The New Year brings all kinds of wonderful things, new promises, new dreams, and if you are an electrician – new NEC Code! The NEC 2008 Code is officially out. The code is reviewed and updated on a three year basis and offers great guidelines that help keep electricians and the everyday consumer safe.
For more information on the 2008 NEC Code visit the NFPA site at http://www.nfpa.org/.
There are some new additions to the 360institute website.
First, we have added another state to our expanding Water and Waste Water Continuing Education division! WW operators in Tennessee now have 16 hours of Continuing Education courses to choose from to fulfill CE requirements. Imagine fulfilling all of your CE requirements online, at your pace, when it is convenient for you! Visit the Tennessee Wastewater page for more info.
We also have just added a new course for Washington Electricians! Now available is the WAC-RCW course that has been approved by Washington State. We now have 12 hours of 100% online CE courses available for you! Visit our Washington Electricians page for more info.
If you are in need of Electrician, Contractor, Engineer or Wastewater CE, and we don’t yet offer it in your state yet, let us know! It is our top priority to make sure you get the CE that you need!
We here at 360institute are all getting ready for the holidays and all the turkey and trimmings that come with it. Unfortunately, not everyone has the means to eat the meals that we are so fortunate to get. So for this Thanksgiving, we and the rest of the family here at 360training decided to try and help those in need.
For two weeks we had a food drive at our Austin, TX office and we collected over 1,700 pounds of food!! Monday we took our collection of food to the Capital Area Food Bank of Texas; they told us the food we collected amounted to 1,375 meals. We feel pretty great about that!
Now to thank you great, loyal blog readers I wanted to offer a blog only special Thanksgiving discount!! You can use this discount on any of the 360institute courses. Just enter THANKS07 in the discount code field for a 10% discount off of any course you want. The discount ends November 31st so make sure enroll soon. Just our way of saying Thanks!!
I admit that I am no expert in electricity, but I have learned a lot from reading certain trade magazines in an effort to keep up with what is going on in the industry. One magazine that I just discovered, that most of you are already aware of, is EC&M. In case you don’t know, it is the technical authority for 140,000+ electrical professionals.
In this month’s issue I was particularly interested in how much technology was featured. With the record gains in sales due to new construction, the workforce has been spread pretty thin. It is not so surprising then that companies are looking towards new technologies that will help to make employees more efficient and save time and money. In the article “Record Gains Bring Labor Pains,” the author speaks of how automation is helping companies keep up with the new demand. Technology has helped them to remotely monitor their sites and to track maintenance. In “The Changing Face of CPM,” the author wrote about software tools that help relieve contractors of the tedious tasks like bookkeeping, taxes, and estimating.
So it seems to me that all of the technology mentioned in this month’s issue points to ways to make life easier for the electrical contractor. This is how I see 360institute fitting in. With online Electrician CE, we make it easy for electricians and contractors to get their CE when it is most convenient to them. This helps to decrease time taken off of work, which helps productivity.
How has technology helped you in your working life? Have you found that technology saves you time, which helps you to be more efficient? If it does, how do you spend your free time? More work or play?
There has been some resistance to the use of AFCIs mainly because of the added cost and the potential for nuisance tripping. But NEMA is arguing that the extra cost is minimal especially compared to the potential loss of life and property using a GFCI. I agree with NEMA. With AFCIs only adding $15 to $20 to the cost of a standard circuit breaker, it seems completely worth the extra expense to have a safer home.
As for the problem with nuisance tripping, AFCI technology has vastly improved since they were first introduced in the late 1990s. Potential nuisance tripping isn’t a good enough reason to not use AFCIs anymore. What are your thoughts on AFCIs? Do you feel it is worth the added expense? And have you visited the AFCISafety site yet?
