SPARKY WEEKLY

⚡ Sparky Weekly: Week 27

🗓️ September 20, 2026

This week had a lot going on, but it all came back to one thing: learning the trade and building a place where that knowledge can live.

The NEC studying keeps going. Bay Path Module 5 is getting deeper. Chapter 1 of Quick Hits is finished, and Chapter 2 is the main content focus now. JoshTheSparky is turning into an archive more than a feed. The social posts are the front door, and the website is where everything stays.

⚡ This Week's Focus

🧠 Study Time & NEC Questions

Most of my week is still NEC questions, calculations, and theory: voltage drop, load calcs, grounding and bonding, equipment, circuitry. The goal hasn't changed:

Don't just get the answer. Know how to find it again.

Anyone can recognize the right answer when it's handed to them. The real skill is starting from a problem, working out what you need, finding the right Code section or table, doing the math, and checking that the result makes sense. That's what I'm practicing.

📚 Bay Path Journeyman Training: Module 5

Module 5 was heavy on electrical math and AC theory this week. We covered:

• Peak and RMS values, sine waves, and reading oscilloscopes

• Ohm's Law and Kirchhoff's Law

• Resistance, reactance, and impedance

• Power factor, true power, apparent power, and efficiency

• Capacitance, inductance, and frequency

• Series and parallel circuits

• Single-phase and three-phase calculations, including neutral loads on a wye system

• Horsepower, watts, VA, and kVA

• Resistor color bands, powers of ten, circular mils, and temperature conversions

I'm also working through voltage drop and conductor sizing. That means calculating the drop on an existing circuit, subtracting it from the total allowable, and using what's left to size conductors for an extension.

Module 5 is pulling a lot of the math I've run into while studying into one place. The more I work with the formulas, the less they feel like separate things. They start to look like different ways of describing the same system.

❓ Question of the Week

This week's 2026 NEC Question of the Week is another voltage-drop problem.

An electrician is installing a 230-volt, single-phase circuit supplying a 32-amp load using #10 AWG copper THHN conductors. Using the 2026 NEC, what's the maximum one-way circuit distance while limiting voltage drop to 6%?

(A) 68 ft
(B) 110 ft
(C) 140 ft
(D) 170 ft

Don't just punch numbers into a formula. Find the circular mil area of the #10 AWG conductor, find the voltage-drop information you need, choose the right calculation, and work it from there. I don't only want your answer. I want to know where you found it and how you got there.

🔎 Deep NEC Web Browsing

Episode 3 is out, along with three outtakes. The point of this series is that knowing how to research electrical information is just as important as knowing the information.

There's a huge amount of material online: articles, forum threads, PDFs, manufacturer documents, old references, new references. Some of it is useful. Some is outdated, based on a different NEC edition, missing context, or just wrong. So the process is:

Search. Find the source. Identify the edition. Follow the references. Verify.

I'm keeping the outtakes too. The finished episode is useful, but so is the process behind it.

🎥 Sparky's Everyday Carry Tool Bag

There's a new video on my everyday carry tool bag. I like documenting what I actually use instead of talking about tools in the abstract. What I carry changes with the job, and part of getting experience is learning what earns a spot in the bag and what stays in the truck.

📲 Quick Hits: Chapter 1 Done, Chapter 2 Underway

Chapter 1 is fully finished. Chapter 2 is about 70% done, with the rest still to work through. The goal is to take the whole Code chapter by chapter in this format. The site currently has Introduction, Chapters 1 through 9, and Annexes.

My approach is the same as before. Don't just copy text onto a slide. Understand what the Article is doing, pull out the key terms, look at the surrounding requirements, and decide what someone studying for an exam or working in the field should take away. Short doesn't have to mean shallow.

I'm also reorganizing JoshTheSparky.com/quick-hits so the growing list of episodes is easy to navigate. It can't just be a pile of pages.

🌐 The Archive

The website keeps growing: more Quick Hits, Journal entries, questions, Brain Busters, videos, and study material every week. At some point, organizing the content matters as much as creating it.

I don't want JoshTheSparky to be a social account with a website attached. I want the website to be the actual record. If someone finds a Quick Hit six months from now, it should still be there, along with the old Weeklies, the Journal, Questions of the Week, videos, and everything else. The mistakes stay too, along with the things I learned from them.

📖 Sparky's Journal

Recent entries include Building My Custom Klein Test Kit, What Is NECA, and How Solar Panels Convert DC Power Into AC Power. Not everything needs to be a formal lesson. Sometimes it's just something I'm learning, or a tool, or something I found interesting. The Journal gives all of that a home.

🎓 Learning How to Teach

Teaching is its own skill. You can understand something well enough to solve the problem and still struggle to explain it. Quick Hits, Brain Busters, Deep NEC Web Browsing, and the Journal all give me practice at it. If I can't explain why something works or where the answer comes from, I still have studying to do. So I'm learning everything twice: once by studying it, and once by trying to teach it.

📲 Three Posts a Day

I'm staying with three posts a day through the end of 2026. It gives the content a steady rhythm and room to mix NEC study, questions, calculations, Quick Hits, videos, tools, and trade info. The important part is that it's sustainable. I'd rather have a system I can keep building than a crazy schedule that burns me out in two weeks.

📰 Trade News

Grid and manufacturing

• Hitachi Energy is investing $528 million in a Mississippi transformer plant. The Gallman facility will more than double Hitachi's US capacity for small and medium power transformers (10 to 160 MVA, up to 230 kV). Production is expected to start in 2029, which matters given how tight transformer supply has been.

• NEMA is warning about the grid. They project electricity demand up about 55% by 2050, driven by AI and data centers, and they're pushing Congress on permitting reform, including the STRONG Grid Act, REWIRE Act, and High-Capacity Grid Act.

• FERC is pushing grid operators to rewrite data center interconnection rules. It issued show cause orders to six regional operators, and proposals are expected this fall. For contractors, that likely means more substation and transmission work moving from planning to construction.

Data centers and energy

• Google and Meta are among the hyperscalers investing in long-duration batteries for AI demand.

• Meta signed a PPA with Apex Clean Energy for the 144-MW Starling Solar project in Texas, expected online in 2027.

• Closer to home, Beverly Public Schools and National Grid in Massachusetts are using electric school buses as virtual power plants. The pilot has discharged 10.8 MWh back to the grid.

Code and safety

• Neutrals and nonlinear loads. A NECA Code Question of the Day covered a 3-phase, 4-wire feeder serving LED drivers and computer equipment. The answer was that the neutral counts as a current-carrying conductor when the major portion of the load is nonlinear (310.15(E)(3)), and it counts for conduit fill regardless. That connects to the neutral-load work in Module 5.

• EV chargers on an essential electrical system. Another CQD covered putting EVSE on the equipment branch. It's permitted, not required, and the charger demand has to be included in generator and transfer switch sizing. The reference moved to 517.44(C)(3) in the 2026 NEC.

• 2026 NEC changes. EC&M ran a piece on key revisions to Chapter 2 (GFCI, outdoor outlets, kitchen receptacles), and a Code Conversations episode on the new power control systems rules in 120.7. Since Chapter 2 is my current Quick Hits focus, I'll be looking at both.

• OSHA. Fall protection was the most-cited standard for the 16th straight year, though preliminary fiscal 2026 data shows fewer violations overall, with 4,041 fall protection citations, down 31.7%.

Industry and workforce

• NECA's Western Ohio chapter hosted Sen. Bernie Moreno and DOE leadership. Contractors raised data center resistance, copper and steel costs, and supply chain issues, and described how the chapter is growing apprentice classes and adding JATC labs.

• A new skilled trades coalition, led by a large home improvement retailer, announced a goal of training 1 million workers.

• NECA 2026 is in Las Vegas October 4 to 7, and Mike Holt is returning to ELECTRICAL CONTRACTOR magazine.

The bigger economic picture

Oil has topped $100 a barrel amid the Middle East conflict, and the Fed raised rates this week for the first time in three years. Mortgage rates also had their biggest jump in over a year, and the housing market is watching that closely. Rates and material costs both affect project financing, so they're worth keeping an eye on.

As always, verify it, especially anything involving Code, calculations, or safety.

📚 The Bigger Picture

• The NEC is the classroom.

• The questions are the practice.

• Bay Path is the formal training.

• The field is where it all has to work.

• Quick Hits are the short lessons.

• Brain Busters are the problems.

• Question of the Week is the challenge.

• Deep NEC Web Browsing is the research practice.

• The Journal is where I write things out.

• The website is the archive.

And the community is everyone learning alongside each other. It's not just a social page, a blog, or a study account. It's a growing record of the process of becoming a better electrician.

There's always another formula, another Code section, another job, another thing I don't understand yet. That's part of the trade, and it's why I enjoy this.

⚡ Keep Going

Chapter 1 is done and Chapter 2 is underway. Module 5 is getting deeper. The Question of the Week is live, and the archive keeps growing. I'm not trying to finish everything tomorrow. I'm trying to build something that lasts.

Take care of yourself. Confirm everything.

You're the electrician. ⚡

See you next week.

📖 Verse of the Week

“Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.” — Ecclesiastes 9:10 (KJV)

🎵 Song of the Week

"Deira City Centre" by Night Lovell

⚡ SPARKY WEEKLY: WEEK 27

Keep studying. Keep building. Keep learning.

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