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Although the destination of your issue will often determine if you need a residential electrician or a commercial electrician, what are their key differences?
While there are roughly 150, 000 qualified electricians working right around the nation, it’s also worth noting that this type of work has some pretty serious job growth attached to it. In line with the ever growing demand for trades, future job growth for electricians is expected to soar by over 10% within the next five years.
However, the path to becoming an electrician isn’t easy. In Australia, getting appropriately qualified involves completing a four year apprenticeship through trade school and on the ground experience to ensure that the tradesperson in question has what it takes to safely get the job done.
As their job titles would suggest, pursuing work as a commercial electrician or residential electrician also involves further training that specialises in each relevant area – but what are their key points of difference?
For those unfamiliar with the basics, the day to day work of an electrician involve designing, assembling, installing, testing, commissioning, diagnosing, maintaining and repairing electrical networks, systems, circuits, equipment, components, appliances and facilities for industrial, commercial and domestic purposes, along with servicing and repairing lifts, escalators and related equipment.
When comparing the key points of difference between the work conducted by a residential electrician to a commercial electrician, their work environments can vary dramatically. While both residential and commercial electricians may often work on construction sites to install wiring systems and electrical components for new homes or apartments, they do have their own separate fields of speciality.
Residential sparkies are often the ones to perform electrical work in well-established homes that already have families or individuals living in them. Sometimes things go wrong, break, need an upgrade or simply aren’t functioning the way that it’s supposed to. More often than not, it’s at this point that homeowners will require the services of a residential electrician who can take care of these types of issues, in addition to any new installations.
In contrast, a commercial electrician will often deal directly with a business owner, site manager or even a builder to ensure that any installation, repair or maintenance work conducted is customised to the specific needs of the operation. Typically, a commercial sparky can be found working on site at medium to large brands and businesses such as shopping centres, hospitality venues, high rises, government buildings and commercial office spaces.
Apart from the environment itself, the complexities in the electrical work does also differ between a residential electrician and a commercial electrician, with the major points to note including the following:
Voltages – The size of the voltage systems that an electrician will install, repair or maintain does vary. Residential electricians typically work with high voltage systems between 120 volts and 240 volts that supply homes with electricity, while commercial electricians can work with extra high voltage systems that exceed 240 volts for large commercial buildings.
Wiring Systems – Commercial electricians work with larger wiring systems with tube conduits that work well for large commercial spaces and power supplies. In contrast, residential electricians work with much smaller wiring systems with plastic sheathing. The work itself can be tricky, as these wiring systems fit into crawl spaces, and are out of view of homeowners.
Procedures – A residential electrician and a commercial electrician may have different policies to adhere to when it comes to providing safe, quality electrical services. As an example, commercial electricians often need to establish backup power sources for important commercial buildings like hospitals, law enforcement facilities, medical laboratories and grocery stores.
If you’re unsure whether a residential electrician or a commercial electrician is the right choice for your issue, it’s always worth double checking upon your first inquiry, as a reputable operator will point you in the right direction.
Here at Shield Electrical, we are a Brisbane based electrical contracting company, and pride ourselves on being shockingly good at watt we do. For us, friendly and reliable customer service isn’t just a nice add on – it’s how we do business. Don’t take our word for it though, just ask our clients.
Our team of dedicated and energetic electrical industry professionals are committed to providing the highest levels of customer satisfaction possible. Whether you’re on the hunt for an electrician for domestic services, residential, commercial and industrial construction, security systems or even just further energy saving tips, get in touch with us at Shield today to source practical solutions that don’t break the bank.
