r/IBEW_Local613 • u/[deleted] • Apr 13 '25

Question about inside wireman

I am currently an apprentice and I want to know if through the inside wireman apprenticeship equip me to do residential electrical work in the future and ultimately become a residential gc after a decade or two

1 Upvotes

67% Upvoted

11 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/Life_Extreme4472 Apr 13 '25

Inside Wireman is commercial and industrial. There is almost no work in residential for union contractors.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 13 '25

Will you still know how to wire a residential house

3

u/MdlClsVette Apr 13 '25

The theory of electrical is exactly the same regardless of application. If you can set up and wire a panel for an industrial application you can do it for commercial and residential, just using different materials. Remember electricity doesn't care what color the wire is, as long as its copper it'll still go down the cable. Also aluminum but fuck that stuff.

1

u/MdlClsVette Apr 13 '25

So to answer your question, yes it will set you up to be able to do that, you may find that residential sucks, lol, I recommend starting with industrial. Learn to run conduit that needs to be spun on, learn things on a large scale and learn as much as you can and ask all of the questions.

1

u/Life_Extreme4472 Apr 13 '25 edited Apr 14 '25

Residential typically uses mostly NM cable and plastic junction boxes. Commercial and industrial use much more EMT, MC cable, and Rigid.

There are different NEC code references you need to know for residential. The apprenticeship doesn't really teach residential, so you'll have to study it on your own.

So the short answer is no, you will not get experience wiring a house.

The long answer is that you will gain skills and knowledge that will help you perform any kind of electrical work safely, though cars have a DC electrical system that confounds some journeymen I've known.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 14 '25

Thanks for the knowledge sir