How Important is It to Hire A Licensed Electrician?

One of the most important decisions you can make when it comes to hiring a professional to take care of your home electrical needs is making sure that they are a sacramento licensed electrician. There are shortcuts that amateurs will take when doing electrical work that a professional just would never do. A perfect example of this is what we do when making a ‘splice’ inside a junction box or inside any electrical box in the house whether it is fiberglass or metal. A professional will take the extra time that it takes to ‘pigtail’ the wires, which means when making a splice they will add an additional wire as a ‘jumper’ and splice the wires together that they need to in order to make a secure connection, that splice will then be kept underneath a wire nut and the single wire then gets wrapped around the corresponding screw and fastened tight enough so that it is really snug and will not come off. We also want to make sure that the insulation is not touching the screw when the connection is made just to ensure for a safer, more secure connection. This is an added step that the amateur usually wont do, they will usually ‘backstab’ the wires into the holes that come with the outlet or the switch which provides a loose connection at best. These are the kinds of questions that you want to be asking an electrician to make sure that they know you know the difference and that you want and deserve the best for your home and appliances. Also, whenever bringing wires into a box you should always make sure your electrician is not leaving too much or too little paper or ‘sheathing’ inside of that box. Too little and it will make it flimsy and too much is also a hazard. Anyway, I hope this rant proved helpful, just a little insight from this electrician =).