Dear Friends,
Imagine being a popular home inspector on social media, with the ear of hundreds of thousands of people, with a reputation of wanting to understand the code and accept correction, and suddenly deciding to throw all that reputation away for views. “You either die a hero or live to see yourself become the villain.”
Our characters this time—home inspector Cy Porter of CyFy Home Inspections, code educator/maker Paul Abernathy, code inspector TheBeardedInspector, code educator TheAngrySparky, and the unfortunate electrician Brandon Velasco, who honestly seems like the victim here. To whom? We’ll get to that.
The Beginning
It all started with Brandon posting this video on TikTok of his excellent panelboard wire management.
Paul Abernathy found this video, and, as he does, posted a quick video pointing out the code violation for this installation, as per NEC 312.5(C), which requires that any cable entering a cabinet, cutout box, or meter socket enclosure must be fastened to the box itself, like with a Romex connector or similar. There IS an exception to this, only for non flexible raceways going out the TOP of the box, but there’s no exception for going in the back of a box like this.
Apparently, this caused a bit of a stir as Paul’s critique gained popularity, and Paul’s video was later taken down.
Diving In
A little while later, Cy Porter posted what I would call the “inciting incident” for the drama.
In this video, Cy assumes that Paul was attacking Brandon, and attempted to evade accountability by deleting his video. After painting Paul as a high and mighty code expert that doesn’t listen, Cy brings out the “whataboutism” argument—there’s no point in talking about this aspect of the code as long as there are other bad fly-by-night electrical contractors out there. What about them? THINK OF THE BAD CONTRACTORS!
Now, someone could be forgiven for not knowing who Paul Abernathy is. If you aren’t deep in the world of the National Electric Code, you may not have come across his name. He’s the founder of Electrical Code Academy, a licensed electrician since 1989, and more importantly, sat on development committees for the 2014, 2017, 2020, and the 2023 National Electrical Code. So he both knows what he’s talking about and has the authority to talk about it.
Cy COULD be forgiven for posting something without knowing that. But the problem is that he DID know that.
The Angry Sparky and Cy have had rapport for a long time. Cy asks Sparky questions about code stuff to make sure he’s right, and presumably adjusts his content based on that feedback. This was a similar situation. Cy asked Sparky about this, Sparky answered that he’s gotta ask the state why this is allowed and that Paul’s right.
The Consequences
Shortly after Cy posted his video, Paul responded with another. Here, Paul explains that he took down his original video by request. It’s not clear who requested it (it doesn’t really matter), but the point here is that Paul showed some understanding toward the situation and didn’t need to make it a huge deal.
If Cy had showed Paul respect in this situation, and asked him anything about the video that was taken down, he would have gotten this answer. But nope, Cy ignored Sparky’s advice and clearly decided to aim for drama. So, Paul decided to repay in kind.
Immediately after posting this, Paul went on a rampage, with post after post critiquing Cy’s videos.
Right around this time, The Bearded Inspector got in on the action with a video of his own. This video served to basically show the NEC text exactly and walk through the exceptions that don’t apply in this scenario.
Deflection, Deceit, & Doxxing
Finally, Cy responded to one of Paul’s reaction videos (but only on Facebook reels, which is weird).
Cy posits here that Paul is intentionally lying to make him look bad. In his original video, Cy was insinuating that a bathroom GFI turning the light off should fail inspection. Paul pointed out that it’s not at all against code, as per NEC 210.11(C)(3)’s exception. Cy then claims that Paul is lying to make him look bad, because the light from another bathroom turned off as well, meaning that the GFI supposedly controlled multiple bathroom receptacles and lights.
You can say a lot of things that likely aren’t gonna be fact-checked by your average Facebook user. But, I mean, watch this original video and see what YOU can see.
I don’t see another bathroom light, do you? There’s no plausible reason to think Paul is intentionally lying, BUT it does seem like Cy is intentionally lying about Paul’s integrity, in an attempt to win views on Facebook. It WOULD then make sense to post his video on Facebook alone, because nobody’s gonna try to go find the original TikTok or Instagram video to prove him wrong.
And, when you catch an “expert” intentionally lying about something, it kinda makes it easy to know that you can’t trust this “expert witness”.
While we’re on rabbit trails here, I wanted to mention that 5 DAYS after his supposed “last” post on the topic (at the bottom of the page, we haven’t gotten there yet), Cy actually doxxed The Bearded Inspector on his Facebook, linking his FB profile and showing his name. He did black out TBI’s family’s faces in the video, but that doesn’t make it a whole lot better. Doxxing someone like that, when you have a huge online audience like Cy’s, is incredibly irresponsible, dangerous, and immature.
Code & Conduct
Anyway, we’re getting lost a little bit in the micro-drama now. So let’s bring it back to the main branch. This was the moment that The Angry Sparky got publicly involved. Since posting this video, it was taken down for personal reasons, but Paul did a duet with it, so you can still see it here. Sparky clearly did a bunch of research into local amendments to the code, and in Maricopa County, they had proposals to change this (as seen below), but nothing in the current amendments show that anything was passed.
The only place (that we’ve found so far) in Arizona to actually pass amendments to 312.5(C) to allow the practice, was Town of Oro Valley, AZ. You can see those here.
However, this does not apply to all of Arizona, and as far as Sparky could find, there was nothing allowing this exception to the code in the jurisdiction of the original video. Sparky, appropriately, pointed out that facts hurt your feelings. This is also backed up by this Bearded Inspector’s video.
After this, the drama went to 11. Because I’m friends with Sparky, I had a front row seat when Cy blocked Angry Sparky on all platforms and unsent all messages he ever sent. THEN. Cy posted this video.
Here, Cy plays victim yet again, attempting to paint Paul as an asshole, and attempting to insult The Angry Sparky by attaching his stickers to a diaper and throwing it in the garbage.
No defense, no real apology, just sensationalism. And, ironically, the quote from the Dark Knight: “You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”
The Victim
I did say before that I thought Brandon is the victim here, right? Let’s get back to that, real quick.
During this entire saga, Brandon has been extremely chill, despite everything flying around. And, because of this, everyone critiquing Cy has been extremely polite to him. You can check out this Bearded Inspector’s video, where he responds to a comment where Brandon himself says he’s a bystander and is just curious about where all of this goes. In any comment that I’ve been able to find, he’s been chill, understanding that nobody is attacking him.
It strikes me that while Cy may have communicated with Brandon about doing this before posting his first video (I’m speculating, here), this crusade seems very likely to be from the mind and heart of Cy, and Brandon is just the victim of Cy’s massive need for attention.
Refutation
I’m going to wrap it up with this last reaction video from Paul Abernathy.
All I can say, is that what he insinuates here about the history between Cy and Sparky is something I can absolutely corroborate. In the past, Sparky has pointed Cy out to me as “one of the good ones,” meaning Cy has been very good about asking advice, and taking advice.
I don’t know what changed here, but as I mentioned earlier, he did ask for advice about this situation and chose to IGNORE IT. Afterward, he got all bent out of shape after Sparky called him on it publicly, and threw a hissy fit with a childish diaper stunt.
(On a side note: WHY. Why would you use your children [and their DIAPERS, no less] to further escalate an absolutely stupid internet beef. Like, this feels so insanely gross. And to do that to try to insult and turn the knife in a friend?! Unreal.)
The Fallen
Okay, one more video to actually wrap things up. Namely, the video Cy posted a few weeks earlier when he got his stickers from Angry Sparky. Knowing how Cy conducted himself in this saga, the video hits VERY different today.
I expect if this post gets back to Cy, he’ll be following his new playbook of blocking experts instead of befriending them, in which case, good riddance.
Dramatically yours,
the solarboi
Do you have more info on this story, or tips on another hot piece of drama circling electrical social media? Contact me at tips@electricdramatic.com!