Local Electrician Spends 14 Hours Debating Wire Gauge in Online Forum, Misses Actual Job

Master electrician Dale Kirchhoff failed to appear at a scheduled residential rewiring job Tuesday after becoming trapped in what colleagues describe as a 'wire gauge death spiral' on the ElectroPro Forums.

The thread, titled 'Is 14 AWG Acceptable for a 15-Amp Kitchen Circuit or Are You a Criminal,' had already reached 247 replies when Kirchhoff logged on at 6:14 AM. By noon, it had ballooned to over 600, with Kirchhoff personally responsible for 83 of them.

'He started out reasonable,' said forum moderator Conduit_King_1987. 'But by reply 40 he was citing the 1947 edition of the NEC and calling people who use 14 gauge on kitchen circuits moral degenerates.'

Kirchhoff's client, homeowner Theresa Platt, waited four hours before calling the shop. 'He told me he was dealing with a code emergency,' Platt said. 'I assumed he meant at someone's house.'

At press time, Kirchhoff had escalated the debate to include references to copper's atomic structure, the founding principles of Ohm's Law, and what he called 'the ethical bankruptcy of the modern electrical supply chain.' He has not yet left his desk.

His business partner has apologized to three rescheduled clients and disconnected the office router.