My first boss told me to always mount the panel first before running wires

I was fresh out of trade school and thought I knew better, so I ran all my wires first on a big house in Evanston. Took me nearly 3 extra hours wrestling cables through studs because the panel location changed halfway through. He was right obviously, but I had to learn it the hard way. Has anyone else had a piece of advice that seemed stupid at first but saved their butt later?

2 comments

2 Comments

terry_walker14d ago

Man, that's a classic rookie mistake right there. I've seen it happen more times than I can count, and it always ends the same way - extra work you didn't need.

alice12113d ago

I learned that one the hard way too, but with a twist. My old foreman told me to always leave an extra 3 feet of wire at both ends before cutting anything. I thought he was just being wasteful until we had to relocate the whole breaker panel because the homeowner changed their mind about the basement layout. That extra slack saved me from having to pull all new circuits. Now I always coil extras up at the ends before I even think about trimming. It feels like a pain in the moment but it's worth it when things shift unexpectedly.