Too many trades people estimate their jobs by looking at the house of the prospect, what type of cars they drive etc. Recently I received an estimate of $8,000 to install a charger outlet (but not the charger). My estimate was for an experienced professional, it would take about 20 hours. So they were charging high $300’s per hour for an electrician and a partial helper (For pulling wire).
Instead, I decided to do the hard work instead and to get an electrician out to inspect it (for maybe $100).
I had a few surprises.
The wire had to go from the south end basement wall to the attached garage on the north end of the house. Moreover, there was no direct way to get the wire from the basement to the garage. The route I took was up through the stairwell into the house attic, then down into the garage attic and finally to the distant wall.
Probably the biggest obstacle was hitting a fire-block in the stairwell. Even worse, once I finally got through the block, I discovered that maybe a foot away was another. I did not have proper tools, mostly drill bits for drilling 1″ holes 1-2 feet away from the drill . Needing a variety of tools and extensions, caused me several trips to hardware stores which also ate up some time.
