March 28, 2024 • 53 mins
Jesse Landis, owner and operator of Wireworks Electric talks electrical safety with Mike.
You'll want to tune in to hear Jesse discuss the often hidden dangers lurking within our home electrical systems. He also debunks myths surrounding outdated knob and tube wiring and addresses the advantages of aluminum in certain contexts. Whether you're a DIY enthusiast or in search of professional assistance, this episode provides you with the insights you need to ensure your home's electrical system isn't just powering devices but protecting your family as well.
Learn more at their website here.
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Episode Transcript
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Mike Church (00:12):
This is the Kestrel Country Podcast, where we
discuss the people, places andevents all around Kestrel
(00:36):
Country.
Jesse landis, thanks for comingin today well, hello.
Thanks for the invite yeah, ofcourse, always good to take the
time to sit down and talk andask questions.
I always learn about you knowpeople I've known for a while.
I always learn more about them.
So, that's what's fun.
I was commenting the other daywith somebody.
It's like, I think, especiallyfor guys, we don't end up just
(00:58):
kind of sitting and talking veryoften.
Jesse Landis (01:01):
Right Reading out our bio.
Mike Church (01:04):
Yeah, exactly, so it's kind of fun.
I always start with kind ofwhere'd you grow up?
What was your background beforeMoscow?
You know, podcast kind of isabout the Moscow area, but
what's your history?
Where'd you grow?
Jesse Landis (01:20):
up.
I am certainly a PacificNorthwesterner Grew up in
Southern Oregon, the Medfordarea, little towns around
Jacksonville, ashland, kind ofspent more time in those areas
probably, but went to school inin, uh, medford, um, yeah uh,
(01:51):
family, um, my, uh, my immediatefamily all stayed there for a
while.
My, my folks, they've moved outhere to Troy now They've
followed us.
I have a brother, one siblingand he's still there in Southern
Oregon.
Mike Church (02:09):
Now I don't know Southern Oregon very well.
You said Medford area, Mm-hmm.
Where is that in SouthernOregon?
Is it out by the coast?
Jesse Landis (02:19):
It is.
It's one valley in from thecoast.
So there's the SiskiyouMountains and the Coast Range, I
guess.
So it may be a few valleys over, but it's the first major
valley.
It's in between the Cascadesand the Siskiyous actually.
Mike Church (02:41):
Is that I-5 corridor and the I-5?
Jesse Landis (02:43):
corridor goes right through there, so it's the
last stop, basically, beforeyou go into california um and it
doesn't it doesn't meet the theuh oregon typical id idea.
You know of the rain.
Um, I think the rainfall issimilar to here, probably.
Okay, A little warmer maybemore like Lewiston temperatures,
(03:05):
but very beautiful, a lot ofsun in between that rain.
It's known for, or it was knownfor, orchards.
A lot of fruit growing there Isit similar to the Willamette
Valley.
No a lot drier, okay yeah, butthe fruit growing has
(03:30):
transitioned to similar to theWillamette Valley, although
obviously they must be differentvarieties of grape growing.
So the wine culture is growingup there and doing well, the
marijuana culture made an inroadthere as well.
I think that's dropped off abit.
Mike Church (03:51):
It wasn't helping the area, so yeah, that kind of
that's like because just acrossthe border that's Humboldt, is
not too far.
Jesse Landis (04:04):
Oh, that's probably.
Is that a ways?
Mike Church (04:05):
in the North, that's like Northern California,
right, it's kind of famous forthat, yeah.
Jesse Landis (04:09):
Yeah, um, it is because of the hot summer.
It definitely gets hotter there.
So the hot summers I think, uh,definitely favored that that
crop, but I think there's, yeah,some market trends that that
slowed it down.
Yeah, the wine seems to be doingbetter.
(04:29):
I'm no expert on this, but justbeing down there visiting
family, it looks like the winegrowing is going better again.
So, yeah, beautiful place, likeI said, cascade Mountains,
siskiy Mountains, you have theRogue River that goes through
there, a lot of whitewaterrafting, fishing, and so, yeah,
(04:51):
I grew up there enjoyingoutdoors and the construction
industry.
My dad was a custom homebuilder for 30 years there.
Oh, okay.
He won awards for some of hishomes 30 years there.
Okay, won awards for some ofhis homes, and my brother is
also a junk contractor and stillbuilding houses there.
Mike Church (05:11):
So did you grow up doing that with your dad?
So something you thought youwould do?
Jesse Landis (05:16):
I grew up, um yeah , from a very young age on job
sites picking up nails, tearingdown walls, cleaning demo, that
kind of stuff, and that did.
That wore on me a little bit.
I maybe have too short of aattention span to be able to
(05:39):
hang out in at that pace.
So after high school I was justkilling time and I got a.
I got a job on a ranch.
It's kind of a dude ranch.
It was up on the cascades,beautiful oh really yeah, and I
started enjoying seeing the suncome up over the mountains and
(06:01):
the Cascades every morning andrealized how much I like doing
that and being outdoors.
And that job actually ended uprolling over into a woods job,
got into the logging industry.
There's connections there.
At the ranch.
They liked me and it was aseasonal job, so they got me a
(06:25):
job with somebody they knewSetting chokers, and actually I
worked on a landing first andthen I went to choker setting.
Mike Church (06:35):
And that was in the Cascades.
Jesse Landis (06:37):
That was more in Siskiy's, but I mean yeah.
Mike Church (06:41):
In the same area Same area Out of Southern Oregon
.
Yeah, Okay, so you were prettyfresh out of high school.
Jesse Landis (06:47):
Fresh out of high school Doing yeah, I had planned
to go to college, that's whateverybody did, that's what I
figured I'd do, but starteddoing that and just enjoyed
being outside.
Mike Church (07:01):
Yeah, well, we had the other Jesse, jesseesse
haynes, on a little while back,so learned a little bit about
that.
So the landing up where all thelogs get hauled right, yeah,
but then when you're settingchokers, you're down tying them
up essentially, I don't know,I'm terrible at all this stuff,
but tying them on to get themhauled up the hill right, which
(07:21):
is the more dangerous job as Iunderstand it I think I don't
know statistically it's all day,it's all dangerous?
Jesse Landis (07:28):
uh, I never.
I never got hurt doing any ofthat but, eventually we're
fairly quick.
I saw the guys um the fallerswould be headed home around noon
and because it's uh, it'stypical that fallers work six
hour day, and at least in thenorthwest, and that looked good
(07:53):
and it looked pretty exciting tofall the trees.
So I wanted to do that, but Icouldn't get anybody locally to
to let me learn or teach me,because they all would say the
industry is dying and you can'tget this, but I found through.
(08:14):
There was a helicopter companythat was training fallers.
They were out of Portland but Igot on with them and I got, I
went through a trainingapprenticeship type thing with
them and, uh, stayed doing thatwith them for probably five
(08:34):
years or so and then I moved onended up traveling all over with
them.
Mike Church (08:40):
When you say helicopter company, they're
logging it, it's helicopterlogging.
Jesse Landis (08:45):
Yeah.
Mike Church (08:45):
Yep, Okay, so that's like remote areas.
I'm assuming that kind of stuffwhere you can't.
Jesse Landis (08:53):
Sometimes it would just be too costly to build a
road to where the wood was,government sales they.
It would be prescribed thatit'd have to be flown to um to
keep soil and you know theimpact of conventional logging
equipment from damaging, orhowever that works out, um.
(09:15):
So yeah, and that was in the90s.
I believe things have changed.
I think that industry hasslowed down quite a bit, but my
head isn't in that space anymore.
Mike Church (09:28):
How long did you do it for?
Jesse Landis (09:30):
So I worked in the woods almost 10 years and most
of it was as a faller and, likeI said, I was tramping around
with helicopters most of thetime.
Mike Church (09:41):
That sounds like fun.
Jesse Landis (09:43):
Yeah, it was.
Mike Church (09:43):
It was good for a young man All over the Northwest
.
Jesse Landis (09:47):
Yeah, I worked from Tahoe right around the
houses of North Lake Tahoe.
That was a fire firebreak jobwe did to.
East Idaho Never went furtherthan that.
And then I worked at a catchcan Alaska for a season off
Prince of Wales Island and thatwas interesting Metal kind is an
(10:11):
interesting people and managedto not get any major injuries, a
few small ones andstatistically I was ready to get
one one.
So it's time to move on, allright when I came home from
alaska I started thinking morein terms of changing, because
(10:34):
the tramping life had kind ofrun its course and I was
thinking I should be morecentralized and be able to be
part of community, maybe getmarried even someday.
And so, yeah, startedtransitioning, looking for
options.
I did go to, I started intocommunity college, I think for a
(10:57):
year or two at that point, butbounced back and forth Woods,
some community college andlooked at some of the mechanical
trades.
I looked at plumbing.
My dad had connections withtrades, obviously, and so I
tried to get into the plumbingtrade first.
And it's very difficult to getin in Oregon.
(11:19):
The state has a lot moreoversight in Oregon compared to
Idaho and I couldn't get in eventhough a plumber wanted to hire
me and I wanted to work.
Wow, you had to get in line, soI was too far back.
Mike Church (11:37):
They weren't even open.
Jesse Landis (11:38):
The apprenticeship wasn't even open when I was
trying to get in.
Mike Church (11:41):
Crazy, so it didn't matter, yeah.
Jesse Landis (11:43):
And then the electrical apprenticeship opened
and I cast my lot there andactually came up pretty high on
the list and got in pretty quick.
I think, after I appliedthrough the state, about six
months later I was out of thewoods and working my last day in
(12:04):
the woods.
I smashed my leg and showed upas an apprentice on crutches.
Mike Church (12:09):
Oh man, you're like this is good, then I'm done.
Jesse Landis (12:12):
Yeah, it was a good time.
Mike Church (12:14):
So that's interesting.
You didn't pick electricalbecause of some real serious
interest in it.
It was not easier necessarilyto get into, but it was the
opportunity versus plumbing.
Jesse Landis (12:27):
Yeah, and the mechanical trades were appealing
to me, coming from, uh, generalconstruction, which my dad had
exposed me to, um, I like, Ilike the mechanical aspect,
building things, putting thingstogether.
And, yeah, since the plumbingwas the easy one, in the sense
(12:50):
that we had a connection to aguy that wanted to hire me the
electrical was.
That was more appealing.
I think electrical works moreinteresting than plumbing.
Water is terrible stuff.
It leaks all over the place.
Mike Church (13:03):
I know Somehow it's .
I feel like it's a little lessintimidating.
There's like this maybe we cantalk about that, but there's
like this fear.
I feel like there's a bit of afear of, like, serious injury or
death with electrical, which ismaybe a healthy thing.
You can speak to that, but it'slike plumbing is also
intimidating because you're likeI could flood this.
(13:25):
This is going to be terrible.
Right, but it's a little lessimmediately scary, like should I
touch this or not, right?
Jesse Landis (13:33):
Yeah, and that caters more to my personality.
I like things with high stakesand that you get results quick
and you know if it worked or itdidn't.
And electrical has that aspectat points which is appealing.
(13:54):
I like that, but it's not acontinuous thing like that.
You're not operating at thatlevel all the time.
Mike Church (14:02):
But there's moments You're probably not doing it
right if you're always operatingat that level all the time.
But there's moments You'reprobably not doing it right if
you're always operating at thatlevel.
Jesse Landis (14:06):
I'm sure there's probably.
I'm sure I could probably finda special niche in my trade that
operated in that area.
But yeah, that does wear on thenerves after a while too.
Mike Church (14:21):
So you I know you're married and have a family
, so where you kind of came backback, felt like you needed to
settle um yeah, when did you getmarried in that?
Jesse Landis (14:31):
so a lot of life frame yeah, life changes
happened right about that point,because I I got married.
No, I got into theapprenticeship probably while I
was engaged to anna brown, thetime now Anna Landis and we were
married while I was afirst-year apprentice.
Mike Church (14:53):
And this was all down in.
Jesse Landis (14:54):
Medford area, yep.
Mike Church (14:57):
Okay, so you were there, for were you there for a
while?
Was that your last stop beforeMoscow?
Jesse Landis (15:06):
Yeah, that was.
And yeah, leading up to that,when I was 21, I bought my first
house.
So by then I was 28, I think.
So I had a house.
I kind of had to restart mylife, which was good it's good
for everybody to restart once ortwice, maybe more and I went
(15:28):
through the whole being.
I was an expert in one fieldand had to start over and be the
newbie and not know anythingand go through the humility and
all that it takes to restartlater in life, which many people
know about.
And at that point, yeah,starting a new life with my wife
(15:58):
was part of that too, figuringthat out, but we were
established I guess that's whereI was going and so went through
the apprenticeship four yearsthere.
It's four years everywhere inthe northwest um, and after I
was a journeyman I had some timethere in southern oregon.
(16:20):
But both ann and I had traveleda bit me when I was a tramp, uh
, timber faller, and she uh, andshe had been had traveled a bit
.
She's always been anadventurous woman, had made some
(16:45):
various trips to Europe and shehad been to South America and
we had been to South America onsome trips together, mission
trips, and some short ones, sometrips together, mission trips,
some short ones.
But we were up for anotheradventure and we had some
friends here in Moscow and theywere telling us what a great
(17:11):
place it was and Southern Oregonwas growing kind of in the same
style as California, a lot ofstrip malls and you know urban
sprawl kind of stuff, and thatdidn't appeal to me a ton.
In the electrical trade I wasdoing a lot of repetition.
(17:31):
I did work in the Ashland areaquite a bit, which some ultra
custom houses we did there,which those were interesting, um
, but yeah, I just we were bothready for something new.
Mike Church (17:43):
I guess that's to and had you had your own
electrical business there, oryou were always working for
somebody else.
Jesse Landis (17:50):
No, I was working for somebody else there.
Mike Church (17:52):
So moving to Moscow was also new jumping into
business.
Jesse Landis (17:57):
Yeah, and I didn't .
I got a job here with a localcontractor and worked for them
for a year and that was a greatexperience Worked.
Yeah, I think a little over ayear before I okay decided to do
(18:17):
my own, my own thing yeah, sohow long have you had?
Mike Church (18:23):
well, it's wire works now where works now.
Jesse Landis (18:28):
Carlton Electric was the original company and now
I think about five years ago,we changed the DBA Wireworks to
be more unique in who we are.
There's a few Carltons outthere, it can be confusing.
(18:49):
So that was in 2008, I believe.
Mike Church (18:55):
okay, so yeah yeah, coming up on 20 years yeah, a
few years away.
Yeah, that's 16 or so yeah yeah, so it's been a while I'm sure
(19:21):
that was a transition, um, isthat a transition that you enjoy
?
I know a lot of people get in,you know, grow a business,
because it kind of seems likethe thing to do.
It's like I actually just likeworking, like I like the
physical stuff, and now I haveto run a business.
Jesse Landis (19:37):
Yeah, um, I really , I really like working with
customers, um, and I like toserve the customer's community,
like to improve things, um, so,yeah, I think that drives a lot
of our business.
Um, we're we're very customerservice oriented.
(20:00):
I think most of our customersare return repeat customers.
I was just talking with my sonabout this.
He helps me with some marketingnowadays and nice and we were uh
thinking about you know whowe're actually reaching out to
or where, maybe, where we're notexposed and, um, since so much
of our customer bases repeatcustomers, I think there's
(20:23):
probably a fair margin of ofmoscow and the police that we
could reach out to, uh, becausewe, uh we haven't been there
marketing much or trying toadvertise much.
Mike Church (20:38):
So yeah, that's a new.
There's always new things toyeah considering when you're
running a business so are you?
Um, that's interesting to mebecause are you looking for more
work?
Um, if that makes sense?
So it seems like a lot of thetrades mechanical trades in
particular around here are justshort-staffed, don't have enough
(21:00):
capacity.
It's hard to get a hold of them.
All that kind of thing have youguys been able to staff up?
Have you been able to find?
Is that one of the biggestchallenges?
Finding the people?
Jesse Landis (21:12):
Well, I think we're unique in that.
I don't know for sure because Idon't know the details of my
competitors, but I have had alot of employee retention.
So I've had several employeesthat are at or over 10 years
(21:32):
with me, and I generally hireguys as first-year apprentices
and train them all the waythrough, and right now we're at
12.
We have 12 electricians,apprentices and journeymen put
together, so that's quite a fewbodies to keep working.
(21:54):
We get a lot done too.
Mike Church (21:56):
Yeah.
Jesse Landis (21:57):
I'm always having to you know that's where the
marketing comes in is thinkingabout what's next.
I was in business through 2008or in 2008, so I know what big
shifts in market can do and Ireally didn't notice back then
because I was too busy working.
(22:18):
But um, over time, justwatching where, where things
have gone since then, it's clearand obvious it's it's a lot
different than it was back then.
What I'm doing is completelydifferent than what I was doing
back then.
So, yeah, just trying to be astep ahead.
(22:41):
I guess that's where themarketing comes in.
Mike Church (22:44):
And you said a combination of journeyman and
apprentices, four-yearapprenticeship is how it works.
Jesse Landis (22:50):
Yeah.
Mike Church (22:51):
And then you're a journeyman yeah, and then is
there a next step after that?
Only if you own your ownbusiness.
Jesse Landis (22:58):
Yeah, idaho requires a master.
Well, they just changed this,actually, I believe.
If I understand the changescorrectly, master license is no
longer going to be required fora contractor.
Um, so I might myself.
I have a master's license inidaho, and when I became a
(23:22):
contractor that was required inorder to be a licensed
electrical contractor.
Um, I could have hired somebodyelse as a master and I could
have been the contractorseparately.
But I hold the license and so Iknow I'm not going to leave and
make things difficult.
Mike Church (23:41):
So yeah, but that's changed.
So what does it take to becomea master?
Jesse Landis (23:45):
A master requires another four years as a
journeyman.
Okay, so you are going to havesomebody that has eight years in
the trade and then a largertest.
And a journeyman requires a testin order to get their license.
The master's test is just morecomprehensive and you're not
(24:10):
even a candidate for the testuntil you have the additional
four years.
So on one side it becomes moreof a free marketplace, which in
general I'm for free markets.
That's a good thing.
The downside is there are goingto be contractors who are less
(24:31):
experienced coming in, and sopeople should think through
those things and hopefully we'llall benefit.
Mike Church (24:41):
Which, yeah, I mean , in some ways the consumer
should not be relying on thefact that, oh, the government is
just going to make sure that myelectrician is a good
electrician.
Jesse Landis (24:54):
That's right Right .
Mike Church (24:55):
So in some ways like maybe, but are the
consumers too used to that?
And then won't ask thosequestions.
Jesse Landis (25:03):
Yeah.
Yeah, that's interesting.
There's probably somedownstream consequences, but
eventually they'll probably beworked out well.
Hopefully we'll be here doinggreat work and have happy
customers and that'll be great,and there'll be other
electricians out there doing thesame.
Mike Church (25:25):
Yeah, given that we are in the real estate business
.
I know you talked about this atour meeting a few weeks back,
but maybe just give a quickrundown of kind of what are some
of the most common problems yousee with people's houses.
What should people be lookingout for and maybe calling their
electrician more frequently for,I don't know?
(25:48):
Yeah.
Jesse Landis (25:49):
Yeah, that's.
That's a great question and aneasy one.
I think there's many things thatwe encounter in life that get a
lot of attention from whatevercorner of the marketplace or
(26:09):
world we're in, um marketplaceor world we're in, and uh, the
real estate market in particulargets certain red flags.
Um, all the time when there's aproperty turnover, we see
several things.
You and I work through thoseoften.
Um, some of those are, uh,certain panels, panel types,
electrical panels and then somemore basic things like GFCIs,
(26:38):
which all have their place andcan be safety factors.
Which stands for oh, groundfault circuit interrupters.
Mike Church (26:47):
Which keeps you from getting electrocuted.
Jesse Landis (26:50):
The idea well, uh, yeah, simplest, simply saying
or in a simple way of speakingyeah, it would hopefully keep
you from getting electricelectrocuted or having current
flow through you, um when you'rewet or something's wet, or it
creates a opportunity for umcurrent flow where there
(27:13):
wouldn't have been if youweren't wet.
Mike Church (27:15):
That's why you see them outside bathrooms, kitchens
, I think with the little resetbutton.
Jesse Landis (27:20):
Yep, those are the ones, so those are common.
But the one thing that getsoverlooked, which I've mentioned
to you before and I have seenover 20 years I've seen more
near catastrophic firesituations than any other and it
(27:42):
very rarely gets addressed, andthat's simply the plugs, the
outlets, where you're pluggingcords in to your house.
That's where you're pluggingcords in to your house.
(28:04):
And what happens is they getinstalled improperly by a
well-meaning homeowner orhandyman possibly, or who knows
who did it, but just didn't takethe time or have the knowledge
to make the connections in areally clean and tight way.
And those connections get looseover time and wherever there's
(28:26):
a loose electrical connectionyou have the opportunity for
heat, because eventually, ifit's loose enough, the current
will jump the airspace in an arcand that makes it even hotter
and heat creates more resistanceand it's a compounding effect
(28:48):
that will eventually lead to afire.
That will eventually lead to afire.
The devices themselves can alsofail and do that as well.
An older device that's beenabused over 50 years we see it
all the time.
I mean, many houses havedevices that have been getting
(29:09):
plugs plugged into them for 50or more years and nobody or it's
rare when that's even aquestion unless maybe the cord's
falling out of it.
It won't even hold the cord.
Um, so my advice to most peopleto make to add value to their
home and to provide the bestlayer of safety is to go through
and either have an electricianchange out all the devices in
(29:31):
the home or a homeowner couldeven do it themselves if they
really invest the, the effortand and get getting the
knowledge to do it properly andto to make the connections
really tight and any splices inthe box to make sure those are
good is.
Mike Church (29:50):
Is it like YouTube?
Jesse Landis (29:53):
If I had a specific YouTube video to
reference, I would.
I don't, and there probably isone.
Mike Church (30:00):
I'm just curious when you say, like a homeowner
doing their research, you'remaking sure that they do it
really well If somebody wantedto do that.
Jesse Landis (30:10):
Well, they could.
Even they could hire us for aonehour consult and we could
give them a lesson.
Or I'm sure any otherelectrical contractor might be
willing to do that as well.
Mike Church (30:22):
I know everyone hates it asking about cost
because there's a ton ofvariables.
Jesse Landis (30:29):
Yeah.
Mike Church (30:30):
But when you think about, okay, replacing all the
devices in my house sounds superexpensive.
Is it super expensive?
Well, that is a relative I knowit's a relative term, but is
there, let's say you were doing,you know, a 1500 square foot
house, 1500 square foot house,um, is there a general average
(30:53):
kind of per device Are youtalking?
Is this going to be?
Jesse Landis (31:02):
a hundred dollars per thing and it's going to cost
me thousands of dollars perfloor.
Well, there's certainly an?
Uh, an economy of scale.
Uh, it could be done muchcheaper if you did the whole
house.
Uh, and especially in between areal estate transaction when
it's empty, that's going to bemuch easier not moving furniture
not unplugging stuff andplugging them back in.
Mike Church (31:23):
That makes a lot of sense how much does like an?
Jesse Landis (31:25):
outlet cost even an outlet is only a couple
dollars, okay, so that it'smostly labor the device is not
that expensive no, um, yeah, awhole house, a 1500 square foot
house.
If you changed out all thedevices would probably be um
(31:45):
around a thousand to fifteenhundred dollars.
A smaller home like that, um,if you got into the switches too
, you probably would want to tomatch color at least, and
switches can wear out as well.
It's prudent probably to changeall the device at the same time
.
You could be up to a couplethousand dollars is the switches
thing?
Mike Church (32:06):
is that as big of a safety issue?
Jesse Landis (32:08):
it's not because you're not pulling power from
the switch itself.
The switch is a device that haspower passing through it, um,
and so it's just a lot more or alot less likely that you'll
have something fail there andfail in such a way where passing
(32:32):
power is passing through, yeah,or passing out of it instead of
just through it.
That's if that's clear.
I think so.
Mike Church (32:41):
Yeah, yeah, interesting.
So devices is probably one ofthe bigger things that people
don't do that they should.
Yeah, how often there's a lotof old homes.
In fact, we were just.
I was just looking at thisarticle about the age of housing
stock in the United States.
So for owner-occupied housing,the average is now up to 40
(33:02):
years old is the average right?
So there's a lot of homes thatare older, older wiring and that
kind of thing.
Yeah, how often do you end uprewiring a whole house?
Jesse Landis (33:13):
that kind of thing .
Um, how often do you end uprewiring a whole house?
That's pretty rare, Uh, butdoes happen on occasion.
Uh, that does bring us to oneof the other hot topics which is
knob and tube, Um so scary,scary to three words.
Yeah, those provoke fear inmost people.
However, I just double-checkedmyself because I've been telling
(33:38):
people you can still use knoband tube as an approved wiring
method according to the NationalElectric Code and.
Mike Church (33:51):
I just looked in my 23 code book and, yes, it is
still there.
So you, in theory, you couldbuild a brand new house and wire
it with knob and two yep, wouldalmost be worth doing it just
for because it'd be funny yeah,and it's beautiful.
Jesse Landis (34:01):
You know if you, if you look at well, some people
think it's scary.
But um, it's, yeah, it's aninteresting system, intrins, the
system is a safe system.
There is no problem with knoband tube wiring or the National
Electric Code would not have itstill as an approved means of
(34:24):
wiring a home.
I don't think anybody's usingit.
It's not practical because it'dbe very expensive.
But, like I've told you before,the problem with knob and tube,
the biggest problem.
There's two problems.
The biggest problem is, again,people who lack the expertise to
(34:46):
be engaging with it and don'tdo a good job of extending it or
cutting it or however they'reengaging it.
They don't do a good job and itcreates loose connections again
, like the, the bad outlets thatyou have in your wall and you
have fire possibilities there.
(35:06):
So it's where tampering is doneimproperly.
The other thing which I thinkis less of a concern, it's more
of a theoretical problem Atleast I haven't seen a practical
problem with it in myexperience and that is the
(35:26):
covering.
If it's covered with insulation, the heat ratings are, it's not
rated to be covered actually.
It's supposed to be in free airto keep it cool.
Now I think, where you run intothose problems, it would be
(35:47):
hard to do in the real world.
So that's why I say I think it'smostly theoretical.
So anyway, NamaM in tube is agreat system, especially if it
hasn't been tampered with, andwe see that from time to time.
You'll see an old house that'sbuilt in the 20s and it's got
(36:07):
NAMM in tube and nobody's everdone anything with the house,
Hasn't had any updates for 100years, and you look at the wire
and it's in great shape.
One other thing to mention withNamaTube is all of the
connections.
Anytime it was tapped orspliced it would be soldered.
(36:30):
So they're all solderedconnections which those
connections will not lose.
Mike Church (36:35):
Partly why it would be prohibitively expensive to
do it now.
Jesse Landis (36:39):
Yeah, exactly, yep .
So those yeah.
If it's an original connectionof an Omnitude system, it's
never going to fail.
How well the electrician orhomeowner put the wire nut on
Modern-day splice wire nuts,well, if they're put on properly
(37:03):
, they're not going to comeloose either.
We twist all our connections,so if you pull the wire nut, off
the wires still stay together.
Interesting.
I think most professionalelectricians do that nowadays.
Mike Church (37:18):
Most homeowners probably don't.
Jesse Landis (37:20):
Most homeowners probably don't.
Mike Church (37:22):
I don't know that.
I've ever even thought aboutthat.
So you literally just twist thewires up and then put the wire
nut over it.
Jesse Landis (37:28):
Yeah, if you use a heavy set of pliers, so we use
lineman pliers, but anyflat-jawed plier you can twist
the wires together so that theywill remain together whether or
not the wire nut is on them.
So almost as good as theheritage method of soldering,
(37:50):
but still not quite.
Yeah, the soldering is the bestway to do it Huh.
Mike Church (37:56):
Yeah, what about aluminum wiring?
That's one that again realestate related.
It's on the disclosure formsyou're supposed to say if you
have aluminum wiring.
Jesse Landis (38:06):
Yeah, it's like I don't know.
Mike Church (38:07):
I mean mobile homes , Mobile homes.
Jesse Landis (38:11):
I've encountered it in mobile homes and when
we're talking about aluminumwire, we're talking about
smaller wires that are used forwhat's called branch circuits
that would go to your lights andyour plugs, to each device.
That is where aluminum wire forfeeders and service entrance
(38:39):
conductors and they're not goingto come loose, Whereas over
(39:02):
time the smaller wires under awire nut could oxidize or other,
I guess dissimilar metalspossibly if they're terminated
on a device, could create asituation where they're going to
become loose through thosemethods or reasons.
Mike Church (39:23):
So you use aluminum wiring in certain applications.
It's not an inherently badthing, but it needs to be in the
right.
Jesse Landis (39:30):
Yeah.
Mike Church (39:31):
You don't want it for.
Jesse Landis (39:33):
If you encounter aluminum wire when you pull a
plug out of your wall, thenthat's something to be concerned
about.
Mike Church (39:40):
Gotcha.
Jesse Landis (39:42):
Behind your meter and in your main service panel
you're probably going to havealuminum wire.
We use it all the time.
Still.
It's used in commercial andresidential buildings.
Mike Church (39:53):
Why do you use it then?
Is it cheaper than copper?
It's cheaper.
It's less in commercial andresidential buildings.
Why do you use it, then?
Is it cheaper?
Jesse Landis (39:57):
than copper.
It's cheaper, it's less than.
Mike Church (39:59):
Probably, especially when you're in a
large gauge, small gauge, largegauge, larger diameter.
Jesse Landis (40:08):
Yeah, larger diameter.
And yeah, the smaller the gaugenumber, the larger the wire.
Yeah okay, there you go Up to apoint and then it converts to
circular mill area.
It's a different set of numbers, so anyway, don't even need to
(40:28):
know that.
Mike Church (40:29):
Yeah, yeah, any other, yeah, any other homeowner
type issues Um any other yeah.
Any other homeowner type issues?
Um, is there again.
We talked about a while backelectrical being somewhat scary.
Is there?
Are there ways that you canfeed that?
You should feel very safeworking with it.
(40:50):
So you got a panel shuttingstuff off.
Jesse Landis (40:54):
Yeah.
Mike Church (40:55):
How would a homeowner check and make sure
that things are safe to dealwith?
Jesse Landis (41:01):
That's another.
You're full of great questions.
Mike Church (41:03):
I'm a homeowner.
I have these questions.
Jesse Landis (41:05):
Yeah, turning things off is obviously the
safest way to work on electrical.
Mike Church (41:11):
And not just the light switch.
Jesse Landis (41:13):
And not just the light switch, work on electrical
and not just the light switchand not just the light light
switch.
You have in a panel what you'llhave, usually depending on what
, where the panel is, in yourentire system.
But you're going to have a mainbreaker which is a larger
breaker that will shut off mosteverything or will shut off
everything in the panel.
There's's some exceptions butwe won't get into those.
(41:34):
Some older homes could havewhat's called a split bus panel
and that's going to have.
Well, yeah, depending on who'sworked on it or changed things,
it should only have six mainhandles that will turn off
(41:55):
everything.
Again, if it's been tamperedwith or things have changed over
the years, it could have a fewmore, but under the code six
handles is still acceptable.
So you have those mains to turneverything off and then what
you have below that are branchbreakers which individually will
(42:17):
turn circuits off.
And if you can isolate thecircuit you're working on to a
branch and turn that off, itshould be safe.
But the only way to know thatyou got the right one because we
have human factors, labelingand whatnot to get involved- or
lack thereof.
Yeah, so it's good to have ahigh-quality tester.
There's many types of testersand a multimeter or a voltage
(42:47):
tester are the best, mostreliable.
They're a contact tester, whereyou actually physically are
touching the terminals with theprobes of the tester.
Um an easier, no contact.
Uh testers can work, they'rejust not quite as reliable
that's the with the little redlight, yeah they'll have a light
(43:11):
or an audible signal.
Mike Church (43:14):
Those are less reliable.
Jesse Landis (43:16):
Less reliable.
They're going to give youphantom false positives, I guess
more than anything.
Mike Church (43:24):
See, this is partly why I'm asking the question.
Jesse Landis (43:26):
Yeah.
Mike Church (43:27):
I'm like I know this is off, right, and yet
shoot.
I was showing my kids like yeah, see how this thing works.
I'm like that just beeped alittle bit.
Jesse Landis (43:39):
Yeah.
So then it, yeah, you get thisum uncertainty and then, before
you know it, you're just well, Igot to get it done, so I'm just
going to do it anyway.
And then, if it was right, thenyou just got shocked, probably.
And if you're wrong, um werewrong, um, well, then it it was.
(44:01):
It was good enough, um.
So if you're shopping for those, one tip is to get one that is
um not very sensitive, becausethe overly sensitive ones you'll
walk.
You could walk into a room andit will tell you that power's on
in the room and that's nothelpful because you want to find
out which wire has power on itor not.
Um.
So, uh, there's.
(44:22):
There's some better qualityones.
Fluke is a brand name thatmakes high quality testers.
Those ones are generally goingto be pretty accurate, um, and
yeah, I guess that's probablythe most reliable one.
I would go to there's others,but yeah, that one's easy yeah,
(44:45):
okay yeah, that's helpful Ithink yeah, another safety thing
just keeping an eye on theelectrical service metering.
A lot of older neighborhoodshave overhead services.
Some of that equipment just canget abused over the years.
Tree limbs fall on them, maybewater intrusion, that kind of
(45:09):
stuff can just wear thatequipment out over time.
Can just wear that equipmentout over time and could be
something to keep an eye on.
And keep the maintenance up on.
But yeah, everything else isvery safe nowadays.
I think house fires havedropped a tremendous amount over
(45:31):
the last couple decades.
Tremendous amount over the lastcouple decades.
Um, one thing to comment on,maybe arc fault protection,
that's.
That's a the only fire specificprotection that your, uh, your
electrical system is going toprovide, and that's relatively
new.
I think that started coming outin 2000 and probably 2002 or
(45:56):
2005 somewhere in there.
And um, those are breakers.
Typically they do make walldevices, but usually they're
installed as breakers and thosewill.
They have a small circuit boardin them that is reading the
sine wave of the power that'spassing through and they can see
(46:19):
a signature that is specific toan arc.
So if there's arcing that'shappening on the circuit which
could be fire, and they have tobe smart enough that they don't,
your basic light switch isgonna arc when it connection
opens and closes, and so theyhave.
They're smart enough that theydon't uh your basic light switch
is going to arc when it theconnection opens and closes, and
so they they're smart enough tonot see that as a fire.
(46:40):
And whether it's a timespecific sustained arc or
there's something specific tothe, the sine wave, um, I'm not
totally sure the details on thatone, but but they do provide
some fire protection.
They do false trip also, whichcan be frustrating and hard to
(47:03):
track down.
Mike Church (47:05):
Is that a?
I mean, do people put those inhouses generally?
Or is it like oh, I want anupgrade, I want arc fault
breakers in my house.
They are required in newconstruction.
They are yeah In Idaho, inIdaho.
Jesse Landis (47:22):
Only in bedrooms at this point.
Mike Church (47:24):
Okay.
Jesse Landis (47:25):
Yeah, any circuit that is in a bedroom needs to be
arc fault protected and that'sbeen in place for several years.
Okay, the reliability on themhas gotten better.
When I say that then I hesitate, because everything post-covid
(47:47):
maybe got worse again, but we'veseen electronic problems and
more callbacks for repairs onsome of those types of things,
but I don't recall arc faultbreakers being particularly bad
in that area.
Mike Church (48:02):
Yeah, yeah, so if you had an old house you were to
upgrade the panel, those wouldbe upgraded as well.
Jesse Landis (48:11):
Yeah or not?
Mike Church (48:12):
necessarily, not necessarily, because they
wouldn't have to be.
They wouldn't have to be.
They wouldn't have to be.
It would be an elective kind ofthing.
Jesse Landis (48:18):
If you wanted it, you'd have to be open to the
possibility of getting nuisancetripping possibly, especially
with an older home, some wiringmethods will trip them that were
acceptable in the past butaren't now, or errors that may
or may not cause a real worldproblem.
Um, and they can be difficultto find.
(48:41):
So the breaker will tell youthey're there but they won't
tell you where in the house.
So they're not that smart yeah,uh, but things that people
could consider.
Surge protection is another one.
That's more not for personalprotection but for equipment,
(49:03):
household items.
The new electrical code isrequiring that in new
construction.
But electrical surges can bevery hard on home electronics
and they are helpful inalleviating some of that.
Mike Church (49:19):
Yeah, interesting, good um major switching gears,
but you're doing something otherthan just electrical now yes, I
have uh ventured into the uh,the carpet cleaning and flood
restoration business.
Yeah, and more restoration.
Jesse Landis (49:40):
I guess on top of the flood, we're working towards
fire restoration and moldabatement.
So yeah, I own Castle CarpetCleaning Service as well, and
I've owned that for about a yearand a half.
Mike Church (49:55):
Okay, yeah, how's it going?
Jesse Landis (49:57):
Great.
We have a great crew of skilledguys that have been in the
industry for many years now.
All of our guys are seasonedexperienced guys or seasoned
experienced guys.
And yeah, it's been just greatto be in another service
(50:25):
business, that we get to workwith the Palouse and be in
people's homes and help improvepeople's homes and their values
and just way of life.
Hopefully that's the goal.
Mike Church (50:36):
Yeah, Nice, Been fun learning a new business.
And are you, how involved areyou in terms of you mentioning
getting into fire restoration,mold remediation, that kind of
stuff?
Are you involved in that youknow?
Learning that stuff, or is that?
Are you still mostly focused onthe electrical?
Jesse Landis (50:54):
personally, I am that stuff, or is that?
Are you still mostly focused onthe electrical personally?
Um, I am, my hands don't getdirty enough anymore.
Um, I have enough to do with 12electricians and four um carpet
and flood technicians that Idon't get the opportunity to
dive into the actual work asmuch anymore.
(51:17):
I would love to spend more timepersonally learning about the
restoration and cleaning side ofthings and will eventually over
time, but I am still only oneman and it's tough to get
everything done already, soit'll be slow in personally
(51:38):
getting myself trained, buteventually, hopefully, I'll get
there.
But we do invest in trainingfor the crew.
There's several certifications,classes, trainings that are
available, that we are sendingguys to classes trainings that
are available that we aresending guys to.
Mike Church (51:56):
But if the electricians are preventing all
these house fires, then how areyou going to have any fire?
Jesse Landis (52:02):
Yeah, wow, well, we could work on that.
We can see what we can do toget a few.
Hopefully we don't get housefires.
Mike Church (52:11):
That was a joke for anyone.
Jesse Landis (52:14):
Not electrical house fires.
House fires happen.
Joke for anyone Not electricalhouse fires.
House fires happen with otherthings too, that's true.
That's true.
Mike Church (52:21):
Yeah, well good, how do people find you?
Jesse Landis (52:25):
Not you.
Mike Church (52:27):
You probably don't want people to find you.
Jesse Landis (52:30):
You can jump online, of course, and if you
Google Wireworks Moscow, idaho,or Castle Carpet Cleaning Moscow
, idaho, you'll find us rightthere, and we're located at 1008
South Jefferson.
You could swing into the officeand we'd be glad to see a new
(52:58):
face or an old face either onethere you go.
Mike Church (53:01):
Yeah, Good Well, any closing thoughts for us?
Um, no, I uh just appreciatethe conversation and look
forward to having more.
Yeah, Thanks for joining us.
Like, share, subscribe.
We'll see you next week.
This is the Kestrel Country Podcast, where we
discuss the people, places andevents all around Kestrel
(00:36):
Country.
Jesse landis, thanks for comingin today well, hello.
Thanks for the invite yeah, ofcourse, always good to take the
time to sit down and talk andask questions.
I always learn about you knowpeople I've known for a while.
I always learn more about them.
So, that's what's fun.
I was commenting the other daywith somebody.
It's like, I think, especiallyfor guys, we don't end up just
(00:58):
kind of sitting and talking veryoften.
Jesse Landis (01:01):
Right Reading out our bio.
Mike Church (01:04):
Yeah, exactly, so it's kind of fun.
I always start with kind ofwhere'd you grow up?
What was your background beforeMoscow?
You know, podcast kind of isabout the Moscow area, but
what's your history?
Where'd you grow?
Jesse Landis (01:20):
up.
I am certainly a PacificNorthwesterner Grew up in
Southern Oregon, the Medfordarea, little towns around
Jacksonville, ashland, kind ofspent more time in those areas
probably, but went to school inin, uh, medford, um, yeah uh,
(01:51):
family, um, my, uh, my immediatefamily all stayed there for a
while.
My, my folks, they've moved outhere to Troy now They've
followed us.
I have a brother, one siblingand he's still there in Southern
Oregon.
Mike Church (02:09):
Now I don't know Southern Oregon very well.
You said Medford area, Mm-hmm.
Where is that in SouthernOregon?
Is it out by the coast?
Jesse Landis (02:19):
It is.
It's one valley in from thecoast.
So there's the SiskiyouMountains and the Coast Range, I
guess.
So it may be a few valleys over, but it's the first major
valley.
It's in between the Cascadesand the Siskiyous actually.
Mike Church (02:41):
Is that I-5 corridor and the I-5?
Jesse Landis (02:43):
corridor goes right through there, so it's the
last stop, basically, beforeyou go into california um and it
doesn't it doesn't meet the theuh oregon typical id idea.
You know of the rain.
Um, I think the rainfall issimilar to here, probably.
Okay, A little warmer maybemore like Lewiston temperatures,
(03:05):
but very beautiful, a lot ofsun in between that rain.
It's known for, or it was knownfor, orchards.
A lot of fruit growing there Isit similar to the Willamette
Valley.
No a lot drier, okay yeah, butthe fruit growing has
(03:30):
transitioned to similar to theWillamette Valley, although
obviously they must be differentvarieties of grape growing.
So the wine culture is growingup there and doing well, the
marijuana culture made an inroadthere as well.
I think that's dropped off abit.
Mike Church (03:51):
It wasn't helping the area, so yeah, that kind of
that's like because just acrossthe border that's Humboldt, is
not too far.
Jesse Landis (04:04):
Oh, that's probably.
Is that a ways?
Mike Church (04:05):
in the North, that's like Northern California,
right, it's kind of famous forthat, yeah.
Jesse Landis (04:09):
Yeah, um, it is because of the hot summer.
It definitely gets hotter there.
So the hot summers I think, uh,definitely favored that that
crop, but I think there's, yeah,some market trends that that
slowed it down.
Yeah, the wine seems to be doingbetter.
(04:29):
I'm no expert on this, but justbeing down there visiting
family, it looks like the winegrowing is going better again.
So, yeah, beautiful place, likeI said, cascade Mountains,
siskiy Mountains, you have theRogue River that goes through
there, a lot of whitewaterrafting, fishing, and so, yeah,
(04:51):
I grew up there enjoyingoutdoors and the construction
industry.
My dad was a custom homebuilder for 30 years there.
Oh, okay.
He won awards for some of hishomes 30 years there.
Okay, won awards for some ofhis homes, and my brother is
also a junk contractor and stillbuilding houses there.
Mike Church (05:11):
So did you grow up doing that with your dad?
So something you thought youwould do?
Jesse Landis (05:16):
I grew up, um yeah , from a very young age on job
sites picking up nails, tearingdown walls, cleaning demo, that
kind of stuff, and that did.
That wore on me a little bit.
I maybe have too short of aattention span to be able to
(05:39):
hang out in at that pace.
So after high school I was justkilling time and I got a.
I got a job on a ranch.
It's kind of a dude ranch.
It was up on the cascades,beautiful oh really yeah, and I
started enjoying seeing the suncome up over the mountains and
(06:01):
the Cascades every morning andrealized how much I like doing
that and being outdoors.
And that job actually ended uprolling over into a woods job,
got into the logging industry.
There's connections there.
At the ranch.
They liked me and it was aseasonal job, so they got me a
(06:25):
job with somebody they knewSetting chokers, and actually I
worked on a landing first andthen I went to choker setting.
Mike Church (06:35):
And that was in the Cascades.
Jesse Landis (06:37):
That was more in Siskiy's, but I mean yeah.
Mike Church (06:41):
In the same area Same area Out of Southern Oregon
.
Yeah, Okay, so you were prettyfresh out of high school.
Jesse Landis (06:47):
Fresh out of high school Doing yeah, I had planned
to go to college, that's whateverybody did, that's what I
figured I'd do, but starteddoing that and just enjoyed
being outside.
Mike Church (07:01):
Yeah, well, we had the other Jesse, jesseesse
haynes, on a little while back,so learned a little bit about
that.
So the landing up where all thelogs get hauled right, yeah,
but then when you're settingchokers, you're down tying them
up essentially, I don't know,I'm terrible at all this stuff,
but tying them on to get themhauled up the hill right, which
(07:21):
is the more dangerous job as Iunderstand it I think I don't
know statistically it's all day,it's all dangerous?
Jesse Landis (07:28):
uh, I never.
I never got hurt doing any ofthat but, eventually we're
fairly quick.
I saw the guys um the fallerswould be headed home around noon
and because it's uh, it'stypical that fallers work six
hour day, and at least in thenorthwest, and that looked good
(07:53):
and it looked pretty exciting tofall the trees.
So I wanted to do that, but Icouldn't get anybody locally to
to let me learn or teach me,because they all would say the
industry is dying and you can'tget this, but I found through.
(08:14):
There was a helicopter companythat was training fallers.
They were out of Portland but Igot on with them and I got, I
went through a trainingapprenticeship type thing with
them and, uh, stayed doing thatwith them for probably five
(08:34):
years or so and then I moved onended up traveling all over with
them.
Mike Church (08:40):
When you say helicopter company, they're
logging it, it's helicopterlogging.
Jesse Landis (08:45):
Yeah.
Mike Church (08:45):
Yep, Okay, so that's like remote areas.
I'm assuming that kind of stuffwhere you can't.
Jesse Landis (08:53):
Sometimes it would just be too costly to build a
road to where the wood was,government sales they.
It would be prescribed thatit'd have to be flown to um to
keep soil and you know theimpact of conventional logging
equipment from damaging, orhowever that works out, um.
(09:15):
So yeah, and that was in the90s.
I believe things have changed.
I think that industry hasslowed down quite a bit, but my
head isn't in that space anymore.
Mike Church (09:28):
How long did you do it for?
Jesse Landis (09:30):
So I worked in the woods almost 10 years and most
of it was as a faller and, likeI said, I was tramping around
with helicopters most of thetime.
Mike Church (09:41):
That sounds like fun.
Jesse Landis (09:43):
Yeah, it was.
Mike Church (09:43):
It was good for a young man All over the Northwest
.
Jesse Landis (09:47):
Yeah, I worked from Tahoe right around the
houses of North Lake Tahoe.
That was a fire firebreak jobwe did to.
East Idaho Never went furtherthan that.
And then I worked at a catchcan Alaska for a season off
Prince of Wales Island and thatwas interesting Metal kind is an
(10:11):
interesting people and managedto not get any major injuries, a
few small ones andstatistically I was ready to get
one one.
So it's time to move on, allright when I came home from
alaska I started thinking morein terms of changing, because
(10:34):
the tramping life had kind ofrun its course and I was
thinking I should be morecentralized and be able to be
part of community, maybe getmarried even someday.
And so, yeah, startedtransitioning, looking for
options.
I did go to, I started intocommunity college, I think for a
(10:57):
year or two at that point, butbounced back and forth Woods,
some community college andlooked at some of the mechanical
trades.
I looked at plumbing.
My dad had connections withtrades, obviously, and so I
tried to get into the plumbingtrade first.
And it's very difficult to getin in Oregon.
(11:19):
The state has a lot moreoversight in Oregon compared to
Idaho and I couldn't get in eventhough a plumber wanted to hire
me and I wanted to work.
Wow, you had to get in line, soI was too far back.
Mike Church (11:37):
They weren't even open.
Jesse Landis (11:38):
The apprenticeship wasn't even open when I was
trying to get in.
Mike Church (11:41):
Crazy, so it didn't matter, yeah.
Jesse Landis (11:43):
And then the electrical apprenticeship opened
and I cast my lot there andactually came up pretty high on
the list and got in pretty quick.
I think, after I appliedthrough the state, about six
months later I was out of thewoods and working my last day in
(12:04):
the woods.
I smashed my leg and showed upas an apprentice on crutches.
Mike Church (12:09):
Oh man, you're like this is good, then I'm done.
Jesse Landis (12:12):
Yeah, it was a good time.
Mike Church (12:14):
So that's interesting.
You didn't pick electricalbecause of some real serious
interest in it.
It was not easier necessarilyto get into, but it was the
opportunity versus plumbing.
Jesse Landis (12:27):
Yeah, and the mechanical trades were appealing
to me, coming from, uh, generalconstruction, which my dad had
exposed me to, um, I like, Ilike the mechanical aspect,
building things, putting thingstogether.
And, yeah, since the plumbingwas the easy one, in the sense
(12:50):
that we had a connection to aguy that wanted to hire me the
electrical was.
That was more appealing.
I think electrical works moreinteresting than plumbing.
Water is terrible stuff.
It leaks all over the place.
Mike Church (13:03):
I know Somehow it's .
I feel like it's a little lessintimidating.
There's like this maybe we cantalk about that, but there's
like this fear.
I feel like there's a bit of afear of, like, serious injury or
death with electrical, which ismaybe a healthy thing.
You can speak to that, but it'slike plumbing is also
intimidating because you're likeI could flood this.
(13:25):
This is going to be terrible.
Right, but it's a little lessimmediately scary, like should I
touch this or not, right?
Jesse Landis (13:33):
Yeah, and that caters more to my personality.
I like things with high stakesand that you get results quick
and you know if it worked or itdidn't.
And electrical has that aspectat points which is appealing.
(13:54):
I like that, but it's not acontinuous thing like that.
You're not operating at thatlevel all the time.
Mike Church (14:02):
But there's moments You're probably not doing it
right if you're always operatingat that level all the time.
But there's moments You'reprobably not doing it right if
you're always operating at thatlevel.
Jesse Landis (14:06):
I'm sure there's probably.
I'm sure I could probably finda special niche in my trade that
operated in that area.
But yeah, that does wear on thenerves after a while too.
Mike Church (14:21):
So you I know you're married and have a family
, so where you kind of came backback, felt like you needed to
settle um yeah, when did you getmarried in that?
Jesse Landis (14:31):
so a lot of life frame yeah, life changes
happened right about that point,because I I got married.
No, I got into theapprenticeship probably while I
was engaged to anna brown, thetime now Anna Landis and we were
married while I was afirst-year apprentice.
Mike Church (14:53):
And this was all down in.
Jesse Landis (14:54):
Medford area, yep.
Mike Church (14:57):
Okay, so you were there, for were you there for a
while?
Was that your last stop beforeMoscow?
Jesse Landis (15:06):
Yeah, that was.
And yeah, leading up to that,when I was 21, I bought my first
house.
So by then I was 28, I think.
So I had a house.
I kind of had to restart mylife, which was good it's good
for everybody to restart once ortwice, maybe more and I went
(15:28):
through the whole being.
I was an expert in one fieldand had to start over and be the
newbie and not know anythingand go through the humility and
all that it takes to restartlater in life, which many people
know about.
And at that point, yeah,starting a new life with my wife
(15:58):
was part of that too, figuringthat out, but we were
established I guess that's whereI was going and so went through
the apprenticeship four yearsthere.
It's four years everywhere inthe northwest um, and after I
was a journeyman I had some timethere in southern oregon.
(16:20):
But both ann and I had traveleda bit me when I was a tramp, uh
, timber faller, and she uh, andshe had been had traveled a bit
.
She's always been anadventurous woman, had made some
(16:45):
various trips to Europe and shehad been to South America and
we had been to South America onsome trips together, mission
trips, and some short ones, sometrips together, mission trips,
some short ones.
But we were up for anotheradventure and we had some
friends here in Moscow and theywere telling us what a great
(17:11):
place it was and Southern Oregonwas growing kind of in the same
style as California, a lot ofstrip malls and you know urban
sprawl kind of stuff, and thatdidn't appeal to me a ton.
In the electrical trade I wasdoing a lot of repetition.
(17:31):
I did work in the Ashland areaquite a bit, which some ultra
custom houses we did there,which those were interesting, um
, but yeah, I just we were bothready for something new.
Mike Church (17:43):
I guess that's to and had you had your own
electrical business there, oryou were always working for
somebody else.
Jesse Landis (17:50):
No, I was working for somebody else there.
Mike Church (17:52):
So moving to Moscow was also new jumping into
business.
Jesse Landis (17:57):
Yeah, and I didn't .
I got a job here with a localcontractor and worked for them
for a year and that was a greatexperience Worked.
Yeah, I think a little over ayear before I okay decided to do
(18:17):
my own, my own thing yeah, sohow long have you had?
Mike Church (18:23):
well, it's wire works now where works now.
Jesse Landis (18:28):
Carlton Electric was the original company and now
I think about five years ago,we changed the DBA Wireworks to
be more unique in who we are.
There's a few Carltons outthere, it can be confusing.
(18:49):
So that was in 2008, I believe.
Mike Church (18:55):
okay, so yeah yeah, coming up on 20 years yeah, a
few years away.
Yeah, that's 16 or so yeah yeah, so it's been a while I'm sure
(19:21):
that was a transition, um, isthat a transition that you enjoy
?
I know a lot of people get in,you know, grow a business,
because it kind of seems likethe thing to do.
It's like I actually just likeworking, like I like the
physical stuff, and now I haveto run a business.
Jesse Landis (19:37):
Yeah, um, I really , I really like working with
customers, um, and I like toserve the customer's community,
like to improve things, um, so,yeah, I think that drives a lot
of our business.
Um, we're we're very customerservice oriented.
(20:00):
I think most of our customersare return repeat customers.
I was just talking with my sonabout this.
He helps me with some marketingnowadays and nice and we were uh
thinking about you know whowe're actually reaching out to
or where, maybe, where we're notexposed and, um, since so much
of our customer bases repeatcustomers, I think there's
(20:23):
probably a fair margin of ofmoscow and the police that we
could reach out to, uh, becausewe, uh we haven't been there
marketing much or trying toadvertise much.
Mike Church (20:38):
So yeah, that's a new.
There's always new things toyeah considering when you're
running a business so are you?
Um, that's interesting to mebecause are you looking for more
work?
Um, if that makes sense?
So it seems like a lot of thetrades mechanical trades in
particular around here are justshort-staffed, don't have enough
(21:00):
capacity.
It's hard to get a hold of them.
All that kind of thing have youguys been able to staff up?
Have you been able to find?
Is that one of the biggestchallenges?
Finding the people?
Jesse Landis (21:12):
Well, I think we're unique in that.
I don't know for sure because Idon't know the details of my
competitors, but I have had alot of employee retention.
So I've had several employeesthat are at or over 10 years
(21:32):
with me, and I generally hireguys as first-year apprentices
and train them all the waythrough, and right now we're at
12.
We have 12 electricians,apprentices and journeymen put
together, so that's quite a fewbodies to keep working.
(21:54):
We get a lot done too.
Mike Church (21:56):
Yeah.
Jesse Landis (21:57):
I'm always having to you know that's where the
marketing comes in is thinkingabout what's next.
I was in business through 2008or in 2008, so I know what big
shifts in market can do and Ireally didn't notice back then
because I was too busy working.
(22:18):
But um, over time, justwatching where, where things
have gone since then, it's clearand obvious it's it's a lot
different than it was back then.
What I'm doing is completelydifferent than what I was doing
back then.
So, yeah, just trying to be astep ahead.
(22:41):
I guess that's where themarketing comes in.
Mike Church (22:44):
And you said a combination of journeyman and
apprentices, four-yearapprenticeship is how it works.
Jesse Landis (22:50):
Yeah.
Mike Church (22:51):
And then you're a journeyman yeah, and then is
there a next step after that?
Only if you own your ownbusiness.
Jesse Landis (22:58):
Yeah, idaho requires a master.
Well, they just changed this,actually, I believe.
If I understand the changescorrectly, master license is no
longer going to be required fora contractor.
Um, so I might myself.
I have a master's license inidaho, and when I became a
(23:22):
contractor that was required inorder to be a licensed
electrical contractor.
Um, I could have hired somebodyelse as a master and I could
have been the contractorseparately.
But I hold the license and so Iknow I'm not going to leave and
make things difficult.
Mike Church (23:41):
So yeah, but that's changed.
So what does it take to becomea master?
Jesse Landis (23:45):
A master requires another four years as a
journeyman.
Okay, so you are going to havesomebody that has eight years in
the trade and then a largertest.
And a journeyman requires a testin order to get their license.
The master's test is just morecomprehensive and you're not
(24:10):
even a candidate for the testuntil you have the additional
four years.
So on one side it becomes moreof a free marketplace, which in
general I'm for free markets.
That's a good thing.
The downside is there are goingto be contractors who are less
(24:31):
experienced coming in, and sopeople should think through
those things and hopefully we'llall benefit.
Mike Church (24:41):
Which, yeah, I mean , in some ways the consumer
should not be relying on thefact that, oh, the government is
just going to make sure that myelectrician is a good
electrician.
Jesse Landis (24:54):
That's right Right .
Mike Church (24:55):
So in some ways like maybe, but are the
consumers too used to that?
And then won't ask thosequestions.
Jesse Landis (25:03):
Yeah.
Yeah, that's interesting.
There's probably somedownstream consequences, but
eventually they'll probably beworked out well.
Hopefully we'll be here doinggreat work and have happy
customers and that'll be great,and there'll be other
electricians out there doing thesame.
Mike Church (25:25):
Yeah, given that we are in the real estate business
.
I know you talked about this atour meeting a few weeks back,
but maybe just give a quickrundown of kind of what are some
of the most common problems yousee with people's houses.
What should people be lookingout for and maybe calling their
electrician more frequently for,I don't know?
(25:48):
Yeah.
Jesse Landis (25:49):
Yeah, that's.
That's a great question and aneasy one.
I think there's many things thatwe encounter in life that get a
lot of attention from whatevercorner of the marketplace or
(26:09):
world we're in, um marketplaceor world we're in, and uh, the
real estate market in particulargets certain red flags.
Um, all the time when there's aproperty turnover, we see
several things.
You and I work through thoseoften.
Um, some of those are, uh,certain panels, panel types,
electrical panels and then somemore basic things like GFCIs,
(26:38):
which all have their place andcan be safety factors.
Which stands for oh, groundfault circuit interrupters.
Mike Church (26:47):
Which keeps you from getting electrocuted.
Jesse Landis (26:50):
The idea well, uh, yeah, simplest, simply saying
or in a simple way of speakingyeah, it would hopefully keep
you from getting electricelectrocuted or having current
flow through you, um when you'rewet or something's wet, or it
creates a opportunity for umcurrent flow where there
(27:13):
wouldn't have been if youweren't wet.
Mike Church (27:15):
That's why you see them outside bathrooms, kitchens
, I think with the little resetbutton.
Jesse Landis (27:20):
Yep, those are the ones, so those are common.
But the one thing that getsoverlooked, which I've mentioned
to you before and I have seenover 20 years I've seen more
near catastrophic firesituations than any other and it
(27:42):
very rarely gets addressed, andthat's simply the plugs, the
outlets, where you're pluggingcords in to your house.
That's where you're pluggingcords in to your house.
(28:04):
And what happens is they getinstalled improperly by a
well-meaning homeowner orhandyman possibly, or who knows
who did it, but just didn't takethe time or have the knowledge
to make the connections in areally clean and tight way.
And those connections get looseover time and wherever there's
(28:26):
a loose electrical connectionyou have the opportunity for
heat, because eventually, ifit's loose enough, the current
will jump the airspace in an arcand that makes it even hotter
and heat creates more resistanceand it's a compounding effect
(28:48):
that will eventually lead to afire.
That will eventually lead to afire.
The devices themselves can alsofail and do that as well.
An older device that's beenabused over 50 years we see it
all the time.
I mean, many houses havedevices that have been getting
(29:09):
plugs plugged into them for 50or more years and nobody or it's
rare when that's even aquestion unless maybe the cord's
falling out of it.
It won't even hold the cord.
Um, so my advice to most peopleto make to add value to their
home and to provide the bestlayer of safety is to go through
and either have an electricianchange out all the devices in
(29:31):
the home or a homeowner couldeven do it themselves if they
really invest the, the effortand and get getting the
knowledge to do it properly andto to make the connections
really tight and any splices inthe box to make sure those are
good is.
Mike Church (29:50):
Is it like YouTube?
Jesse Landis (29:53):
If I had a specific YouTube video to
reference, I would.
I don't, and there probably isone.
Mike Church (30:00):
I'm just curious when you say, like a homeowner
doing their research, you'remaking sure that they do it
really well If somebody wantedto do that.
Jesse Landis (30:10):
Well, they could.
Even they could hire us for aonehour consult and we could
give them a lesson.
Or I'm sure any otherelectrical contractor might be
willing to do that as well.
Mike Church (30:22):
I know everyone hates it asking about cost
because there's a ton ofvariables.
Jesse Landis (30:29):
Yeah.
Mike Church (30:30):
But when you think about, okay, replacing all the
devices in my house sounds superexpensive.
Is it super expensive?
Well, that is a relative I knowit's a relative term, but is
there, let's say you were doing,you know, a 1500 square foot
house, 1500 square foot house,um, is there a general average
(30:53):
kind of per device Are youtalking?
Is this going to be?
Jesse Landis (31:02):
a hundred dollars per thing and it's going to cost
me thousands of dollars perfloor.
Well, there's certainly an?
Uh, an economy of scale.
Uh, it could be done muchcheaper if you did the whole
house.
Uh, and especially in between areal estate transaction when
it's empty, that's going to bemuch easier not moving furniture
not unplugging stuff andplugging them back in.
Mike Church (31:23):
That makes a lot of sense how much does like an?
Jesse Landis (31:25):
outlet cost even an outlet is only a couple
dollars, okay, so that it'smostly labor the device is not
that expensive no, um, yeah, awhole house, a 1500 square foot
house.
If you changed out all thedevices would probably be um
(31:45):
around a thousand to fifteenhundred dollars.
A smaller home like that, um,if you got into the switches too
, you probably would want to tomatch color at least, and
switches can wear out as well.
It's prudent probably to changeall the device at the same time
.
You could be up to a couplethousand dollars is the switches
thing?
Mike Church (32:06):
is that as big of a safety issue?
Jesse Landis (32:08):
it's not because you're not pulling power from
the switch itself.
The switch is a device that haspower passing through it, um,
and so it's just a lot more or alot less likely that you'll
have something fail there andfail in such a way where passing
(32:32):
power is passing through, yeah,or passing out of it instead of
just through it.
That's if that's clear.
I think so.
Mike Church (32:41):
Yeah, yeah, interesting.
So devices is probably one ofthe bigger things that people
don't do that they should.
Yeah, how often there's a lotof old homes.
In fact, we were just.
I was just looking at thisarticle about the age of housing
stock in the United States.
So for owner-occupied housing,the average is now up to 40
(33:02):
years old is the average right?
So there's a lot of homes thatare older, older wiring and that
kind of thing.
Yeah, how often do you end uprewiring a whole house?
Jesse Landis (33:13):
that kind of thing .
Um, how often do you end uprewiring a whole house?
That's pretty rare, Uh, butdoes happen on occasion.
Uh, that does bring us to oneof the other hot topics which is
knob and tube, Um so scary,scary to three words.
Yeah, those provoke fear inmost people.
However, I just double-checkedmyself because I've been telling
(33:38):
people you can still use knoband tube as an approved wiring
method according to the NationalElectric Code and.
Mike Church (33:51):
I just looked in my 23 code book and, yes, it is
still there.
So you, in theory, you couldbuild a brand new house and wire
it with knob and two yep, wouldalmost be worth doing it just
for because it'd be funny yeah,and it's beautiful.
Jesse Landis (34:01):
You know if you, if you look at well, some people
think it's scary.
But um, it's, yeah, it's aninteresting system, intrins, the
system is a safe system.
There is no problem with knoband tube wiring or the National
Electric Code would not have itstill as an approved means of
(34:24):
wiring a home.
I don't think anybody's usingit.
It's not practical because it'dbe very expensive.
But, like I've told you before,the problem with knob and tube,
the biggest problem.
There's two problems.
The biggest problem is, again,people who lack the expertise to
(34:46):
be engaging with it and don'tdo a good job of extending it or
cutting it or however they'reengaging it.
They don't do a good job and itcreates loose connections again
, like the, the bad outlets thatyou have in your wall and you
have fire possibilities there.
(35:06):
So it's where tampering is doneimproperly.
The other thing which I thinkis less of a concern, it's more
of a theoretical problem Atleast I haven't seen a practical
problem with it in myexperience and that is the
(35:26):
covering.
If it's covered with insulation, the heat ratings are, it's not
rated to be covered actually.
It's supposed to be in free airto keep it cool.
Now I think, where you run intothose problems, it would be
(35:47):
hard to do in the real world.
So that's why I say I think it'smostly theoretical.
So anyway, NamaM in tube is agreat system, especially if it
hasn't been tampered with, andwe see that from time to time.
You'll see an old house that'sbuilt in the 20s and it's got
(36:07):
NAMM in tube and nobody's everdone anything with the house,
Hasn't had any updates for 100years, and you look at the wire
and it's in great shape.
One other thing to mention withNamaTube is all of the
connections.
Anytime it was tapped orspliced it would be soldered.
(36:30):
So they're all solderedconnections which those
connections will not lose.
Mike Church (36:35):
Partly why it would be prohibitively expensive to
do it now.
Jesse Landis (36:39):
Yeah, exactly, yep .
So those yeah.
If it's an original connectionof an Omnitude system, it's
never going to fail.
How well the electrician orhomeowner put the wire nut on
Modern-day splice wire nuts,well, if they're put on properly
(37:03):
, they're not going to comeloose either.
We twist all our connections,so if you pull the wire nut, off
the wires still stay together.
Interesting.
I think most professionalelectricians do that nowadays.
Mike Church (37:18):
Most homeowners probably don't.
Jesse Landis (37:20):
Most homeowners probably don't.
Mike Church (37:22):
I don't know that.
I've ever even thought aboutthat.
So you literally just twist thewires up and then put the wire
nut over it.
Jesse Landis (37:28):
Yeah, if you use a heavy set of pliers, so we use
lineman pliers, but anyflat-jawed plier you can twist
the wires together so that theywill remain together whether or
not the wire nut is on them.
So almost as good as theheritage method of soldering,
(37:50):
but still not quite.
Yeah, the soldering is the bestway to do it Huh.
Mike Church (37:56):
Yeah, what about aluminum wiring?
That's one that again realestate related.
It's on the disclosure formsyou're supposed to say if you
have aluminum wiring.
Jesse Landis (38:06):
Yeah, it's like I don't know.
Mike Church (38:07):
I mean mobile homes , Mobile homes.
Jesse Landis (38:11):
I've encountered it in mobile homes and when
we're talking about aluminumwire, we're talking about
smaller wires that are used forwhat's called branch circuits
that would go to your lights andyour plugs, to each device.
That is where aluminum wire forfeeders and service entrance
(38:39):
conductors and they're not goingto come loose, Whereas over
(39:02):
time the smaller wires under awire nut could oxidize or other,
I guess dissimilar metalspossibly if they're terminated
on a device, could create asituation where they're going to
become loose through thosemethods or reasons.
Mike Church (39:23):
So you use aluminum wiring in certain applications.
It's not an inherently badthing, but it needs to be in the
right.
Jesse Landis (39:30):
Yeah.
Mike Church (39:31):
You don't want it for.
Jesse Landis (39:33):
If you encounter aluminum wire when you pull a
plug out of your wall, thenthat's something to be concerned
about.
Mike Church (39:40):
Gotcha.
Jesse Landis (39:42):
Behind your meter and in your main service panel
you're probably going to havealuminum wire.
We use it all the time.
Still.
It's used in commercial andresidential buildings.
Mike Church (39:53):
Why do you use it then?
Is it cheaper than copper?
It's cheaper.
It's less in commercial andresidential buildings.
Why do you use it, then?
Is it cheaper?
Jesse Landis (39:57):
than copper.
It's cheaper, it's less than.
Mike Church (39:59):
Probably, especially when you're in a
large gauge, small gauge, largegauge, larger diameter.
Jesse Landis (40:08):
Yeah, larger diameter.
And yeah, the smaller the gaugenumber, the larger the wire.
Yeah okay, there you go Up to apoint and then it converts to
circular mill area.
It's a different set of numbers, so anyway, don't even need to
(40:28):
know that.
Mike Church (40:29):
Yeah, yeah, any other, yeah, any other homeowner
type issues Um any other yeah.
Any other homeowner type issues?
Um, is there again.
We talked about a while backelectrical being somewhat scary.
Is there?
Are there ways that you canfeed that?
You should feel very safeworking with it.
(40:50):
So you got a panel shuttingstuff off.
Jesse Landis (40:54):
Yeah.
Mike Church (40:55):
How would a homeowner check and make sure
that things are safe to dealwith?
Jesse Landis (41:01):
That's another.
You're full of great questions.
Mike Church (41:03):
I'm a homeowner.
I have these questions.
Jesse Landis (41:05):
Yeah, turning things off is obviously the
safest way to work on electrical.
Mike Church (41:11):
And not just the light switch.
Jesse Landis (41:13):
And not just the light switch, work on electrical
and not just the light switchand not just the light light
switch.
You have in a panel what you'llhave, usually depending on what
, where the panel is, in yourentire system.
But you're going to have a mainbreaker which is a larger
breaker that will shut off mosteverything or will shut off
everything in the panel.
There's's some exceptions butwe won't get into those.
(41:34):
Some older homes could havewhat's called a split bus panel
and that's going to have.
Well, yeah, depending on who'sworked on it or changed things,
it should only have six mainhandles that will turn off
(41:55):
everything.
Again, if it's been tamperedwith or things have changed over
the years, it could have a fewmore, but under the code six
handles is still acceptable.
So you have those mains to turneverything off and then what
you have below that are branchbreakers which individually will
(42:17):
turn circuits off.
And if you can isolate thecircuit you're working on to a
branch and turn that off, itshould be safe.
But the only way to know thatyou got the right one because we
have human factors, labelingand whatnot to get involved- or
lack thereof.
Yeah, so it's good to have ahigh-quality tester.
There's many types of testersand a multimeter or a voltage
(42:47):
tester are the best, mostreliable.
They're a contact tester, whereyou actually physically are
touching the terminals with theprobes of the tester.
Um an easier, no contact.
Uh testers can work, they'rejust not quite as reliable
that's the with the little redlight, yeah they'll have a light
(43:11):
or an audible signal.
Mike Church (43:14):
Those are less reliable.
Jesse Landis (43:16):
Less reliable.
They're going to give youphantom false positives, I guess
more than anything.
Mike Church (43:24):
See, this is partly why I'm asking the question.
Jesse Landis (43:26):
Yeah.
Mike Church (43:27):
I'm like I know this is off, right, and yet
shoot.
I was showing my kids like yeah, see how this thing works.
I'm like that just beeped alittle bit.
Jesse Landis (43:39):
Yeah.
So then it, yeah, you get thisum uncertainty and then, before
you know it, you're just well, Igot to get it done, so I'm just
going to do it anyway.
And then, if it was right, thenyou just got shocked, probably.
And if you're wrong, um werewrong, um, well, then it it was.
(44:01):
It was good enough, um.
So if you're shopping for those, one tip is to get one that is
um not very sensitive, becausethe overly sensitive ones you'll
walk.
You could walk into a room andit will tell you that power's on
in the room and that's nothelpful because you want to find
out which wire has power on itor not.
Um.
So, uh, there's.
(44:22):
There's some better qualityones.
Fluke is a brand name thatmakes high quality testers.
Those ones are generally goingto be pretty accurate, um, and
yeah, I guess that's probablythe most reliable one.
I would go to there's others,but yeah, that one's easy yeah,
(44:45):
okay yeah, that's helpful Ithink yeah, another safety thing
just keeping an eye on theelectrical service metering.
A lot of older neighborhoodshave overhead services.
Some of that equipment just canget abused over the years.
Tree limbs fall on them, maybewater intrusion, that kind of
(45:09):
stuff can just wear thatequipment out over time.
Can just wear that equipmentout over time and could be
something to keep an eye on.
And keep the maintenance up on.
But yeah, everything else isvery safe nowadays.
I think house fires havedropped a tremendous amount over
(45:31):
the last couple decades.
Tremendous amount over the lastcouple decades.
Um, one thing to comment on,maybe arc fault protection,
that's.
That's a the only fire specificprotection that your, uh, your
electrical system is going toprovide, and that's relatively
new.
I think that started coming outin 2000 and probably 2002 or
(45:56):
2005 somewhere in there.
And um, those are breakers.
Typically they do make walldevices, but usually they're
installed as breakers and thosewill.
They have a small circuit boardin them that is reading the
sine wave of the power that'spassing through and they can see
(46:19):
a signature that is specific toan arc.
So if there's arcing that'shappening on the circuit which
could be fire, and they have tobe smart enough that they don't,
your basic light switch isgonna arc when it connection
opens and closes, and so theyhave.
They're smart enough that theydon't uh your basic light switch
is going to arc when it theconnection opens and closes, and
so they they're smart enough tonot see that as a fire.
(46:40):
And whether it's a timespecific sustained arc or
there's something specific tothe, the sine wave, um, I'm not
totally sure the details on thatone, but but they do provide
some fire protection.
They do false trip also, whichcan be frustrating and hard to
(47:03):
track down.
Mike Church (47:05):
Is that a?
I mean, do people put those inhouses generally?
Or is it like oh, I want anupgrade, I want arc fault
breakers in my house.
They are required in newconstruction.
They are yeah In Idaho, inIdaho.
Jesse Landis (47:22):
Only in bedrooms at this point.
Mike Church (47:24):
Okay.
Jesse Landis (47:25):
Yeah, any circuit that is in a bedroom needs to be
arc fault protected and that'sbeen in place for several years.
Okay, the reliability on themhas gotten better.
When I say that then I hesitate, because everything post-covid
(47:47):
maybe got worse again, but we'veseen electronic problems and
more callbacks for repairs onsome of those types of things,
but I don't recall arc faultbreakers being particularly bad
in that area.
Mike Church (48:02):
Yeah, yeah, so if you had an old house you were to
upgrade the panel, those wouldbe upgraded as well.
Jesse Landis (48:11):
Yeah or not?
Mike Church (48:12):
necessarily, not necessarily, because they
wouldn't have to be.
They wouldn't have to be.
They wouldn't have to be.
It would be an elective kind ofthing.
Jesse Landis (48:18):
If you wanted it, you'd have to be open to the
possibility of getting nuisancetripping possibly, especially
with an older home, some wiringmethods will trip them that were
acceptable in the past butaren't now, or errors that may
or may not cause a real worldproblem.
Um, and they can be difficultto find.
(48:41):
So the breaker will tell youthey're there but they won't
tell you where in the house.
So they're not that smart yeah,uh, but things that people
could consider.
Surge protection is another one.
That's more not for personalprotection but for equipment,
(49:03):
household items.
The new electrical code isrequiring that in new
construction.
But electrical surges can bevery hard on home electronics
and they are helpful inalleviating some of that.
Mike Church (49:19):
Yeah, interesting, good um major switching gears,
but you're doing something otherthan just electrical now yes, I
have uh ventured into the uh,the carpet cleaning and flood
restoration business.
Yeah, and more restoration.
Jesse Landis (49:40):
I guess on top of the flood, we're working towards
fire restoration and moldabatement.
So yeah, I own Castle CarpetCleaning Service as well, and
I've owned that for about a yearand a half.
Mike Church (49:55):
Okay, yeah, how's it going?
Jesse Landis (49:57):
Great.
We have a great crew of skilledguys that have been in the
industry for many years now.
All of our guys are seasonedexperienced guys or seasoned
experienced guys.
And yeah, it's been just greatto be in another service
(50:25):
business, that we get to workwith the Palouse and be in
people's homes and help improvepeople's homes and their values
and just way of life.
Hopefully that's the goal.
Mike Church (50:36):
Yeah, Nice, Been fun learning a new business.
And are you, how involved areyou in terms of you mentioning
getting into fire restoration,mold remediation, that kind of
stuff?
Are you involved in that youknow?
Learning that stuff, or is that?
Are you still mostly focused onthe electrical?
Jesse Landis (50:54):
personally, I am that stuff, or is that?
Are you still mostly focused onthe electrical personally?
Um, I am, my hands don't getdirty enough anymore.
Um, I have enough to do with 12electricians and four um carpet
and flood technicians that Idon't get the opportunity to
dive into the actual work asmuch anymore.
(51:17):
I would love to spend more timepersonally learning about the
restoration and cleaning side ofthings and will eventually over
time, but I am still only oneman and it's tough to get
everything done already, soit'll be slow in personally
(51:38):
getting myself trained, buteventually, hopefully, I'll get
there.
But we do invest in trainingfor the crew.
There's several certifications,classes, trainings that are
available, that we are sendingguys to classes trainings that
are available that we aresending guys to.
Mike Church (51:56):
But if the electricians are preventing all
these house fires, then how areyou going to have any fire?
Jesse Landis (52:02):
Yeah, wow, well, we could work on that.
We can see what we can do toget a few.
Hopefully we don't get housefires.
Mike Church (52:11):
That was a joke for anyone.
Jesse Landis (52:14):
Not electrical house fires.
House fires happen.
Joke for anyone Not electricalhouse fires.
House fires happen with otherthings too, that's true.
That's true.
Mike Church (52:21):
Yeah, well good, how do people find you?
Jesse Landis (52:25):
Not you.
Mike Church (52:27):
You probably don't want people to find you.
Jesse Landis (52:30):
You can jump online, of course, and if you
Google Wireworks Moscow, idaho,or Castle Carpet Cleaning Moscow
, idaho, you'll find us rightthere, and we're located at 1008
South Jefferson.
You could swing into the officeand we'd be glad to see a new
(52:58):
face or an old face either onethere you go.
Mike Church (53:01):
Yeah, Good Well, any closing thoughts for us?
Um, no, I uh just appreciatethe conversation and look
forward to having more.
Yeah, Thanks for joining us.
Like, share, subscribe.
We'll see you next week.
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