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Do dealers typically setup or deliver?

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Wisoki:
You sound as if I'm suggesting you stick your tongu on the wires to test if they are hot. I don't know any spa dealer that doesn't have a multi meter on their truck. If you can't figure out which wires are hot you have no business even touching them, but let me ask you this, do you think your dealer calls an electrician each time he sells a wet demo and has to disconnect and hook up a new spa, doubtfull.



--- Quote ---It is not always as simple as black to black, red to red etc... I have been out to houses where all three wires were black.  You are assuming that the electrician did the job correctly.  

It is a lot easier to go over all the chemicals and operation of the tub once the tub is running and warm.  It also doesn't hurt if the customer has tried it out first to get a fell for the spa.  

The dealer should definitely give you a chemical start up as well as show you how the controls on the spa work.
--- End quote ---

CalicoskiesNC:

--- Quote ---You sound as if I'm suggesting you stick your tongu on the wires to test if they are hot.


--- End quote ---


That really made me laugh.  Very funny!  Thanks :)

dpgtech:
That's a big if! have you never had an electrician or contractor mess up? Wisoki, all it takes is having to defend yourself in one liability lawsuit, even winning it, to hurt your business.  Now, I'll admit this sounds like slippery slope thinking but the fact is liability can be your responsibility if your tech is not a licensed electrician and is the last person to touch the wiring  before the occurence of a problem. I have hooked up the wires for a customer before but if at all possible we try not to touch the electrical.  People hear what they want to hear, we try to stress up front during the sale the electrical is the customer's responsibility. it is imprinted on our invoice"does not include eletrical hook-up" , But everyonce in a while  we'll show up to a customer who is expecting us to hook up the spa, and I simply state that we do not have a license to do electrical.  most people understand.   we don't call an electrician when we have to hook up a spa for a demo but , It's our spa and in our building.

Wisoki:
I've sold, delivered and installed spas in Washington (state, not D.C.), California, Colorado, Nevada, New York, Georgia, Florida, and now have my own place here in Indiana. Here in the great state of Indiana, you HAVE to have a license to be a plumber, but ANY ONE can hang their shingle out and claim to be an lectrishun. There is no licensing or certification board in the state. So when I get out to a job and tell the customer their electrical is wrong, I inevitably hear "well we used a licensed electrician". This comment ALWAYS make me laugh, at least inside. Then I have to go to the time expense of showing them what their "licensed" electician did wrong.

Chas:
I am licensed, but we don't generally do wiring. If it gets real slow, I will go bid on the whole wiring job, but I'm not cheap. Once in a while, I will do a job because three electricians came out and gave real high bids usually because the customer is a crab, or they are real busy or something like that. In that case, I will drop my price, still cover my costs, and do as much of the work myself as possible to save the sale. I just don't have the time, nor the back to do this all the time, though I used to.

Since I am licensed, I also work with homeowners who want to do it themselves. I usually try to get out to the job twice - once to lay it out in advance, and once after the job is done but before the delivery to check it for mistakes so the inspector will pass it on one visit.

Our delivery crews only do the connect if everything is there, and correct or at least safe. All our trucks are equipped with meters and color-coding tape because many homeowners do the job themselves and run all of one color wire - they buy a spool of the correctly-sized wire in black or whatever.

NOTE TO HOMEOWNERS: you don't have to do this. Run all of your conduit, and then measure carefully. Add ten feet. Go to Lowes/Home Depot and ask them to cut the correct color wire to the length you need. You can pull it all together in one pull, and there you go!

As a rule, if the customer has used one of the three electricians we recommended we find that it is all there and correct. If they use another electrician or do it themselves, you can count on it being wrong: anything from missing box connectors on the end of the flex conduit and no straps to fasten it in place on the bottome of the spa (we can still make the spa run but the guy has to come out later and tidy up) to wrong sized wire, missing wires, extra wires (also not a problem) to the occasional genius who thought I didn't know what I was talking about when I told him our spas use a sub panel ....

All in all - it's the most fun part of the delivery: "What's the wiring going to look like this time?"

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