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Fixed outlets backwards for 10 years before I caught it
Was doing a new construction rough-in for a 3 bedroom house in Austin last June. Got all my receptacles in and was moving to the next job. Customer's wife called me over and asked why the ground pin was on top. Told her that's how I always did it. She pulled out her phone and showed me a code reference about upside down receptacles being a safety issue in certain situations. I had been doing it wrong since I started in the trade back in 2013. Felt like an idiot but at least nobody got hurt. Now I check every job spec before I start. Anybody else have a basic thing they did wrong for years without knowing?
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pat_harris7d ago
...and that's the thing, it's not just trades or car stuff. I've noticed this same blind spot with how people set up their home Wi-Fi. Everyone just plugs in the router wherever the cable comes in and calls it good, even though the signal is crap in half the house. Or how nobody ever checks their smoke detector batteries unless it's chirping at 3 AM. We all just assume if something was a real problem, someone would have said something by now. But nobody wants to be the one to point out the obvious because it feels like you're being rude or nitpicky.
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xenam847d ago
Wait, TEN YEARS? That's INSANE. I can't believe nobody caught that on a single inspection or anything before the wife finally said something.
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oliviabutler7d ago
Oh man, this is so typical though. People miss stuff all the time because we assume someone else already checked. It's the same thing with my car - I had a slow leak in a tire for like two years and every time I got an oil change nobody said anything until a friend borrowed it and was like "hey your tire looks weird." Inspections are kind of a joke honestly, they check the bare minimum and move on. And then you add in that the wife probably thought the husband was handling it and he thought she would say something if it was really a problem. Nobody wants to be the one to call out something obvious because it feels awkward.
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