Rant: A customer in Phoenix wanted me to run conduit across their living room ceiling

Last week, I was at a house in Phoenix for a panel upgrade. The owner wanted me to run a new circuit for a wall-mounted TV, but the only path was exposed EMT straight across their fancy textured ceiling. I said it would look bad and offered to fish the wall instead, which would take longer and cost more. He argued that the conduit was 'industrial chic' and perfectly fine. Has anyone else had a client fight you on an ugly but easy install versus a clean but harder one?

3 comments

3 Comments

west.casey2mo ago

Charge him extra for the conduit and call it a design fee. If he's happy with it and pays, that's his problem.

the_sam2mo ago

Wait, is this the new way to get paid for bad cable management? @west.casey might be onto something here. Just tell the client the messy wires are a feature, not a bug, and charge them for the "artistic layout." Honestly, if they don't know any better, that's just free money. Next you'll be selling tangled extension cords as modern art.

blakestone2mo ago

Yeah, I just did the clean fish and ate the extra time. My name's on the work, and I don't want photos of a hack job floating around.