Norwegian Electricians
There is an eternal running joke in my line of work about creating job security by writing obscure and unmaintainable code that only the person who has developed it can understand. There is no need for such methods for the Norwegian electricians. The Norwegian electricians have it comfy, oh yes 🤑. Job security is provided for them by simply banning almost all electrical work at home for those who are not certified electricians. And having a never ending propaganda to hammer this knowledge into everyone so that they do not take any work away from the professionals.
I was completely confounded when I first found out about this. How did something so routine and simple became a taboo? Every house on sale has declarations that no electrical work was done by someone who is not authorized, lest the house is worthless. Of course the reason given for this draconian rule is 🥁 safety; someone might do something wrong and kill people; BS. I am not going to play "what aboutism" here but yeah bullshit. I have a sense that this is more a triumph of the unions rather than anything else but I have not done my research.
The real problem is not that I am not allowed to redo all the wiring in my house, but the incompetence levels of the electricians out there (Oh no Norway! 😢). There are quite a few people out there who have barely learned how to connect a pair of cables with the help of a wago connector but still have the necessary papers to carry out electrical work. They don't come cheap either the last bill I received was about 900kr per hour for someone who had done life-threatening mistakes that I had to fix myself in order to avoid my house from burning down. Here are the wonderful companies that I had the pleasure of working with and the shit they have thrown my way:
1. NTE Elektro AS, Trondheim
I used NTE Elektro AS based on a recommendation from a friend of mine. Big company (so not much personal drama), professional employees and the prices are also reasonable; what's not to like? After 5 phone calls and 4 SMS messages with sales dudes who always seemed to be too busy for me, I managed to get access to an electrician to redo a lot of the wiring in my basement, and upgrade the house to a 3 phase network, total cost for me was a little over 54000NOK. Despite the fuck-ups I list below, this was actually one the best companies I used for electrical work. They were also lucky to be the last company to work on my house so my standards of what is acceptable had gone down quite a bit.
1. The electrician from this company intentionally short-circuited the control line of my bathroom fan and removed the switch from the supply lines, effectively forcing the fan to be on at all times (and eventually blow up and catch fire). There was no way to turn off the fan other than using the circuit breaker that cuts power to the whole bathroom 🤯. When I sent a message to the dude; telling him what an idiot he has been along with the relevant circuit diagrams from the manufacturer on how to wire a goddamn bathroom fan, he just dodged all responsibility by saying that this is what I had asked him to do! Oh wow yeah sorry dude I must have forgotten my death wish, but now that you say it I remember that I had always wanted to die from CO poisoning in my sleep as my house burns down, it's just so rock 'n roll. But I am confused 😕. Wasn't the purpose of these laws (that require me to use a professional like yourself) to protect me from these suicidal tendencies? But I digress.. Here is the excellent exchange of messages with this professional (clearly being polite was not a good strategy on my part):
3. Power outlets that were tilted, unaligned, and sticking way out of the wall. This was not a health hazard but simply ugly and messy. I had to go and fix the whole lot myself so that they did not look like my 7 year-old did them.
2. Alt Innen Elektro AS, Frosta
"What are you doing with a company from Frosta!?" I hear you yelling at me; this company was recommended to me by my local Elektro Importøren (Lade). I was sick of getting ripped off on materials, and also wanted to use the right dimensions for the cabling. The job was to connect an electric car charger to a 3 phase cable on one end and on the other end to connect the cable to a 3 phase circuit breaker (that the electrician should supply) but on a 2 phase network (it would be upgraded later on). I explained the work to the dude from "Alt Innen Elektro" and he showed up and did it all in a very short amount of time. He left and I went downstairs to check his work:
1. I immediately realize that the fuse installed is old and dirty. I hit the "test" button to see if it works at least and it does nothing. After some exchanges with the dude, I convince him to send someone to make sure that the fuse is connected correctly. Another electrician shows up and he is clueless about how one connects a 3 phase circuit breaker to a 2 phase network. His boss "walks him through" and nothing happens. So we agree that the circuit breaker is broken and he goes to buy a new one.
2. The dude installs the new circuit breaker and that also does not work as expected. His boss coaches him over the phone but it still does not work. I come in to help and explain it to him how the test button on a 3 phase circuit breaker works (it's only testing 2 of the lines not all 3, and one of the two that it was testing is the one that was not in use). He does not understand, so I tell him: "Connect a wire from this to that (I'm pointing ofc)", and voila! Everything works:). So two electricians from this company did not know how to install a 3 phase circuit breaker on a 2 phase network.
3. Jølle & Kristensen AS
These guys might actually be good electricians, they did very little and I did not have to fix anything they had done. But they embody the fucked up morality of the Norwegian building industry (the infamous fagfolk... I need a post on that alone); entitlement. These are the type of people who have never been challenged in life when they had done something wrong. They are also used to receiving whatever they ask for. So when they met me, they were not even shocked to receive a no. They simply could not process it:
1. They sent me an invoice with an "estimated" cost and demanded that I pay the asked amount as the work was ongoing. This was more of a demand for money rather than an invoice, since there were no bill of materials or logged hours. It was just a number <10000kr due in 2 weeks>. I asked them to send me a more detailed invoice if they want to get paid and asked them to not charge me for anything that has not been delivered yet. This really pissed them off and they refused to do anymore work until they are paid. I was told that I would not get any detailed invoice until the work is completed. What a conundrum😅.
2. What's funnier than the conundrum is that these guys were hired not directly by me but by a masonry company that was carrying out work in my future bathroom to be. So they had paid the electrician right away and when I refused to pay, the electrician did not have to cooperate unless he cared about his relationship with the masonry company. So they did not cooperate and my bathroom was left unfinished for over a year, and their bill unpaid for over a year. Then I received an email along the lines of "why you no pay us!? ☹". I could not help but feel for these guys, so I explained everything to them again and told them that I want to pay. Then they tried to negotiate with me on what I am willing to pay and asked me to take photos of the work already done 🙄. Then I sent them a threatening email about further consequences if they do not finish what they had started, and so this saga was brought to an end. The electrician showed up, finished all the work, and sent me a proper invoice, and the poor mason finally got paid 🎉
4. Gerhardsen Elektro
This is the first company I used for electrical work; the reason was that I knew someone who worked there who had a child in the same kindergarten my daughter also went to. The work done was supberb, both my contact and his replacements had done good quality work, and they had done it fast! I was however at a complete shock at the prices they were asking for the materials they used (this was my first encounter with the Norwegian building industry). Some items were priced 3 times of the market sales prices. I was unhappy about that for sure, but then more started happening:
1. Dimmers that don't work. I received dimmers that cost ~2500kr a piece and in some cases they were playing disco as they were "dimming". The electrician had a fix for it though! He would replace it with an even more expensive dimmer that did not have a default disco mode but a constant buzzing sound that might be soothing as I fell a sleep. Well me being me, I would have nothing of that shit and asked for something better, but the electrician had no other dimmers on the offer. So I went to my local store and bought the cheapest dimmer they had for ~350kr. I installed it just to see what happens and voila! no always on disco mode or a mini transformer sound. I was quite pleased with myself and expected an embarrassed electrician who wanted to charge me more than 2000kr extra for something that worked worse. Boy was I wrong...He did not appreciate my effort and he did not take his dysfunctional dimmers back 😿
2. Invoice with 50% error margin. The final invoice I received from these guys at about ~34000kr should have been ~20000kr. There was a huge mistake in the number of materials calculated into my invoice and I had to fight to get it corrected. In the end I received no apologies for this epic fuck-up, but instead got sass for being difficult.
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