[-] BestDan@lemmy.world -1 points 10 months ago

Most tradespeople are working across several jobs at once. The cases where it would be practical to shuttle between them & organise all materials to be delivered ahead of time would be very limited. You’d need to be in a dense area (city), that is relatively flat & have a number of large, simple jobs on the go at a time.

If you’ve ever built something you’ll be familiar with the million screws & extras you had to duck out for - tradesmen carry that stuff in their vehicle to save them (& you) the expense of them coming back with the parts later.

I’m an avid cyclist & used to ride motorbikes. There is absolutely no way I could carry what I need to do the job, outside of a massive multi-week fit out where I can essentially park my tools & all equipment onsite & commute to/from by bike.

[-] BestDan@lemmy.world 33 points 10 months ago

Look, I love bikes- I ride them, fix them, dream about them, but honestly, as a former electrician I can also acknowledge that it would be severely limiting to do that job on a bike.
If you’re working on domestic then you need a few ladders, a couple of hundred kilos of tools, at least 3 rolls of different cables, and a small shop of various outlets etc. not to mention that ducking out to the wholesalers to pick up something to finish a job would take 1hr instead of 10 min.

Industrial electrician would just be funny - imagine cycling across town with a 500kg variable speed drive or switchboard on your pushy..

I couldn’t do the job efficiently with a sedan, let alone something with a fraction of the capacity. Also - where does the apprentice sit?

BestDan

joined 10 months ago