Professional electricians pass through many hours of education, on-the-job training, and certification before earning their license. The certification process guarantees that professional electricians can deliver a certain standard of work that you just can’t achieve without those hours of training and experience.
When you’re looking for an electrician, check whether they’re an apprentice, journeyman, or master electrician, and verify that their business (or the company that employs them) is bonded, licensed, and insured.
You hire people because they can do things you cannot do: flying commercial jets, corporate litigation, repairing Teslas. Since you know absolutely nothing about the task, there is no question about hiring a professional.
You get into murky and often dangerous territory when you know a few things about the job-at-hand. As they say, a little knowledge can be dangerous.
The issue is exacerbated when you've got home remodeling writers shouting from their bully pulpits ("Do it yourself!") and home improvement stores overflowing with boxes, cable, switches, outlets, and lights practically begging to be homeowner-installed.
This point about knowledge and experience is at the core of the argument. Even if you know 92% of electrical work, it's the other 8% that can hurt you.
Death during home remodeling comes in different, often unexpected forms. The U.S. Centers For Disease Control tells us that in the workplace, "falls remain a leading cause of unintentional injury [deaths] nationwide, and 43 percent of fatal falls in the last decade have involved a ladder." From 1992 to 2002, electrocution was #6 in the list of reasons for workplace fatalities.
The point is that homeowners should fear causes that appear benign (painting the house) as much as those that have the "scary label" plastered on them (electrical).
Still, 200 amps are enough to kill you, and that's what most homes have coming into their service panels. Even 15A or 20A can do it, depending on the conditions.
First and foremost, the main reason why you should hire a professional electrician is for your own safety, your family’s safety, and the safety of your house. Working with electricity can be extremely dangerous if you do not approach it with the right expertise, safety training, and equipment.
Not only are you risking your safety while working on the repair, but if the repair is performed incorrectly you might inadvertently create long-term safety hazards in the form of electrical shocks and fire.
After you painting in your room or tile your kitchen back-splash, it's just you and your dog Spot "oooing and ahhing" over the fruits of your labors. While you should maintain basic building practices, nobody comes by afterward to check up on your work. Permits are not needed for painting your child's bedroom. Inspectors do not need to approve the trim work around your windows. Electrical work does, though. If you're going to do some homeowner-driven electrical work the right way, you will pull permits and have inspectors visit. The approval/disapproval process is just an added level of frustration you can eliminate by having electricians do the work. If they do it, most likely the permit will get "final-led." If not, it's the electrician's job to make it right--not you.
In relation to other home remodeling jobs like sanding drywall or digging up sewer pipes, electrical work can be classified as "fun" (along with "clean" and "yields to logic.").
Few people, though, ever take on their own electrical work because it is fun. When you step back and compare electrical work to other things in your life not related to remodeling--playing with your kids, traveling, eating out, seeing a movie--running 12/2 cable through a cobwebbed basement pales is not great by comparison. Simply put, you've got better things to do in life, and hiring out allows you to do those things.