Colorado has similar restrictions, but we also are allowed to do our own wiring with a special waiver from the local authority (city, county, state, whichever applies in certain areas) and with the proviso that the wiring is inspected by that authority. Of course, that requires familiarity with the wiring section of the building code, but for ordinary household wiring, that’s not too hard. I wired my own garage/woodworking shop and had it inspected with no problems, although it was a PITA to get the contractor waiver. I still had a contractor wire in the breaker box from the house box and run the first circuit. Everything after that, I did on my own. It was worth the money saved.
In defense of strict building codes, let me offer this:
When I first got into the news biz back in the early 1970s, I got sent to cover a lot of fires – and I mean a LOT of fires – in single-family residences. Fires that sometimes killed people. We always followed up after the initial fire and, time after time, the cause was found to be “faulty wiring.” We didn’t have computers back then, but if I had, I’d have created a macro for “faulty wiring.” And guess who was doing the faulty wiring. Yup. homeowners. Over the years, states and even municipalities have screwed the lid down tight on who can do wiring in buildings. It’s been a long, long time since I read a story about a residential fire attributed to “faulty wiring.”
Most people have the attitude that, “Well, it’s my house, if I want to take my chances with my electrical skill, I should be able to do that.” The problem comes when somebody else buys the house. My wife’s younger brother is a licensed master electrician and former state electrical inspector. I’ve heard many harrowing tales about handyman-wired deathtraps and, on two occasions, had the opportunity to see first-hand what he was talking about. I don’t want to live in a house that hasn’t been wired (or at the very least closely inspected) by a state-licensed electrician.
If you install faulty wiring and the house burns to the ground that becomes lots of peoples’ business. Yours - because you and/or your family are dead or injured. Possibly your neighbor because, depending on the type of construction, your faulty wiring may lead to a fire that burns down not only your house but his. Lastly, it becomes my problem because your faulty wiring, which burned down your house, when taken in tandem with the other dolts that do this, have a direct impact on the fire insurance premiums that the community pays.
I live in Warren County Missouri and we don’t need any permits at all. No codes either. OK, for new construction you do need a building permit, but that’s only to make sure that the tax rolls are kept up to date.
I live in the county and apparently can do my own work. I own a house in the city, though, and the codes in Little Rock certainly seem to be part of some Good Old Boy network. An associate of mine, with an electrician license from the state, cannot submit a job for inspection by the mysterious city inspectors who will not speak to anyone not licensed by the city. He refused to take money for helping me after I was screwed by Beard Electric, but I had to pay a company with the mysterious city license to come, stare at his work and file for an inspection by the city. :rolleyes:
My response to this could only be put into The Pit.
Let’s just say that although legally you are probably correct, for all practical purposes IMO the local government is greatly overstepping their bounds.
If you have electricians at work that you know well, couldn’t they fill out the form for you and inspect your work, thus satisfying the permit requirements?
That’s the route that I’m pursuing right now. The problem is that none of the people I’ve asked so far have an electrician’s license. PE’s? Sure! 40 years of experience in electrical power engineering? Got it covered! Ability to install 10 ft coax cable in wall legally? Not so much.
And even if you get an electrician, a lot of them have no idea how to run ethernet anyway. When our house was built, I ordered (and paid for) cat5e to every room for ethernet. When I looked at what the electrician had done on a walkthrough, I saw he had (a) wired it daisy chain like a phone installation, and (b) run the cat5e bundled with the coax and phone line, only a few inches from the 110. Luckily I had written in the order that the GC had countersigned that (a) it was supposed to be all home runs from each room to the basement and (b) all cat5 was to be 12" minimum from any power lines. He was not happy he had to rip it all out and start over.
In the 60s, Spain got a lot of areas built like this:
Local priest sees a need for people to get houses with such things as indoor plumbing and electricity. Priest either manages to get some land or donates some church land. Priest gets together with people who need houses and they build houses on that land. No contractors are involved. Many of the guys involved have some handyman experience but, depending on the area, this may go from “everybody knows how to build a wooden table but nobody knows how to do brickwork” to “everybody can build a brick wall but nobody knows how to work wood;” at the start, nobody has any experience in electrical work; there may or may not be someone who’s seen a pipe before.
My house is a flat in one of those areas. I needed to get some electrical work done and called an electrician, who was completely befuddled by the setup he found. In the end he was able to track down the guy who’d done the original install. Between the two of them they were able to draw a schematic which let my electrician complete the work without leaving my neighbors in the dark for a couple of days… the whole building (12 homes) has a single fuse box :smack:
The previous owner is a carpenter by training, although he works in a factory. He’s also one of those guys who can’t stand still for more than five minutes unless they’re doing work which requires standing still. You know, along the lines of “hold this here while I solder it, and be careful lest it fall on your head.”
He’d redone both kitchens (there’s the one in the flat and another in my basement room/garage); redone the floor, including marquetry work in two rooms; changed all the windows to aluminum with double glass. For all of this, he required a “garbage permit” and, for the windows, the ok from the “owners’ community;” if he had needed a container for the rubbish, he would have needed a permit to have the container parked while he worked and if the house had been protected he would have needed permission from City Hall for the windows (as changing windows from wood to aluminum is a “significant modification”).
Mom recently redid her bathroom (including plumbing and electrical). In this case, the permit involved including garbage, plumbing and electrical. Installing AC required a permit too; installing cable didn’t. Painting or rediong the tiling in a room doesn’t either, if it doesn’t involve changing the electrical setup. I don’t know what’s the limit to require a permit or not.