SPARKY WEEKLY

⚡ Sparky Weekly — Week 26

🗓️ September 13, 2026

Another week of studying, building, learning, and continuing to figure out where all of this is going.

Week 26 was another week of trying to keep the electrical side of everything at the center while continuing to build JoshTheSparky into more than just a social-media page. The studying, NEC questions, calculations, Bay Path training, Quick Hits, Brain Busters, Question of the Week, website, community, app, podcast, and everything else are all still connected to the same bigger goal.

I'm trying to become a better electrician, not just somebody who can memorize enough answers to pass a test. That means continuing to work the questions, find the Code sections, read the surrounding material, understand the calculations, learn from other electricians and educators, and then try to explain what I learned in a way that somebody else can actually use.

So there is still plenty to study.

⚡ This Week's Focus

🧠 Study Time & NEC Questions

The biggest part of the week is still the studying. I'm continuing to work through NEC questions, calculations, theory, demand factors, load calculations, equipment, branch circuits, grounding and bonding, and all the little details that come up when you're actually trying to understand the Code instead of just reading it.

The goal is still the same: don't just get the answer—know how to find it again.

STUDY HOURS: 20

QUESTIONS WORKED: 300

📚 Bay Path Journeyman Training

I'm continuing with Bay Path Journeyman Training Module 5, and this week I finished Class 1, Week 1 — just an overview of the class, but it laid out what's coming: load calculations from Article 1, box fill, conduit fill, AC theory, and electrical circuitry.

One thing I like about having both the school material and my own independent studying going on is that they don't have to be separate. Something can come up in school and send me down a NEC rabbit hole, or something I studied independently can make more sense when it comes up again in class. That's really what I'm trying to build — connecting the pieces instead of treating every subject like its own separate thing.

⚡ NEC Study, Calculations & Theory

The calculations are still a major part of the learning process. Load calculations, demand factors, equipment loads, dwelling calculations, Ohm's Law, power, resistance, current, voltage, and all the other pieces of electrical theory keep showing up throughout the studying.

The more I work through them, the more I realize how much of the electrical trade connects back to the basics. You can keep adding more complicated Code sections and equipment, but if you don't understand the fundamentals underneath them, eventually you're going to hit a wall.

📲 Quick Hits & Electrical Topics

The Quick Hits this week were a mix of some popular reposts from the early days of JoshTheSparky that I went back and retouched, plus finishing up Chapter 1 of the NEC study slides. Those are all being formatted into the website's Quick Hit section right now.

The goal with these isn't just to throw a random electrical fact on a slide — I want the short-form stuff to actually make somebody stop for a second, think about the question, and hopefully want to go find the Code section themselves.

❓ Question of the Week

This week's 2026 NEC Question of the Week asked whether four #8 THHN copper conductors, three #10 THHN copper conductors, and one #10 THHN copper equipment grounding conductor comply with the conduit-fill requirements for a 1-inch EMT raceway.

The previous Question of the Week — the dwelling calculation involving four household electric ranges at 10 kW, 14 kW, 15 kW, and 21 kW — was a good example of why I keep coming back to the same process: find the section, understand what it's asking, do the calculation, check the surrounding Code, and verify the answer.

I don't want Question of the Week to become a collection of answers people memorize. I want it to become practice for actually navigating the NEC.

🧠 2026 NEC Brain Busters

There are now 3 packets of the 2026 NEC Brain Busters available at joshthesparky.com/brain-busters.

The Brain Busters are another place where I'm trying to make the learning process a little more active. Instead of just reading a section and moving on, the idea is to find the answer, figure out where it comes from, work through it, and verify it. The answer matters, but the process of getting there matters too.

🔎 Deep NEC Web Browsing

Deep NEC Web Browsing Episode 2 is up, and it's focused on something I think is becoming more and more important: knowing how to research information correctly. This episode dives into the changes from the 2023 to the 2026 NEC, working off an EC&M article by Mike Holt covering the top 25 changes.

There's a lot of electrical information online, and not all of it holds up — some of it is great, some of it is outdated, some of it is based on a different NEC edition, some of it leaves out important context, and some of it is just wrong. So learning how to search, identify the edition, find reliable sources, follow references, compare information, and verify the answer is becoming part of the skill set too.

Full episode here: Deep NEC Web Browsing — Episode 2

⭐ Featured Sparkys

The September Featured Sparkys got an update this week — the current lineup represents different sides of the trade: @The360Electrician on the business side of electrical contracting (estimating, operations, finances, marketing, and building a company), @its_electricaltime with electrical knowledge, tips, tutorials, and social/video education, @thepreachingelectrician covering trade, motivation, faith, and the mindset behind the work, @new_mexico_sparky bringing the inspector's perspective, and @johnny.the.electrician with workplace humor, memes, and relatable trade content.

Everybody doesn't have to create the same type of content. There's room for business owners, apprentices, educators, inspectors, electricians, and people simply sharing what life in the trade looks like.

🎓 Electrical Educators

I continued learning from other people in the electrical industry and using their material as another part of the study process. This week that included catching up on Thomas Domitrovich's "Mastering the Electrical Service" series — Part 2 and now Part 3 — which is another good example of learning by watching how other educators break down a topic.

That includes educators, inspectors, contractors, organizations, manufacturers, Code experts, and other electricians who are willing to share what they've learned. I'm not trying to learn from one person or one source — the more perspectives I can compare, the better I can understand where the information comes from and where I still need to verify it for myself.

📰 Trade News & Industry Reading

The industry reading continues as well, still keeping up with resources including NECA, MECA, EC&M, Electrical Contractor Magazine, Mike Holt, Electrical Code Academy, NEC/NFPA, CMECP, IAEI, and other electrical-industry publications and educators.

NECA's Code Question of the Day gave me a lot to work through this week. One good one was about upsizing an equipment grounding conductor when the ungrounded conductors get bumped from 12 AWG to 8 AWG for voltage drop — it comes down to 250.122(D) and sizing the EGC by circular-mil ratio instead of just jumping AWG numbers, which lands you on an 8 AWG EGC. Another asked whether a branch circuit can actually be derived from an autotransformer, and that comes down to 210.9 and whether the circuit has a grounded conductor tied back to the supply system. There was also a detailed follow-up on transformer inrush current, X/R ratios, and properly sizing contactors that switch transformers per NEMA ICS 2 — a good reminder that primary OCPD sizing and contactor sizing aren't the same conversation. And one more worth remembering: Class 2 cable can't just share a tray with power wiring — 722.15(J) requires a solid barrier or Type MC cable.

A few things from EC&M stood out too, including the Tech Talk on selecting overcurrent protection for motors under Article 430, the Code Conversations episode on the new Power Control Systems requirement in Sec. 120.7, and the two-part series on harmonics, covering how nonlinear loads distort waveforms and lead to overheating and downtime. Wisconsin officially adopted the 2023 NEC this week, and both California and Pennsylvania moved on data center electricity and siting rules — a reminder that Code adoption and energy policy keep moving even when it's not the edition you're currently studying.

That's another good example of why simply knowing that a Code section exists isn't always enough. You need to understand the actual requirement, the equipment involved, and the reasoning behind it.

📲 NECChat / FastTraxSystem

The community side continues growing through NECChat / FastTraxSystem, where you can join for free and answer weekly questions.

There was a notification update this week — push notifications for posts and replies are part of the ongoing improvements, making it easier for members to keep up with conversations without having to constantly check back manually.

A couple posts stood out on the forum this week. Rob Nickman posted about repairing home runs in an apartment after a fire, where the root cause traced back to someone swapping a 20-amp double-pole breaker for a 30-amp one — worth a look if you like a good field mystery. And Paul Abernathy put out an important heads-up for anyone using the mobile app: if you already downloaded it, delete it and re-download for notifications to actually work, and clear your browser cookies too.

The goal is still to create a place where electricians, apprentices, students, educators, and people interested in the trade can actually have conversations instead of everything disappearing into a social-media feed.

🌐 JoshTheSparky.com

The website continues to be the main home for the entire project. That's still important to me because social media is great for reaching people, but I don't want the entire history of JoshTheSparky to live inside somebody else's feed. Posts get buried, platforms change, algorithms change, and accounts can disappear. Websites can become outdated too, but at least I can organize the information into an archive that actually belongs together.

If you come across something broken, missing, or acting weird on the site, you can still report it at ask@joshthesparky.com.

📱 JoshTheSparky App

The JoshTheSparky Base44 app is now live at joshthesparky.base44.app, with forums and Brain Busters already up and more on the way.

The community/forum side continues to grow, and the member layer is being built around profiles, reputation, achievements, dashboards, settings, and other community features. The app is another piece of the larger project, but the main website is still the primary home. The goal isn't to replace everything overnight — it's to keep building the pieces until they actually work together.

📰 Sparky Monthly

Sparky Monthly Newsletter for September is out now at joshthesparky.com/newsletter. The newsletter is another way of pulling together everything happening around JoshTheSparky instead of expecting people to keep up with every individual post.

📖 Sparky's Journal

The Journal continues as the more personal side of the website. Recent entries have included What Is NECA, Featured Sparkys of September, NEC 2026 Book Highlight, and NECA's 125-Year Anniversary.

The Journal gives me a place to actually talk through what I'm learning, what I'm thinking about, tools, the trade, Code, mistakes, experiences, and everything else that doesn't necessarily fit into a Quick Hit or a formal lesson.

🎙️ JoshTheSparky Radio & Podcast

joshthesparky.com/radio got a major update this week. The plan is to bring all video content over to the RSS feed as well, either as full video or just audio, as another layer of archiving for JoshTheSparky content.

The live broadcast is also something I want to bring back. The goal is to have the radio side become another place for longer conversations, trade discussions, learning, and community — not just another place to repost short videos.

🎓 Teaching & Future Courses

The teaching side is still something I'm taking seriously — I'm working on a "How to Study" mini-course right now.

Before jumping straight into bigger educational courses, I want to continue developing the practice teaching course and get better at actually explaining electrical concepts. Knowing something and teaching something are two different skills — if I can't explain why something works, where the Code comes from, how the calculation works, and what the surrounding information means, then I probably need to study it more myself.

Eventually, I still want to do a deeper NEC Chapter 1 course. But I want to make sure the foundation is there first.

🤖 TradeHog & AI

TradeHog.net continues to be the official AI of JoshTheSparky.com, and it's not a paid sponsorship. There's now a demo available at joshthesparky.com/ai — you get two uses an hour, plus some of my own notes on what to actually ask it.

The idea is to explore how AI can actually be useful for electricians and other skilled trades while still being realistic about its limitations. AI can help you find information, organize thoughts, explain concepts, and work through problems, but that doesn't mean you blindly trust the first answer it gives you. Verify it. Especially when we're talking about electrical work, Code requirements, safety, calculations, licensing, or anything else where being wrong can actually matter.

🏫 Building the Long-Term Archive

This is still one of the biggest parts of what I'm trying to accomplish. JoshTheSparky isn't supposed to just be a bunch of posts from an apprentice's social-media accounts — I want there to eventually be years of journal entries, weekly reports, newsletters, questions, Brain Busters, lessons, videos, podcasts, community conversations, projects, and resources. Something that somebody can actually go back through.

I'm still building it, and there's a long way to go. But that's the point.

🏗️ NECA Show 2026

The 2026 NECA Show is coming up October 4–7 in Las Vegas. I'm not attending this year, but I'll still be following the educational material, new products, industry discussions, and other information coming out of the event.

📊 Following & Growth

A few milestones this week: the YouTube channel passed 100,000 total views, and I hit 450 uploads on vidIQ, along with crossing 100 subscribers on one of the channels. TikTok is closing in on 4,500 followers and 40K likes, Instagram is getting close to 400 followers, Snapchat is near 7,500, and Clapper is close to 100.

Numbers aren't the point, but it's still good to see the audience growing alongside the archive.

🧰 Product of the Week

This week's product spotlight continues with Stack Caddy by Paul Abernathy. It's a modular, stackable storage system designed around a pretty simple problem: keeping smaller jobsite items organized and accessible.

I like products like this because they're solving an actual jobsite problem instead of just being another tool for the sake of having another tool.

📖 Daily Foundation

The foundation is still the same: study the trade, work the questions, build experience, learn from people who know more than you, explain what you're learning, and verify everything.

There's a lot happening around JoshTheSparky right now. The website, the app, the community, and the content all keep growing, the Journal and newsletter keep growing right alongside them, the podcast and broadcast are being rebuilt, and the educational side is getting bigger. But underneath all of that is still one apprentice trying to become a better electrician, and that's what I don't want to lose.

I don't want JoshTheSparky to become so focused on building a website, making content, growing numbers, or creating new projects that I forget why I started doing any of it in the first place. The electrical trade is still the foundation. The NEC is still the classroom, the questions are still the practice, the field is still where the knowledge has to make sense, and the community is still the people. Everything else is being built around that, and I'm still learning how all of it fits together.

⚡ Keep Going

Another week down — another week of studying, another week of questions, another week of building, another week of learning something I didn't know before.

I'm nowhere near finished, and honestly, I don't think this is something that ever really gets finished. There will always be another Code section, another calculation, another job, another tool, another question, another mistake to learn from, another thing to understand.

So keep going. Keep studying, keep building, keep learning, take care of yourself, and confirm everything.

You're the electrician. ⚡

See you next week.

📖 Verse of the Week

"Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint." — Isaiah 40:31

There's something about that promise of renewed strength that fits a week like this — studying, working, building, and still finding the energy to keep going.

🎵 Song of the Week

Jay-Z ft. Eminem — "Renegade"

⚡ SPARKY WEEKLY — WEEK 26

Keep studying. Keep building. Keep learning.

#SPARKYWEEKLY #NEC #ELECTRICAL #MAELECTRICIAN #APPRENTICE #2026NEC #BAYPATH #ELECTRICIAN #ELECTRICALAPPRENTICE #JOSHTHESPARKY #TRADEHOG #NECCHAT #ELECTRICALTRADE