From Pizza Boxes to Code Books with David Myers

Zack Hartle: 0:01

Hello and welcome to the Watt's the Word Podcast. I'm Zack Hartle your host along with your co host here, Jason Cox. This is a show connecting the electrical industry through relevant conversations. Our goal is to hear your story, learn stories, learn from guests who are passionate about the electrical industry. We're very excited to be here today. For our very first episode, we're going to be talking with David Myers about his journey in the electrical trade, what drives him, and he's going to share with us some of the new changes to the electrical code. So here to introduce our guests is Jason Cox.

Jason Cox: 0:38

Well, thank you for the intro, Zack. I'm excited to be here. And I'm excited to be on the first podcast and introduce Dave Meyers, who is a subject matter expert on the Canadian electrical code. So Dave, nice to see you.

David Myers: 0:51

Hello, folks. Thanks for the intro. Yeah, let's get started. I'm a born and raised Calgarian. Lots of work experience in electrical my, my first work experience other than a paper routes was was a pizza place that I started in high school. And that was actually a, you know, there for three and a half years. But I began my electrical career in in 2002. I started with a small family home, or a small family owned company. We did a pretty good mix of a lot of different stuff. It was mostly residential focused, but it was custom homes. So lots of interesting sort of problem solving, what should we do about this type of stuff. And we did some small commercial didn't really get any larger commercial experience with them. So after about six years, finishing my apprenticeship with that company, I moved to a larger firm, working downtown on some of the high rises and a large, a large mall renovation, this is all in Calgary. In 2009, I started as an instructor at a polytechnic or what was a polytechnic at the time I suppose in in Calgary called SAIT. And I've been there ever since. I've had a lot of experience with pretty much all of the courses that they that they offer. And I've been fortunate to be very involved in a lot of the stuff that happens with the electrical code.

Zack Hartle: 2:16

Why did you get into electrical? Because I want to know why people actually chose electrical or how they got that job, right? I mean, lots of people fall into it. Lots of people want to do it.

David Myers: 2:25

Yep. It was sort of a mix of both for me. When I was right after high school, I had a good high school friend of mine and the day high school ended, he walked straight into his apprenticeship. And of course, I continued working at a pizza place for another year. And then I obviously watched him working better shifts and making better money and seemed to be enjoying the work a bit more. So after a few discussions with him, I decided that electrical would be the right fit for an apprenticeship. And an apprenticeship would be the right fit for me. So back then it was, you know, I didn't have any connections in the industry. That one person I knew the company wasn't hiring. So it was yellow pages, which for your younger listeners is a phone directory that we used to use that was printed on yellow paper. So it was scrolling through the Yellow Pages and cold calling companies and dropping off resumes until I got picked up by that that smaller company that I mentioned at the beginning.

Zack Hartle: 3:29

Nice. Yeah, no, it's yeah, it's funny how Yeah, it's usually a friend who gets you in or something like that. But no, that's awesome.

Jason Cox: 3:39

We've definitely come a long ways when it comes to applying for jobs now, going back. I mean, I we used to look back on newspapers, right. So in the newspaper, The Calgary Herald on Saturdays, the career section, that's where you would go to find jobs. And I mean, you'd be hard pressed now just to find a newspaper. Right. So yeah, it's crazy. How time changes and, and yeah, we just move on, right? Yep.

David Myers: 4:03

Yeah, it's, I think, uh, going through like the indeed.ca. And all that stuff that they use now would, would be a pretty quick way of getting jobs. You see them listed all over the internet now. So absolutely.

Zack Hartle: 4:18

Okay, so David, you're you're teaching at SAIT? You've been there for a while now, you started out? What What would you say? You know, a lot of our listeners, maybe you're just getting into the trade or are thinking about coming into the trade? We don't really know. But what do you say are some of the opportunities that you know, the electrical trade or even just trades in general can give someone right, you worked at a pizza place and then you got into the trade? What, what makes that special? What should bring other people into the trades? For sure.

David Myers: 4:45

So I've had you know, I've had a very enjoyable career. And all of it is related to the trades and the trade, electrical specifically. Countless opportunity These, I've had the ability to travel, I've met all kinds of exciting people, I've had the ability to learn all kinds of new skills, from the apprenticeship and where I learned technical skills, to going to a different company a different job where I've had to, or where I've got to learn even more skills, and then coming to seats, where I've had to learn how to teach and how to use a computer and all these things that I had never done in the field. Other opportunities that have, specifically from from electrical, I've been parts of lots of different code, discussions with people from all over the province, with municipal inspectors with the people who write the codebook with leaders of industry. And my experience with code and my experience with the trade have put me in a spot where I'm a relevant part of that conversation. And it's a pretty special feeling to be sitting there with, with all these people and, and be part of the discussion. So yeah, things like that. Another, you know, a side benefit that I would, you know, suggest for anyone in the trade. I'm a big advocate for, for people that wouldn't normally consider the trades to try it. You know, some women, for example, you can learn so much from a few years of technical experience, and it's skills that will serve you for your whole life. Running the house, not running the house, maintaining things around the house, fixing things that break, knowing which things are okay for me to fix. And I'm not going to endanger my family or anything like that. And knowing which ones that I should probably leave to the professionals, that's all skills that I've picked up from, you know, eight, nine years of hands on technical trade knowledge, and that's something that will serve me for the rest of my life. And it's something that I think a lot of young people could gain a lot of independence from, you know, if you can fix things in your own house, or fix something on your car, or whatever it may be. A there's a good feeling that comes from that. And B it means it's, it's a phone call, you don't have to make to, uh, to a friend or to accompany or something like that. So

Zack Hartle: 7:30

absolutely, that's something I always focused on when working with apprentices is like, knowing when to ask for help. Like, it's really cool to try things, but you got to know when, where's the line? Right? Where do you when do you need to get a journeyman or someone more experienced or call accompany like you say, if it's at your own house? So that's really good.

David Myers: 7:50

Yeah, you know, the, the correlation between safety, public safety and quality of work with electrical specifically is always something I've been very passionate about. You know, when, when we get something wrong, we're putting the public at risk. And so the requirements to do things right is so obviously apparent and electrical. And I've learned a lot from that type of thing. On the flip side, a lot of our work is concealed. And, you know, in a lot of cases, it's it's not like carpentry where everything has to go together absolutely perfectly. So there's a lot of opportunity to make it so that it doesn't. But then when you do that you bring in some unseen, terrifying public safety risk from electric shock or fire or whatever it may be.

Jason Cox: 8:48

Yeah. Well, getting back to what you were saying earlier, Dave, starting an apprenticeship, what an experience just to start like as a young, young adult, right, just being, I mean, thrown into that situation, learning with, with colleagues, with with your mentor. Those are skills that are beneficial for the rest of your life. I'm not trying to get people out of the electrical industry. But I mean, what a what a Segway, you can start off, learn some, some self self knowledge, learn some hand skills, get an overview. It's an incredible opportunity to really it's a great development tool for young adult.

David Myers: 9:31

It is and the people that you are surrounded with when you start an apprenticeship. You know, if you're 1819 years old, you walk onto a job site starting an apprenticeship. You are there with professionals who want to be there. And that's not something that you're gonna get in a lot of other jobs out there. You know, if I don't want to single out any industries or anything like that, but a lot of jobs that an 1819 year old would take on whether it's laborer or whatever it might be, you would be surrounded, you wouldn't be surrounded by, by focused driven professional people and in an apprenticeship and in my experience in the electrical apprenticeship, that is something that, that you can get a lot from just by itself, the way to interact professionally, the way to interact with customers, the way you interact with other trades on site. Watching people who are career driven at a young age and spending a lot of time with them at a young age, will serve you for the rest of your life, I've always believed that.

Jason Cox: 10:40

I would 100% Agree.

Zack Hartle: 10:43

So you're Dave, 12 years now at sait. What, what keeps you there, what holds you at sait? What drives you to keep going to be an instructor every day?

David Myers: 10:54

What what drives me to keep being productive, I suppose would be the word that I use, because, you know, I work with a lot of people who I would call innovative. And I'm more of the other end where I'm just sort of nose to the grindstone and just sort of keep doing things and, and sort of keep at it. I suppose the biggest thing that keeps me productive, or the biggest driver for me is, is finding new or different ways to explain concepts. And I find that that leads to the creation of content and all sorts of fruitful discussions with colleagues and students. I also find that code drives me I'm I'm constantly amazed at how much technical required technical knowledge is required to one understand the codebook. And to to adapt and implement it. You know, I've worked with the code in one form or another for 19 years. And I'm still finding things that I misunderstood, I'm still finding things that I didn't know about in the first place. And a document like that, you know, where CSA sort of considers it their flagship documents, that's Canadian Standards Association, the publishers of the codebook. That sort of stuff I find, keeps me on my toes and keeps me adapting and changing and trying new things and doing more stuff and sort of keeps me going and getting me up in the morning.

Zack Hartle: 12:23

And luckily, you get a new book every three years now, so that

David Myers: 12:26

another one to learn every few years. You bet, right.

Jason Cox: 12:30

So Dave, one of the questions I have is, What would you recommend to electricians that are working in the field, for them to better understand or interpret some of those code rules,

David Myers: 12:44

if you're working in the field, but it's very hard to sit down with the codebook for two, three hours of of your own time, because everyone's busy. And it's even harder to spend two, three hours of your company time or the time on the job site, to really understand the codebook, I find most people in the field become very well versed with the parts of the code that they deal with. So if you're doing commercial, you know, you'll you'll know quite a lot about transformers and how to do all the grounding and bonding and things like that. But then you come to school, and you have to do some of the residential codes. And it can be a bit of a struggle. Probably the biggest thing I could advise is, is taking some courses, there's there's all kinds of night courses available, there's weekend courses that can be taken at a whole bunch of different places. And as a side benefit with with the pandemic, and what's going on with that, that has opened up courses all over the country that will sort of keep you going through code. The other thing is, is to get involved, you know, you can become a member of the ECA. You know, or the PAC, the provincial Advisory Committee and there's always code discussions that happen in those meetings. There's also a whole bunch of other conferences that happen throughout the year, where you can hear live code discussions with professionals that deal with it. Day in and day out. That will probably the biggest thing I could advise because I've been there I've tried to just straight up read the codebook and understand it and without actually working with it. It's it's a very difficult thing to do. Well, thanks. Yeah, it's

Jason Cox: 14:30

it's crazy. I mean, that's a really big book. And I mean, I've often told people over the years, when they talked about our trade, and they say, Oh, your trades easy or make their comments. I go yeah, you just have to learn this entire book. Right. And that seems to kind of hold them in their place for a moment there. Yeah, there's a lot of information in there and you're 100% Correct. Teams, our trade gets really segmented and people become specialists in certain areas, so they become well versed with certain areas of the code. You Yep,

Zack Hartle: 15:01

yeah, definitely remember many of the almost arguments on site about how to do something, you know, whether it came to you got to do a volt drop calculation, which you haven't done since fourth year school. And you and co workers are all sitting around the lunch table arguing about how to do the calculation properly. And it's, it's funny, and then the one person, of course, pulls up. Well, I guess there was no smartphones back then. But someone's nowadays would just pull out their smartphone and do the calculation. But I guess without understanding the reasoning behind that calculation, too, and how that calculation is made, it's kind of pointless.

David Myers: 15:32

Well, and even from the academic perspective, that doesn't fit the field and the academic perspective, you know, this is a bit of a deep dive for those of us that aren't super involved with code. But the academic perspective, volt drop is 3%. In the field, it's usually two. And it's usually two because you're doing voltage drop for long feeders and services and things like that. And used to there so that you can have three on your, on your branch circuits and things like that. So that's just another example of where the academic side doesn't quite fit in. With the field side.

Jason Cox: 16:08

So Dave, one of the things you were you're mentioning there, just the struggles with the electrical and in the interpretation, is there, is there something that you've run across over the years, that seems to be the biggest struggle for students? I'm just gonna say, right off the bat, that volt drop calculation might be, might be one of the tough ones. But is there anything that comes to mind?

David Myers: 16:27

volt drop for sure. In fourth period, that's always, you know, we cover that here in fourth period, technical training. And it's just it's such a different thing. And it's, it's a very involved calculation, and it, it doesn't make that much sense. One of the other things that I find a consistent struggle with is the application of continuous loading. You know, and I think it comes about because we cover derating factors first. And when you do derating factors, the procedure is to divide first and then multiply, and then we get to continuous loads, and you just divide by 80%. And you don't multiply it back out. And, and the understanding for both seems to evaporate, right at that moment in time. Those seem to be the two code things that we seem to have to go back over the most, you know, motor supply conductors, which it's such an infinite decimal thing that doesn't even matter. It's almost never a different wire size. And we struggle with it so much. Those are probably the three key things that pop out for me, as you know, those are the things that I'm up a little late the night before thinking about before I have to do them for sure.

Jason Cox: 17:46

Yeah, I still have flashbacks. So that of the role dropped calculations back in the day and making the effort to write like very good notes in my code book this remember, this is how this works. And what the most basic example right, so. So yeah. Oh, I mean, if that's if that's what you're running across, I guess it's good that I'm finding those same challenges. Yep.

Zack Hartle: 18:11

So I guess you're spending all your time right now. With the 2021 codebook. We know it came out, I think, February 1 2021, and comes into or January 1 2021. It comes into effect, January or February, one year later. So 2022. So you're working on that now big changes in that book? Well, not not huge. I, from my understanding, I haven't looked into it a ton. But one of the things that everyone notices, there's no index now, what are your thoughts?

David Myers: 18:39

So in regards to the index, that's probably going to depend on which codebook you have. So here's the thing is, I have a printed copy of the 21 codebook. There is no index, and there is a little note saying why they've deleted it. If you go on CSAs website and log in and get the free online version, the index has been added back in and it's been updated and accurate. So I do expect that future print versions will keep the index and I certainly hope so I am for it. I think not having it erodes the quality of the documents. And I think especially when the reasons behind it are it's too complex and too complicated and cost too much to produce an index. You know, when you're still selling a what are they now over $200 book. I think the index should be there and it should never have gone away in the first place. I understand that. You know, from our perspective, we do a lot of it with the soft copy. But that's just not realistic for people in the field. And it's not realistic for people writing exams, at least not for some time. So having the ability to search isn't a real you know, Ctrl F or whatever it is to search that's not a Real thing for most people in the industry. So I'm very happy to see it come back. I hope that's actually what they're intending to do. And I, every time I run one of our code updating what's new in the code courses, I'm always asking to see if the students have versions with an index in them. As of yet, they don't care as of the last one. They don't. So I do expect to see a few versions of the print, just like the last book, everyone will have different page numbers. And I'm hoping to see the index put back in there as well. So that's my thoughts on the index. I suppose everyone probably could feel different about it. But I think we're in the worst case scenario now where from an instructional perspective, at least half of our students are going to have an index and the other half aren't. So

Jason Cox: 20:54

Oh, all right. So Dave, when I looked at this new codebook, briefly, I've been in the trade now for I think it's 25 years. And so these code books have progressively gotten bigger and bigger and bigger, the bindings have changed. And they've been pretty similar for the last couple of years. But I looked at this new codebook. And I was initially excited because it was last page numbers, I did realize it was missing, missing the index. But then I kind of looked at it a little more carefully. And it looks like either I'm getting older, or some of that text is getting smaller in some of the tables.

David Myers: 21:33

Yeah, the way they printed the tables is a little different than the 21 book. I haven't noticed it quite as much just because I've been using the soft copy for almost everything. But yeah, there's there's especially you know, the new table six, if you've seen that one? Sure. I designed a few questions based on that table. And Holy smokes, I got three different answers to the same question all three times. And that's because I was doing it, you know, or I was finding the wrong spot in the table. Because the new table six, if you haven't seen it, is a solid block of numbers. And it's easy to just, you know, point to the wrong spot and end up with the wrong answer. So definitely some changes in how the tables look. I think the font remain the same from the 2018 book, if I remember, right, I think they changed fonts from 15 to 18.

Jason Cox: 22:29

Yeah, the real numbers look very similar, like I without really examining it, but I did notice some of the organization of the tables and the font size is clearly different than some of those tables and the way that they're laid out. Now it was a little different to So reluctantly wearing glasses now and following like you said, with a ruler to make sure that I'm following the same column. Yeah,

David Myers: 22:55

well, for how much we use table six, even in the field, right, table six, if you're, if you're not familiar, is the table we use to size conduits to fit wires, and very commonly used in the fields very commonly used at school, you know, some highlights across the table to make sure you're on the right line and right column would be would be well served there for sure. All right,

Zack Hartle: 23:17

so we've got table six has changed. I think what what else matters, you know, what else? What are the big changes that we are looking into? Right? I mean, you are, as you mentioned, teach the What's New in the code course, but what are the big ones that are going to affect? I guess, everyday electricians, you know,

David Myers: 23:33

you bet. So, if this will be a very short, you know, very just a hey, heads up, these are the changes, you know, and if you do want all of the changes and how they work and calculation examples, you know, and your listeners, I would recommend taking a code updating course, there's quite a few on offer. If you're a master electrician in Alberta, you're gonna have to take one. But even if you're not even if you're a journeyman or a very interested in apprentice journey person or very interested apprentice, there's lots of these courses on offer. sate offers one. It's called the What's New in the code, if you search for it on state's website, it's about six hours, there's a little quiz at the end, we cover every meaningful change in the whole codebook. For here, I've just sort of gone through and said, Okay, look, these are the ones that affect the most people. And so I'm not gonna go through the rule numbers or any of that stuff. I'm just gonna say, hey, heads up, this is coming. February 2022 is when it's adopted in Alberta and enforce, so any permits pulled after that date. This is the stuff that you guys should be aware of. So first things first, we got flood requirements throughout section two, section six section 26. They've defined a flood hazard zone. Very, very similar to the requirements that have been in Calgary since 2013. So now they're in our electoral code. So just a heads up that that's where you can find those requirements now, and it's still up to the municipality as to whether or not something requires flood mitigation, but it is listed in code. Another thing that came up is table 39, which was a state strange table for sizing residential services and feeders they've deleted that they've gotten rid of it. In regards to residential panelboards, there was a big archaic rule in Section eight for a whole pile of stuff, they've deleted it and simplified that, they simply say you need a certain number of empty spaces leftover at the end of the job. Easy, the number of outlets per circuit has changed. So in the past, it was 12. Nonstop, and that was that now it's, you can have more depending on the type of overcurrent device you have. So you can get more than 12 outlets on a on a 20 amp circuit, for example. There's a few other allowances in there. There's something that we should all be aware of. And we should all be asking people about. If you read in Section 12. It looks like it requires ft six flame test six Lumix in the in cold air returns. So last I checked Lumex was ft four I think so just something that needs to be asked there in the in the memorandum of revision in the code discussions that go into these changes. They did say that there was no change in intent, but in the wording of the rule, it certainly looks to have have changed. So you guys will need to be having some discussions about the type of Lumex that you run through cold air returns in houses. So table 19, they've completely changed that as well. They deleted it, rewrote it, the old table 19 had 39 or 37 notes at the bottom. There are now none. So it's much better and much simpler to use. For residential, there's one really big one, when you're running Lumix down the side of a stud for example, to three gang switch or something like that, you now have to keep that Lumex back 32 millimeters from the front edge from the drywall the edge of a stud. So if you know a two by four is about 84 millimeters wide. Take 32 from each side, you're left with about one inch in the middle of it, you can staple 24 millimeters or so in the middle of that you can staple so a four gang switch a three gang switch anything where you got a lot of wires going down the same stud space, I do believe there are brackets available, but you'll have to buy those brackets now. So for you residential folks out there, that's going to be a big one for us for sure. With that they've put in a relaxation for Lumex and conduits if you're out there doing a lot of hot tubs or something like that, and you want to run the number six and a conduit where it leaves the house in the 21 codebook it's very clearly worded that you can whereas in the 18 codebook it sort of pretty well says that you can't conduit sizing has not changed in terms of what size conduit you'll get for the most part but there's no longer a quick lookup for conduit sizing we used to be able to use table six just straight up, plunk your finger down you can get eight wires and a three quarter inch and just off you go there is now a three table requirements and the calculation required every time you size conduit. So that will be a bit of a frustration. Of course when I say three tables, one of them as table eight it's always 40% Pretty much but you know that's not true. If you have two wires in a conduit though it's it's different. Right? So a little bit more involved for for conduit sizing. barns, livestock buildings, the classification has been very stringently identified in Section 22. So if you're doing a lot of farm work or rural work, just be very aware of what's happened with that. There was apparently some fires and a lot of lost livestock. And so they've really stringently worded how they've done that now. Secondary suites, there has been some pedal board and branch circuit relaxations for secondary suites. So, again, pretty similar to what we've been doing in the City of Calgary, but now it's in our codebook for you larger residential and commercial folks, every 15 or 20 amp receptacle outside requires GFCI so all your car stalls, all that stuff that didn't need them in the past. You're going to need GFCI protection on that stuff. So that's a big one for a lot of companies out there. The lighting requirements in Section 30 For dwelling units you need to light in the bedroom mutilate in the living room, all that stuff. It's all gone deleted. That doesn't mean the requirements are gone. They were duplicated requirements from the building ENCODE. So just a heads up in regards to that, you still need all those lights in the same places, you just can't find where in the codebook, it tells you to put them. And then sort of an interesting one. I don't know how many people this will affect, but I want to kind of get the word out and have a discussion with as many people as I can about it. They've taken all the battery requirements, storage batteries from section 26 and moved them to Section 64. Section 64 Being renewable energy systems. A you an uninterruptible power supply, or UPS is not a renewable energy system. So there's no requirements go to section 64 For that, yet, those still use a lot of batteries. And so as of right now, there's really nowhere in the codebook, for how to install batteries for something that's not a renewable energy system. So just something that I want to get the word out there and get people thinking about and start asking some questions so that we can get some answers on that and, and things like that. So those are, those are the ones that I sort of picked out that that will affect the most people. Obviously, there are hundreds and hundreds of changes from the 18th to the 21 book. And obviously, there's more technical wording that needs to be said about all those things that I mentioned, I just wanted to sort of throw them out.

Zack Hartle: 31:26

Absolutely, it's, it's interesting. I mean, I remember working out in the field, and new code books always came out. And you just you only heard about things as they mattered. So I think that your point about you know, let's get the discussion going and earlier talked about, you know, getting more involved and potentially taking some courses, right to get to keep yourself educated, right, especially as we're, you know, definitely in a little bit of a different economic time to have that little bit of education and knowledge definitely cannot hurt. So,

David Myers: 31:54

yep. And it's it all looks good on a resume. And it all looks you know, it's something that people in interviews want to hear. I think everybody wants interested, dedicated employees that are, you know, going outside of the norm to keep themselves current in the industry. And with things that are happening, those are the people that you want on site, those are the people that you want around you.

Jason Cox: 32:19

So Dave, when you start a what's new in the code course, or code updating course, what's the process that's required to kind of get yourself ready to, to understand and explain that information to your to your students?

David Myers: 32:33

Sure, you, you start by taking five years right off the top of your life, and you go from there. Basically, the first step when a new code book comes out, is to learn and understand the changes. And the reason that the changes exist. There's no sense trying to implement changes in courses or changes in exams until you know, a what the change is be how it works, and see why the change was made. So that's the very first step is just, you know, hit the books, run some calculations, talk to some other people, you know, go on CSAs website and pull the meeting minutes and sort of see the discussion behind all this stuff. And figure out where this change came from. The next step is to identify problem areas. So in general, section 12, for 21 has had a lot of changes. So any question that relates back to Section 12, or that uses section 12, needs to be identified. So when I say questions, I mean exam or quiz bank questions and things like that. And then after that, it's identifying the individual questions. And that is probably the longest part of the whole process, believe it or not, because some question that doesn't look like it has anything to do with a change depends entirely upon it. So you pretty much after work, every new question through the new codebook. You know, then it's actually editing the question and verifying that the edits were successful and what they're supposed to be. And then, you know, you start the same process, again, with any supplemental activities, worksheets, workbooks, any modules that might be being used, that can be edited by by us, the institution. And then of course, it's making all the edits and implementing them and running through them with the students. And invariably, we'll run through them with students that are much more intelligent than we are and I maintain that happens, every single class that I have, and they will find things that that we have missed and we go through another process to catch those and to make sure that there's nothing else that's left outstanding. You know, fortunately in Alberta, we have a year from when the codebook is published until we put it in force. And from a college perspective, at least from a school perspective. We have another eight months after that before we start with the new code. So we do have time in between the code books, but with a three year code cycle, it's pretty much a year and a half of making these edits, and then another six months of going through them with the students, and then you get a year of not having to worry about it until the new code book comes out. So it's a fairly constant thing for those of us that are doing code.

Jason Cox: 35:25

That three year cycle, it's it's a real kick in the pants there, isn't it? Yeah,

David Myers: 35:29

well, and nowadays, you know, the, the amount of changes in code is always very significant. I was involved in code much less in the in the early 2000s, because I was in the field and things, but I don't remember the changes in code, being as in depth as they are from book to book as they are now. You know, and I could certainly be wrong about that. But I feel like they're, they're coming out with code books faster, and they're changing them more. And so it just ends up being a lot of work from our perspective. And it ends up being a lot of work for people in the field, too, because they're the ones that are installing these things in different situations and finding the problems that come up with them. Hey, I did this, this is what the rule says, I don't think they knew about this situation when they wrote it. And the rule doesn't work. The last three years, we've been dealing with a specific problem with farm services, and armored conduits, because there is no way in code to deal with that. And so that's been a lot of conversation, have a lot of inspector conferences and things like that. Obviously, it wasn't their intent to miss it. But they're writing a codebook at a desk with lots of experience very capable, qualified people to do so. But I maintain that there is not one electrician on the planet that has seen it all. It's too big of a trade. And it's you know, so with a three year code cycle, and with all these changes, it just leads to a lot of these things that come up that that seems to last for quite some time after the book is implemented. Nice.

Zack Hartle: 37:11

So my question with the What's New in the code course, I know, this course is for Master electricians need to take out what's new in the code course in order to keep their master certificate in Alberta active? What is there like a certification process that you go through when you actually build that course that the CSA says yeah, this is makes this course a valid, relevant, licensed course? I guess? That's correct.

David Myers: 37:37

Yep. So the safety codes Council of Alberta requires that any safety codes count any SEC master electricians take an updating course to stay current with code. They know if you you can go to their website to find the courses that they have approved. So once the course is constructed, and built, it's issued to the safety codes Council. They review it for content and quality. And they send back any changes that they would like made, and you send the changes back to them. And then of course, assuming everything goes well, they will certify your course. And so if you are, if you're interested in code, you can take any what's new in the code course. But if you are a master in Alberta who needs to renew, you have to take one of the ones that are approved by the safety codes Council.

Zack Hartle: 38:30

Great in that process? Like I mean, we're, we're coming on July here. I assume you've been working on that that's a couple month process to you know, take the codebook go through the changes, look at them Memorandum of revisions, build a course submit it. Right. So that's quite the process. So pretty impressive.

David Myers: 38:49

It is yeah, it took normally there's a few of us that work on it. But this time, you know, with the pandemic, and with everyone working from home, it ended up you know, I did pretty well, everything I had a I had some good health, some good insights, and some people that I could go to with a lot of questions, but the actual building of the course. You know, I built this one this year, and it did, it took just about three months, by the time it was approved and ready to go

Zack Hartle: 39:18

plus five years off the top of your life. So there's

David Myers: 39:21

that, you know, but I don't have to pay for that for later. So

Jason Cox: 39:27

you know, these three years could be tough on you every three years. The good thing about the three years that like you were saying, David, it's starting to almost build a routine with our industry people have to come in and realize they have to continually train and upgrade to keep current with the code. I tend to agree with you in the past, it seemed that you could go a couple of code cycles without there being any dramatic changes. So So maybe you're looking at eight years between training, right. So so maybe this is maybe there's a silver lining out of this. I would agree with that. Definitely

Zack Hartle: 40:01

Well, you know, I think that I mean, I've got a lot of thoughts going on now about some of the new code rules. And I'm like, oh, visiting that that before. And but yeah, it's really good. So thank you so much for sharing all that with us. And yeah, thanks for joining us today on the podcast. For our listeners out there, we'd love to hear from you guys. If you did like the show. Or if you have any suggestions on future episodes, please leave us a review. Reach out to us on Instagram. Comment below. If you're on YouTube. Just let us know your thoughts. We're hoping to be out every second Monday with a new episode coming for you. And maybe even next week, we can get into some of those sections 64 renewable energy changes. We have Nathan Ward coming from the Crestview group. He's the Renewable Energy Manager just chatting with us all about his journey into solar energy. And yeah, with that, thank you so much for listening. And you guys have an awesome week.