Isaac Colon: 10:33

The oven on the oven? Same thing like with with the refrigerators, I think yeah, it's a dumb, it's,

John Laforme: 10:39

it's a it's not I don't think it's necessary. I don't think it's a safety issue either. No,

Isaac Colon: 10:44

but people do it. And I warn people, when we do new construction on homes, you're gonna have issues with that plug in the refrigerator. It's we're doing it by code, but I'm just stating, you know, it was oh, it is cold. It is cold. Yeah. Same thing with having like a GFCI plug to protect the whole garage that's cold to

John Laforme: 11:00

write that know that I understand. That makes sense to me. Because you're in a wet area. You could be washing your car and playing with hoses or whatever, I get all that but the range and the fridge. So are you telling me it's cold now to have one behind the range? And the fridge? Yeah, the fridge two needs to be on it. Because I just I just did an inspection for a customer a few weeks back. I know I'm sorry a few months ago now and and I say hey, look, man, this is going to be a nuisance. So if this trips and you don't know what tripped, and you just put a turkey in the oven or whatever, and you're expecting this thing to be cooking it's off? Yeah, really? Is that is that the code and like most likely is and that's why it's like that. But it's going to be a nuisance just like putting one of those on your frigerator if that trips and usually when that trips you're not home. So you're not going to open the fridge to open the seat that lights off. You're not going to know so I just tell people I would have that replaced I would

Isaac Colon: 11:57

change that. That's what I tell customers do. They're like Okay, let's take it off.

John Laforme: 12:00

Right Right Okay, so that's Yeah, that's interesting, interesting stuff there. Okay, so I noticed on one year reset on your GFCI is you got a WR on there. So

Isaac Colon: 13:07

WT WR means it's weather resistant. Can be outside it's, it's for an outside location like outside. It's gonna have the book covers stone which is fine but you still want to have a read the weather resistant because it's moisture is lot more moisture and stuff. So the plug right

John Laforme: 13:25

that's what the WR stands for. Correct. And the take the TR stamp store tamper resistant, and that's going to be on the recept we have one of those with us which have just a tamper resistant 15 amp temperature resistance essay TR on it to

Isaac Colon: 13:39

TR tempers the label. Yeah. Okay, just your temperature. You can see the little plastics in there.

John Laforme: 13:45

Yeah, okay, so it is in there. Okay. Yeah, my eyes ain't that good. I can't see that for it. It says tamper resistant right there they go a tamper resistant GFCI outlet Okay,

Isaac Colon: 13:55

and then you have the weather resistant GFCI and has to be tamper resistant to right to be tempers and then there's the dedicated, dedicated 20 amp tamper resistant, right? Of course the price goes up from here to here to here.

John Laforme: 14:09

Sure. And the tamper a tamper resistant is also required on the outdoor GFCI. That's weather resistant. On the outside door. Yeah. Everything's got to be tamper resistant nowadays, pretty much. Okay. Okay, that's an easy way. It's easy way to remember that. I hope you home inspectors are listening. When you see these flipped houses that are remodeled and you see all these basic receptacles like this on the outside of the house. These still make

Isaac Colon: 14:37

oblong receptacles that are tamper resistant, and some people like that. Well,

John Laforme: 14:41

I'm referring to ones that wouldn't be so that's not I mean, I see this all the time on a flip house. I go outside, nothing's GFCI protected. They got these just standard interior outlets out there. No covers.

Isaac Colon: 14:54

And that's the one thing I always run into when I'm walking homes people definitely Soames they never touch Anything on the electrical redo all that. I know man top of the line stuff.

John Laforme: 15:07

I just referred you a job. We just we just talked about that a little while ago. It was a house and so it was a small house it had what I think a 70 amp break main panel. Yeah did like a 70 amp main panel. I'm like, Man, this wiring here. So like

Unknown: 15:22

old, minimal, original, minimal.

John Laforme: 15:25

I mean the wiring in there. So I referred the customer to Isaac here and he went out and bid on the job and got the job. So

Isaac Colon: 15:34

that's the thing. A lot of people really focus on trying to do a full house rewire. It's it's nightmares. It really is. Yeah, I don't recommend it. It's not not necessary. Unless you're really into it and you want to do that whole project of the thing, then it's kind of cool, you know, but

John Laforme: 15:49

we're gonna get it. We're gonna get into that in a different episode on wiring houses. Because I know someone that you might have done that for? Yeah, I think so. So GFCI wise, I actually read things once in a while. I noticed that they say the manufacturer recommends that you hit pushed that test button once a month.

Isaac Colon: 16:14

Yeah, I didn't know that. So you told me that. Yeah, you learned something new every day. Right? How to

John Laforme: 16:18

read it. And I've actually seen it recently on an electrical panel that had AFCI breakers in it. Yeah. And it said right on their test monthly. Yeah,

Isaac Colon: 16:28

I was like, wow, okay. It's a it's a headache of a nightmare, man. Yeah,

John Laforme: 16:32

but the reason for it, I can agree with the reason for it. Because these little buttons just have like springs behind. And if they just sit and sit and sit dust, air time,

Isaac Colon: 16:44

it's more the moisture in the calcium buildup that gets them? Oh, is that what it is? Okay. calcium buildup behind it. And that's where they get a little sticky. Yeah, get finicky. I

John Laforme: 16:54

mean, I think you push the button, and that won't reset. When we say it'll just turn red, which means it's dead. There's no power to it. And that that's if there's something daisy chained to it. Everything else is going to be dead to everything downstream will be there to be right. So rule number one as a home inspector, you don't take one of these. And push the button. Unless you're actually at the GFCI itself, because you could be putting this into a regular outlet that could be connected to one of those. And then that could be hidden behind a cabinet. And no one knows and you can't find it. You'll hear it click. And you're like, oh shit, I know, I heard that. Which was,

Isaac Colon: 17:33

I've had that before where customers tell me that or know where my garage or electricity is out and kind of figure it out and make it returns on or there's got to be a hidden plug in here. No, there's no there's not. So I certainly never know. I started looking around looking around moving things. And I go what's behind this cabinet here? Oh, I don't know what we unscrew it pull it out. There's a plug right there. GFCI reset it past the light. It's usually on the newer style homes where we have that problem a lot. A lot of Yeah, people don't know, you know, yeah,

John Laforme: 18:05

well, you know, they don't teach this in school, know how to live in a house. So when you see these kind of receptacles with the buttons on them, that means you may need to access them. So don't block them with something or make a note that it's there or just take a picture and save it for later. Whatever you got to do. But don't block them. Because you may need to get to it when you really need to. And

Isaac Colon: 18:27

that's where you're where it actually shows to where you're going to be connecting your line for the power coming in. If you want to project things downstream. This is where you would take off the tape and put your stuff that you want to protect downstream like on the kitchen counter. Gotcha. So if this chips that cuts the rest of the power off that way, I don't know if you'd want to do that. Then you cook both lines on the same site. So even though this chips are still power continuing to the other stuff, but it's only protecting this. Got it. So I said sir.

John Laforme: 18:55

Alright, cool. So nowadays I actually have in my new bathroom before I met you had an electrician here. Yeah. And he did my bathroom remodeling. I came out really good. Yeah, it actually actually his work came out. I saw

Isaac Colon: 19:09

pieces of it. I liked the wood. That's why I was asking the wood on the restroom looks pretty cool. You'd like to what the wood flooring looks like. Oh, oh, you

John Laforme: 19:16

asked me about the electrician or the bathroom both. Okay,

Isaac Colon: 19:19

it looks I haven't seen the whole full restroom but I remember seeing some of the forms of chemo good. Yeah,

John Laforme: 19:23

I yeah, I came out really good. I came up better than what I expected. Because the room I didn't think it was going to be that big right when I was done and it was everyone's like, Man, this is a big bathroom like you don't you're right. It is a big fat. So I got more room in there than I than I bargained for which is great. So I love it. It's not tight and cramped, no walk around, take a shower or whatever you got to do. So in my bathroom, I have receptacles with USPS, right. And I love it. Oh yeah. I have it everywhere in my house. I don't have to have an adapter or go into this and then take your one of these. Yeah, you don't have to take get an adapter to adapt to this to adapt to this. You just plug in this right into the outlet

Isaac Colon: 20:12

I make now I was just talking to you about this GFCIs that have USB port two. Yes, I have that my bath. Okay. See they do have them. Yeah, I didn't bring one but they have that's kind of cool. Yep. So those

John Laforme: 20:25

are that's a great thing to have maybe by maybe by your nightstand. Kitchen Kitchen. Or all charging. Yeah,

Isaac Colon: 20:33

I have my kitchen. Bar area. People always just come in and have different style cables. USBs. Everybody that comes over that's like the charging station for people when they Yeah, they just plug other stuff

John Laforme: 20:47

extra USBs are interchangeable, but it's the other end or not. So depending what kind of phone you have you have an iPhone or you don't have an iPhone,

Isaac Colon: 20:55

Android? No, I have an iPhone. But some people have androids. Yeah, Android connections are different, too. Yeah, yeah. So

John Laforme: 21:00

there's all different reasons for doing that. Okay, so here's a good question. Because I run into this. And it's really hard for me to answer this. Because I'm not opening up the wall, I'm not opening up the outlet, I'm not doing an intrusive inspection, I'm just visually looking at something. So I'm I'm in a house, it's a really old house, probably built in the 20s or 30s. And I'm seeing a GFCI in multiple areas. But I know, on the outside of the house, I have a stab lock panel, or maybe an old Bulldog panel or whatever I have, I have a really old panel outside. And I'm not seeing a lot of grounding. And then in that same house, I'll see a few of these still in service. These a two prong. So fill us in on what these are and what they are not.

Isaac Colon: 21:52

Those are old school style plugs, just two prong there's no grounding them. Obviously, this is what code was back then this is how things were built, you know. Now most plugs now have days have the next show attachment and External ID so people can see it, it's ground. And that's their point of attachment of it. But this is very old school and it's it still works good. You just got to really update the plug, though, you got to remember this thing's already 50 years old, and you have them inside. So the little the steel braces inside of them, they're worn out. What I usually recommend to people is at least update the plugs, even though it doesn't have a ground, at least the plug is refreshed and can handle a load. Because you know, I mean, that's the that's the key point of it. Yeah, it's not going to be grounded, but at least you know, it's going to have a good connection point. Right? Which is more important because that's when people started having issues where they're start plugging in something in a space heater, and then you'll see it hanging. And then that's when it starts shorting out right right that's really the issue so

John Laforme: 22:53

space use a dangerous anyway, nevermind plugging them in. Even

Isaac Colon: 22:58

even it can happen even with the PlayStation or something TVs is the wrong the wrong touching of heats of the elements for a while. And it's after a while things heat up and they give out everything has a weekly time. And now.

John Laforme: 23:12

Now the story I'm telling you about these houses I go into? I'll see like a GFCI I'll see those. Yeah, so I'm thinking I got a GFCI connected to a two wire system. Is that even going to work?

Isaac Colon: 23:28

It depends. It depends. It may not really work fully because it needs to it needs on the ground to be ideal, meaning it needs some guns, some kind of point of attachment, so the ground can set off, make the GFI work correctly. And it just needs to be like a piece of steel because we tested a GFCI with a with a blow dryer ungrounded. And we threw it in the bucket and that and that and that a blow dryer I kept on going off. And the moment we kept running get Bernie Bernie we did we did a full seminar about this one time. And the moment we got the ground wire and just attached to a screwdriver, it tripped. It did his job. But if it's not going to have an ad of a ground, it just needs to sense the ID of the ground for GSA to really work correctly. It's not really the safest thing. I'm not saying that. Oh, yeah, you don't need a ground for the house and that so

John Laforme: 24:25

so if that plug had a metal box, and you attach the box to that and might work

Isaac Colon: 24:31

it might it most likely will work. It is a GFCI and it just needs an ID of a ground. Now I'm not saying you can do a regular two prong outlet and put a crown and consider your house grounded. No, that's different. That's different. That won't work. But this just needs the ID to sense that it is grounded for a trip. That's all

John Laforme: 24:50

I see what you're saying. So that there you cannot ground this one here. No. Right but you saying if I had that, and I wanted to put this in and it had a metal bar box. I could put a jumper from the box to this and pull most likely work.

Isaac Colon: 25:05

It all depends. I've done it before and sometimes it doesn't even work, it doesn't even trip. They won't even idea. It just depends on how good the steel is if there's a good connection point of a steel

John Laforme: 25:15

on right, and if you have a metal box probably could have a metal conduit anyway. So

Isaac Colon: 25:19

usually most of the time it does work, I say, but most GFCI is if there's not they're not a ground on them. It won't work. It won't trip. Okay, it won't trip even though if it's a an older style house. Yeah, a lot of times they won't really trip it'll take a little bit longer for its trip because what happens, that's when the accidents start happening. Right, right, right.

John Laforme: 25:39

Okay, so that's a that's a helpful because like I said, we don't oh, well, I'm not going to pull up. I'm not going to be pulling the receptacle to check to see if it's got a jumper or anything like that. But I've walked into a house in Pasadena I remember the house because the relatives are well not hit. She was just off the wall crazy, this little woman. So that's it makes me remember the day. Every single receptacle, and that house was a GFCI

Isaac Colon: 26:07

a lot of people do that. A lot of people do that sales pitch. I've heard contractors, or people telling me to when I've walked houses and they say, well, well, why can we just put a GFCI to protect it and not worry about it? You know, like what's not really the right thing to do? You know, it's not going to work correctly. That's like a really a fix, you know, right. It's like a band aid.

John Laforme: 26:31

Yeah, it definitely brings suspicion to I'm looking at you know, that's a non standard electrical practice right there. Yeah. For number one. That's that's not something we're going to see in every other house that we go into. Not at all. I've seen that maybe once or twice. Yeah, I've never seen it once. Maybe Maybe twice. I've seen it somewhere on another time. Here's a here's a quick story horror story for you. Years ago, I was it was wintertime, and it was pouring rain out. I go to a job. electrical panel was right above a puddle of water. I didn't go near it. I'm like okay, I'm going to take a picture of the box. I opened the box took a picture inside did not pull the inner cover off. Because I was getting wet at the same time. Not a good idea and all the water right below. So I didn't mess with that. So I go in the house now. And I'm just checking my outlets with my make sure they got power and stuff like that. I went to go like this into a hallway. A hallway receptacle might have been a hallway slash living room. I'm about this far away from the outlet. And a piece of a spark jumped from here all the way to this. No shit. Luckily for me, everyone else was watching. So they saw it happen to them like you guys see that? Yes. I thought I was seeing things for a second. And when I just dropped it. I was like whoa, what the hell it literally what do you think cause though,

Isaac Colon: 28:04

you know what? I've never heard that story before. It's a good one. That's crazy. Yeah, that is pretty gnarly. Very dangerous. Very dangerous. Never heard that one before.

John Laforme: 28:14

But it jumped. And you can see you can see it. I've seen that before. I wish I was videotape and that boy that would make great YouTube video. Yeah,

Isaac Colon: 28:22

so when we're working on how panels like 40 panels or something always got to protect their face because the arc flashes that burn. Yeah, you know, fun fact. I don't know if you told you if you pay attention to one of his eyes. He was working on the panel when it blew up on him and little fragments of the arcing mark his eye burned a little bit it luckily it didn't mess with his pupil or anything but it was just right on the bottom side of his eyes. So when you look at him he has little burn mark Ah Wow. Yeah. Wow. Now you didn't mention listen to that's a pretty bad horror story.

John Laforme: 28:56

Yeah,

Isaac Colon: 28:57

I remember that one. I mean, I've got my hands all blacked out.

John Laforme: 29:00

So what caused the arc flash what he was something in there that wasn't supposed to be in there. Did you have an accident that he dropped a pen

Isaac Colon: 29:07

it was an existing panel and something was loosened there and as he was taking it off it just it touched on his art. Yeah. And that's yeah, accidents happen. You know? Yeah. You always get to treat things like they're hot all the time is the way I always Oh,

John Laforme: 29:21

yeah, absolutely. percent. Yeah, I'm super cautious for electrical. I don't like messing with it. And that's why I hired you.

Isaac Colon: 29:29

So let me neither and I usually hire plumbers too. But you know, although my dad was a plumber that made me a plumber. Yeah. Growing up and that's what he did is this. I think growing up with him. Doing it so much is I didn't want to do it. Yeah, growing up young and going underneath houses and it's a brutal job. They're 1012 years old. Six o'clock on a Saturday I wanted to go riding with my friends and riding my skateboard no room to go. Gotta plumbing and stuff. We had to do a main drain. I was like, oh, no, I don't want to touch it. I mean, not I'll touch you with him. And we'll work on things together. Something in my house, I'll call them. Yeah, you know, we'll work on a project or so I'll look at you

John Laforme: 30:06

now, it taught you a lot how to deal with the trades, you decided what you didn't want to be. And now you're an owner of electrical company. That's, that's awesome. And

Isaac Colon: 30:15

it also makes me learn to about plumbing, like, because I know it's still about plumbing. And yeah, I'll question them, and they'll see if they know or what they're going to do and see if they know their stuff. You know, I mean, and I always had my dad there, too, when there's ever like a premonition mouse, just because my dad's He's good. He's good. He'll, uh, like, they'll be saying stuff. And he's like, why would you want to do that? It will point something out to him. And they were like, you know, it's a good point. We never thought about that. One was, yeah, you're probably better off just doing it the pitcher the three inch pipe this way instead? Yeah. Then they end up doing it that way. And it's like, I'm glad he was here. But he's real cool about it. He will just stick in the background. Yeah, that rule person is not

John Laforme: 30:53

trying to knock him. He's just trying to have it give advice. Yeah, that's cool. So reverse polarity.

Isaac Colon: 31:00

That's a nightmare sound, doing wiring, right. And it's very dangerous, you can burn out all things. Although some devices don't really care if the polarity is reversed on some devices, like some apple chargers or whatever, they don't really care,

John Laforme: 31:14

you know, they'll reverse them on their own. Yeah, you can spin that thing around doesn't matter. But if you run

Isaac Colon: 31:19

into an old system that doesn't have the capability to that, or you're in a world of hurt, you

John Laforme: 31:23

know, that would make sense why one one of these slots is bigger than the other. Correct. And that's why. So if you're sort of your appliance, or your component you're trying to plug in, has a plug with one big at one side bigger than the other there that that they care about the polarity. And that's why they design that plug that way. So you only plug it into the right type

Isaac Colon: 31:44

of receptacle. Yeah. And that's why it also has that little slight, too, because dedicated 20 amp circuits usually have that little slot. So let people know that it's a 20 amp requirement on the plug. But even then, you can still use a 20 amp dedicated with this anyways, too. Right. But they have guaranteed I don't know if you've seen like the plugs, you have 111 slot like this and other slot sideways on the plugs. When you're when you're plugging out I have not seen one of those usually sees have that a lot of ACs have that. Okay, that's when you have that. Yeah,

John Laforme: 32:16

I have never, I've never had to deal with one

Isaac Colon: 32:18

of those. Yeah, I wouldn't put it in the GFCI on an AC to protect it. It's your you're gonna have that thing tripping all the time because of the compressor kicking on? Yeah. Loads. Yeah, it's gonna create nightmares for you.

John Laforme: 32:30

Right. So can you show us with one of these receptacles? Like, what you mean by reverse polarity so homeowners can understand. Yeah,

Isaac Colon: 32:38

so we just want you have the what you always know the neutral side is always the silver side. That's the way I always look at it. Can I tell people, everybody knows that in the gold sides, the power side is when we have these two reversed, or downstream somewhere else. They reverse them because they just don't know the date and at the cables correctly. And they're just making things up.

John Laforme: 32:56

Could have been a homeowner DIY, or something like that. Okay, I ran into that before, it's as simple as just reversing the wires.

Isaac Colon: 33:04

But even if you reverse them here, you got to find out where they made that that connection point of reversing them, right, you don't want to just reverse it here and still have it everywhere else the same. You got to kind of trace it back to see this is where it starts and ends. I

John Laforme: 33:17

see. Okay, so it could be a one isolated area could be it could be like a daisy chain somewhere.

Isaac Colon: 33:22

Or it could be in a junction box. And it's spreading out the whole house is reverse polarity. You don't even know that. Oh, I've

John Laforme: 33:27

seen that. I've seen that.

Isaac Colon: 33:29

Yeah, this little guy right here. Yeah, that helps out. Yeah.

John Laforme: 33:32

So what's your opinion on these versus these stupid sticks? And we call them stupid sticks. I haven't heard that one yet. That's awesome. And these were big stick. I

Isaac Colon: 33:45

use these all the time, but I don't use them. I mean, if I'm just doing some regular running around testing things, I'll lose it just to see if there's some power. But if I don't feel comfortable, like if you're troubleshooting, then I'll pull up my meter. I don't I don't rely on see oh, yeah, right, right.

John Laforme: 34:00

I don't Yeah, I don't use that to rely on it. And to do electrical work. I just use it as a reference. You know what I mean? So another, another crazy horror story for you at work. I'm in a garage, and this house was built pre 1920. This is the old structure, old garage, everything. And it had a fuse box. Okay, in the garage. I take this. Let me see that. I take this. And I'm going up to touch the box to see if the box is energized. And before I even got to the box, this thing was a penguin. Like, like I wanted to call it like a phantom electric or something. It was just like, given off some kind of a invisible force field or something. And as I went close to it, this thing started lighting up. I don't even touch it yet. That's the

Isaac Colon: 34:48

thing that's crazy when you're using these. I tell people like when you're using them and you're troubleshooting, mainly troubleshoot. I've done a lot of troubleshooting real good at troubleshooting. When you're troubleshooting, just pick As you add this in a box, and it is shown it has power doesn't mean as power. You know, you still gotta verify because you gotta remember, in the junction box, things are spliced up. There could be another passing through circuit or lighting circuit. Yeah, yeah. And you think it has power and you don't, and you're just wasting a lot of time I saved or has power,

John Laforme: 35:18

because that junction box may be connected to a wall switch, if that wall switches off to be no power. And if you switch the light on that wasn't even connected to that it could cause that to light up. Yeah,

Isaac Colon: 35:29

there could be another circuit just jumping in between and this is a separate circuit, and district, it could be off. But there's another circuits is jumping in just because it was, you know, it's

John Laforme: 35:38

making it look like it's live. hours trying to figure it out. It's a troubleshooting part, I, it's part of my job, I enjoy trying to figure out what's going on. Yeah, it's like a quiz every day. And that makes me think I like using my brain. And that's what

Isaac Colon: 35:55

I like, I like throwing some hot challenges on me when it comes to troubleshooting the unknown. That was me My brother used to be a farmer John man, it was everyday 5am clocking in and it's like they're calling listen to radio, we got pork the second cut down, we don't know what's going on, lights are out. We can't work. You know, when when a floors down there, each floor can have like 50 employees 80 employees on one line. So Wow. When they're down, you can imagine 80 or 60 people twiddling their thumbs and getting paid. We need to bring it back up. So sometimes it takes us an hour or two. So that's 80 people they're paying for free. Oh, so talking about pressure? Yeah, it's I was it was cool. I like that pressure. Yeah, it just to me, that makes me be it. I don't get nervous. You walk into the fire. I walk into the fire and I like I like, I like I like you know, it doesn't get me nervous. I don't I can't I don't blank out. It makes me think more. It makes me learn more. Yep. So

John Laforme: 36:56

what I've learned in my trade is, is don't you can't listen to other people. You got to do your own evaluation. You can't. Like a homeowner is like, oh, yeah, you know, I did this to my house. I did that. I said, Well, sir, you know, I know you just said that. But I just went on to your house and saw something totally different. So somebody lied to you? Yeah, I don't say they, they they told you a missed an untruth or miss truth. They lie to you. Okay.

Isaac Colon: 37:26

When people tell me that all the time when I go over, tell me what the last electrician said there's probably a cut wire in between the wall, you know, he has to run the whole new wire to fixed this. And well, it's his opinion. Everybody has different opinions. I need to assess the problem myself and where I can really consider that and your price for that? Because I don't know.

John Laforme: 37:44

Yeah, yeah. You got to do your own evaluation. Yeah. That's it. So that's important. Open grounds. What does that mean, open ground?

Isaac Colon: 37:51

open ground, the house is probably just two prong wire like this, like your house was? Yeah. It's normal is grandfathered in. It is it's a system. That's that's how I was back then. You know, and

John Laforme: 38:02

so what would you recommend to a homeowner that said, Hey, John told me to call you because I have open grounds everywhere. If

Isaac Colon: 38:08

the budget is tight, obviously, you know, I would lease for say, Peace, all the plugs. Look at the panel, how's the panel look, is the panel look like yours, have an update, then I would recommend training up to the panel because you want to ground up the panel. Once you run out the panel correctly, the breakers work correctly. And the faster they respond quicker. Yeah, so so it makes it safer. It does, it does,

John Laforme: 38:30

it does when you have it's not going to affect the condition of the two prong wire.

Isaac Colon: 38:34

I mean, the condition of the two prong wires not going to change anything is just a when you have a good grounded system on the panel, the breakers react a lot faster and can read anything going on like temperatures heating up

John Laforme: 38:47

that is a really good explanation. So no one's ever explained that to no like that before.

Isaac Colon: 38:52

So that's why when I tell people you don't have to wire up the houses you don't this this took a lot of money. So

John Laforme: 38:57

updating the panel which update the breakers, you now have a more reliable breaker that is gonna be more sensitive when it needs to be it's going to trip protecting those outlets. Yeah, and that wiring and

Isaac Colon: 39:08

then you have the your cold water ground with the to ground rods. Alright, driving down you have the water heater as bonded that were supposed to be so you have a better grounding system for it to work so as to be safer to be safer. Yeah, but I mean, obviously, all in all, the safest way is to be obviously everything grounded, obviously. Right, but it still works. It'll still trip. It just takes a little bit longer for the breaker to react and do its actual job because it's not fully grounded. But the panel's fully grounded, so it works. Right now when you have an old Federal Pacific panel zinsco panel, it's not grounded. It's nightmarish anyway, so those panels are junk to begin with. So and that's where sometimes some of them are see a lot of flickering lights. Yeah, because it's their systems not grounded. Right. Right.

John Laforme: 39:54

Okay. Anything else on receptacles you can share with us that I haven't brought up to you? Oh, Hey, I almost forgot one more. Looks like a says right on it. 30 amp 125 Slash 250 volt.

Isaac Colon: 40:08

Yeah, it was It looks like a dryer plug or an old conventional oven to come from the 70s.

John Laforme: 40:14

Yeah, yeah. So here's the inside.

Isaac Colon: 40:18

Yeah, there you go.

John Laforme: 40:22

Guess where that came from your house. My garage. When I moved into my house had had a washer dryer in the garage. Obviously an electric dryer hookup Alright, everybody. So I think we're good on this episode here. The takeaway today is, you know, if you're buying an older home, and there's been no electrical upgrades, at least replace all your receptacles to tamper resistant if you have little ones. If you don't have little ones, then you don't have to worry about that so much. But don't forget you have relatives that may come over a little kids, whatever. So if you're going to upgrade them go with the latest. And technically it's up to code. Yeah, if you're doing maintenance, just yeah, just it's just part of an old house. People remodel. They don't they don't change everything when they remodel because they don't know any better. So do it on your own. GFCI is recommended in wet areas. Yeah. Nowadays there are going to be laundry garage kitchens, bathrooms, utility rooms. What about attics? required in attics? No.

Isaac Colon: 41:26

You know it's a good one. I never heard him. I mean, when I when I've never seen one an attic. Yeah, when we do dedicated circuits for like the check systems. No, it's never GFCIs true.

John Laforme: 41:34

That's true. So now don't worry about that part. And And don't forget, push that button once a month.

Isaac Colon: 41:39

Yeah. And it's within three feet. The code of we're locations. Yeah. So on either side on either side, faucets here. It's three feet that way, three feet that way. So yeah, people think what's the same counter? It's like six feet away, but it's not. Yeah, you're not gonna? Not that long. You're not to spend 2530 bucks for a plug. So,

John Laforme: 41:58

real quick, Isaac, let everybody know what type of electrical work you offer for residential. So go ahead. We offer

Isaac Colon: 42:08

pretty much all upgrades for residential from panels house rewires solar

John Laforme: 42:15

EV we do everything that you mean you wire for solar, you don't install solar. Well,

Isaac Colon: 42:20

we we've done it before. I just don't advertise it because I don't have it. I just don't I don't want to be a solid guy. I don't want to be a silver guy. No. People call me all the time for me. We've done big projects before you know and little projects. I had a solar company to

John Laforme: 42:34

say you're okay with you're okay with touching it. Yeah. Okay.

Isaac Colon: 42:37

But we do a lot more big commercial has we're very rudely. Our background is commercial.

John Laforme: 42:42

Yeah. So you come from the commercial field. Okay, so that's good to know, too. Alright, so if I want receptacle changed, I can call you. Yeah,

Isaac Colon: 42:49

obviously. Yeah. 33548900 is our office line.

John Laforme: 42:54

And what's the website address?

Isaac Colon: 42:56

You can do it on through Yelp or through Google on electric brothers. When you purchase online on Google. There's an application you can fill out it says all the name details what you're looking for what kind of work.

John Laforme: 43:08

Ya know, what I'm asking is What is your website address? WW

Isaac Colon: 43:11

at electricbro.com Okay,

John Laforme: 43:14

electric brothers.com. Yeah, okay, got it. Alright. Thanks, man. Thanks for being on the show. And I'm going to have you back soon. We're going to talk about electrical panels. Yeah, no,

Isaac Colon: 43:23

thanks for opportunity. Appreciate it, you know. All right.