nice way to get home electrical done -- including county inspection
From: Owen White
(owhite@tigr.org )
Subject: nice way to get home electrical done -- including county
inspection
View this article only
Newsgroups: alt.building.construction
Date: 2003-05-16 10:59:01 PST
I just wanted to report a very successful experience with a quasi DIY
proejct on installing electricity in my workshop. I recently have
built a workroom starting from an existing carport and had to install
a new sub-panel. I live in Rockville Md and one issue is that
according to local building codes, all electrical is to be installed
by a Maryland certified electrician. There's a two stage process for
electrical permits, where you get inspected once for rough wiring and
then after you close in the whole room.
I have built the whole room myself. Because of the cost of paying
somone to do the job entirely according the book, I looked into
recruiting some help on doing the job myself. Then my wife remembered
a friend that was an electrician in Ohio and after a quick phone call
he agreed to come out and give me a hand. Jeremy spent the weekend at
our place and showed me how to install a 100 amp subpanel, many
outlets and light circuits, and two 220 volt outlets. Unbelievably, he
charged me notta, except for travel expenses and I had to pay for all
parts. Okay so not everyone would be so lucky with that.
But having done the wiring on a less than typical way, how to get the
electrical work signed off by the county building inspector?
Well here's the really amazing part. I contacted a Maryland certified
electrical contractor, told him exactly the story of how I got the
work done, and asked if he'd apply for the permit. He basically agreed
come to my house and say "yep, that work is good enough quality to say
we installed it" and run the permit process for me. He said any
modifications that had to be done would be done by charging for his
usual rates ($65/hr), and he'd charge me the usual rate to apply for
the permit ($100).
A journeyman was sent to my house that looked over my work. He found
only one problem with an uninsulated ground that –might- get flagged
by the inspector and he and I spent about an hour swapping out that
part. His company applied for the permit, the inspector came to
approve the rough wiring. The inspector had no problems with the
wiring (he grumbled about some sort of silly "if it's a shop you
should have an outlet every two feet") but signed of on rough wiring
stage.
I called the contractor, told him about the inspection, and asked
about how to handle the finish wiring. He said since I like to do the
work myself he was fine with sending his journeyman out again (he and
I got along really well) and then we could complete the finish wiring
together. This will take another hour at the most, and then I'll be
done.
I consider this a complete win-win. Jeremy's estimate was that a
typical contractor would have charge 3-5 days to get the job he and I
completed. You can estimate yourself how much that would have cost. So
I got a friend to help with the main part of the wiring, other people
that could do the whole thing themselves. Then I a certified
contractor came in and did a second go-over on all my work. This was a
big confidence builder in terms of having done the job in a somewhat
non-standard way, and made life 100 times easier for the inspection. I
got an inspection without having to risk anything by not telling the
county about my work, and basically paid a guy $65 an hour for a total
of three hours to pretty much give me private instruction on doing
household wiring. Another nice thing was that the inspector seemed
pretty decent during his part, and even cut me a break on some stuff
involved with the framing (okay, so I closed in the floor with 3/4
ply, which I wasnt supposed to do until he saw it, whatever).
It was all pretty sweet by my standards, and I'm looking like a genius
to my wife because I got the whole thing done for less than $250 not
including parts.
would recommend it to anyone,
Owen
Message 2 in thread
From: Jim Smith
(jhsmith@erols.com )
Subject: Re: nice way to get home electrical done -- including county
inspection
View this article only
Newsgroups: alt.building.construction
Date: 2003-05-16 14:18:01 PST
Owen White wrote:
>
> I just wanted to report a very successful experience with a quasi DIY
> proejct on installing electricity in my workshop. I recently have
> built a workroom starting from an existing carport and had to install
> a new sub-panel. I live in Rockville Md and one issue is that
> according to local building codes, all electrical is to be installed
> by a Maryland certified electrician.
Great that you saved a few hundred dollars, but in the state of Maryland
and the county of Montgomery, you and the electrical contractor have
violated the law.
I know this goes on all the time, but your contractor could and would
loose his license if this information was relayed to the authorities.
You on the other hand could be told to tear out everything you have done
and more than likely would never receive a final on your addition.
There are also fines that could be levied against both parties.
You stated that "all electrical is to be installed BY a Maryland
certified electrician.". That is the intent of the law. I wouldn't
pass along this information to anyone, just lay low and enjoy the
savings.
It isn't my intentions to be they Moral Cop, but what you did could get
someone in trouble if they dried the same!
Respectfully,
Jim Smith
--
Blaming the gun for murder, is like blaming the car for hit and run!
Message 3 in thread
From: Yasashii Arbaito
(arbaito@iname.com )
Subject: Re: nice way to get home electrical done -- including county
inspection
View this article only
Newsgroups: alt.building.construction
Date: 2003-05-16 14:45:03 PST
owhite@tigr.org (Owen White) wrote in message news:<65a07e7c.0305160959.5b126f8c@posting.google.com> ...
> [...] I live in Rockville Md and one issue is that
> according to local building codes, all electrical is to be installed
> by a Maryland certified electrician.
You sure about that? It's been a few years (well, 15), but when I lived
there, you could do your own wiring if you passed a written exam. The
exam itself was pretty trivial - open book, where they even supplied the
book.
> [...]
> It was all pretty sweet by my standards, and I'm looking like a genius
> to my wife because I got the whole thing done for less than $250 not
> including parts.
Now this is the part I don't believe. No man looks like a genius to his
wife!
--
Y.
Message 4 in thread
From: Lyle B. Harwood
(lyle@invalid.phoenixhomesinc.com
)
Subject: Re: nice way to get home electrical done -- including county
inspection
View this article only
Newsgroups: alt.building.construction
Date: 2003-05-16 15:19:24 PST
In article <2dd1903b.0305161345.5326e6d8@posting.google.com>, Yasashii
Arbaito wrote:
€ Now this is the part I don't believe. No man looks like a genius to his
€ wife!
Confusious say: Man who thinks he's smarter than his wife is married to
a very smart woman.
--
Lyle B. Harwood, President
Phoenix Homes, Inc.
(206) 523-9500 www.phoenixhomesinc.com
Message 5 in thread
From: indago
(indagatio@earthlink.net )
Subject: Re: nice way to get home electrical done -- including county
inspection
View this article only
Newsgroups: alt.building.construction
Date: 2003-05-16 18:03:00 PST
030516 1359 - Owen White wrote:
> I just wanted to report a very successful experience with a quasi DIY
> proejct on installing electricity in my workshop. I recently have
> built a workroom starting from an existing carport and had to install
> a new sub-panel. I live in Rockville Md and one issue is that
> according to local building codes, all electrical is to be installed
> by a Maryland certified electrician. There's a two stage process for
> electrical permits, where you get inspected once for rough wiring and
> then after you close in the whole room.
>
> I have built the whole room myself. Because of the cost of paying
> somone to do the job entirely according the book, I looked into
> recruiting some help on doing the job myself. Then my wife remembered
> a friend that was an electrician in Ohio and after a quick phone call
> he agreed to come out and give me a hand. Jeremy spent the weekend at
> our place and showed me how to install a 100 amp subpanel, many
> outlets and light circuits, and two 220 volt outlets. Unbelievably, he
> charged me notta, except for travel expenses and I had to pay for all
> parts. Okay so not everyone would be so lucky with that.
>
> But having done the wiring on a less than typical way, how to get the
> electrical work signed off by the county building inspector?
>
> Well here's the really amazing part. I contacted a Maryland certified
> electrical contractor, told him exactly the story of how I got the
> work done, and asked if he'd apply for the permit. He basically agreed
> come to my house and say "yep, that work is good enough quality to say
> we installed it" and run the permit process for me. He said any
> modifications that had to be done would be done by charging for his
> usual rates ($65/hr), and he'd charge me the usual rate to apply for
> the permit ($100).
>
> A journeyman was sent to my house that looked over my work. He found
> only one problem with an uninsulated ground that –might- get flagged
> by the inspector and he and I spent about an hour swapping out that
> part. His company applied for the permit, the inspector came to
> approve the rough wiring. The inspector had no problems with the
> wiring (he grumbled about some sort of silly "if it's a shop you
> should have an outlet every two feet") but signed of on rough wiring
> stage.
>
> I called the contractor, told him about the inspection, and asked
> about how to handle the finish wiring. He said since I like to do the
> work myself he was fine with sending his journeyman out again (he and
> I got along really well) and then we could complete the finish wiring
> together. This will take another hour at the most, and then I'll be
> done.
>
/Read the rest of this message...
(27 more lines)/
Message 6 in thread
From: Jeff Warren III
(mrelectric_jeff@cox.net )
Subject: Re: nice way to get home electrical done -- including county
inspection
View this article only
Newsgroups: alt.building.construction
Date: 2003-05-16 20:22:11 PST
This is a wonderful thing for you. I hope you can understand now why
electricians are one of the lowest paid trades in the industry. In 1967 an
avg. of all the trades in construction revealed that electricians were the
highest paid. Electricians have SHOT themselves in the foot. Now the avg.
electrician lives in a sorry neighborhood or trailer, has to work two jobs
( Ususlly side jobs driving the prices even lower ) making an avg. of 12
dollars an hour. This doesn't include any benefits. No wonder quality
electrical work is getting harder to find. No wonder there is an avg. of
40,000 house electrical fires a year. No wonder the code book has gotten
thicker and thicker.
How can a company compete with Joe Electrical working out of his truck for
30 dollars an hour.
I work approx 60 hours a week to be able to feed my family. But i think God
every day that I am still able to provide for my family.
Electricians DESERVE the respect they have earned. I have a college degree
and over 20 years of experience. I am so tired of customers complaining
about how fast I am. Shouldn't you get paid more for experience and ability
or should I do 3 times the work for the same money. Anyone who owns a
company can tell you that overhead will take you down in no time.
--
Jeff Warren
Journeyman Electrician
Lutron Lighting Control Specialist
Lighting Designer
Mr. Electric
Va. Beach, Va.
"Owen White" wrote in message
news:65a07e7c.0305160959.5b126f8c@posting.google.com ...
> I just wanted to report a very successful experience with a quasi DIY
> proejct on installing electricity in my workshop. I recently have
> built a workroom starting from an existing carport and had to install
> a new sub-panel. I live in Rockville Md and one issue is that
> according to local building codes, all electrical is to be installed
> by a Maryland certified electrician. There's a two stage process for
> electrical permits, where you get inspected once for rough wiring and
> then after you close in the whole room.
>
> I have built the whole room myself. Because of the cost of paying
> somone to do the job entirely according the book, I looked into
> recruiting some help on doing the job myself. Then my wife remembered
> a friend that was an electrician in Ohio and after a quick phone call
> he agreed to come out and give me a hand. Jeremy spent the weekend at
> our place and showed me how to install a 100 amp subpanel, many
/Read the rest of this message...
(56 more lines)/
Message 7 in thread
From: Donald Lee Phillips, Jr., P.E.
(dphillips@worthingtonNSengineering.com
)
Subject: Re: nice way to get home electrical done -- including county
inspection
View this article only
Newsgroups: alt.building.construction
Date: 2003-05-17 07:34:35 PST
"Jeff Warren III" wrote in message
news:wVhxa.21481$_e6.6518@news2.east.cox.net ...
> This is a wonderful thing for you. I hope you can understand now why
> electricians are one of the lowest paid trades in the industry. In 1967 an
> avg. of all the trades in construction revealed that electricians were the
> highest paid. Electricians have SHOT themselves in the foot. Now the avg.
> electrician lives in a sorry neighborhood or trailer, has to work two jobs
> ( Ususlly side jobs driving the prices even lower ) making an avg. of 12
> dollars an hour. This doesn't include any benefits. No wonder quality
> electrical work is getting harder to find. No wonder there is an avg. of
> 40,000 house electrical fires a year. No wonder the code book has gotten
> thicker and thicker.
>
> How can a company compete with Joe Electrical working out of his truck for
> 30 dollars an hour.
>
> I work approx 60 hours a week to be able to feed my family. But i think God
> every day that I am still able to provide for my family.
>
> Electricians DESERVE the respect they have earned. I have a college degree
> and over 20 years of experience. I am so tired of customers complaining
> about how fast I am. Shouldn't you get paid more for experience and ability
> or should I do 3 times the work for the same money. Anyone who owns a
> company can tell you that overhead will take you down in no time.
You have not described the many electricians I know. Perhaps it is local to
your area.
Sincerely,
Donald Lee Phillips, Jr., P.E.
Worthington Engineering, Inc.
145 Greenglade Avenue
Worthington, OH 43085-2264
dphillips@worthingtonNSengineering.com
(remove NS to use the address)
614.937.0463 voice
208.975.1011 fax
http://worthingtonengineering.com
Message 8 in thread
From: Owen White
(owhite@tigr.org )
Subject: Re: nice way to get home electrical done -- including county
inspection
View this article only
Newsgroups: alt.building.construction
Date: 2003-05-17 08:09:56 PST
Jeff,
You by far have made the most compelling comment about my strategy for
getting some work done -- I think people should simply get paid what
they deserve -- I have a job, I get paid, I get paid extroidinairely
well because I have demanded that happen. And I am extremely fortunate
because my job has nearly no competition, completely unlike all the
electricians out there that are getting hammered by their economic
situation. I can understand that my post would grate the wrong way.
Both guys that came over to my house, the friend from ohio and the
paid journeyman are by no means driving cadilacs. I think that its
unfortunate that my post easily translates into that I dont think
tradespeople should be paid fair prices for the work they do. I think
all tradespeople should get paid well to make a decent living. When I
hire someone to do the work, I want them to be doing it because it
makes economical sense. What I'm hearing from you is that is hard to
do and I'm sure that is very difficult.
In MD you can get a residential license to do work on your own house.
I was going that route, and then I connected with the help from Ohio
and I thought maybe other people would be interested in a reasonable
way to get through that and still have their home permitted and
inspected. In either case I'd be someone driving down the costs of
getting electrical work done on his house by doing a lot of it without
a contractor.
I hope its understandable that I'd also like to be able to do work on
my house in a reasonable inexpensive way if I'm capable of getting the
work done with sweat equity.
I guess the point I was trying to make was that I got a good job done,
but it was also done well. Three different levels of quality control
was done, a friend from Ohio, the journeyman, and the inspector went
over it to make sure it was done properly.
But you are right when you state: "This is a wonderful thing for you.
I hope you can understand now why electricians are one of the lowest
paid trades in the industry."
It was a good thing for me. And I do appreciate that electricians are
underpaid. I know its not an easy thing to get good work done for
decent salary.
Owen
Regarding Budda's comment regarding my wife's "friend" being willing
to come in from Ohio -- Budda: good luck with your insecurity issues
/Read the rest of this message...
(35 more lines)/
Message 9 in thread
From: Rico dJour
(ricodjour@aol.computer )
Subject: Re: nice way to get home electrical done -- including county
inspection
View this article only
Newsgroups: alt.building.construction
Date: 2003-05-18 12:04:11 PST
>From: owhite@tigr.org (Owen White)
>
>Jeff,
>
>You by far have made the most compelling comment about my strategy for
>getting some work done -- I think people should simply get paid what
>they deserve -- I have a job, I get paid, I get paid extroidinairely
>well because I have demanded that happen. And I am extremely fortunate
>because my job has nearly no competition, completely unlike all the
>electricians out there that are getting hammered by their economic
>situation. I can understand that my post would grate the wrong way.
>
>{snip}
>
>It was a good thing for me. And I do appreciate that electricians are
>underpaid. I know its not an easy thing to get good work done for
>decent salary.
"It was a good thing for me"...somehow I get the feeling that is your mantra.
I think it laudable that you're willing to expose other people to liability to
save yourself a couple of hundred bucks. I also think it's laudable that you
get paid "extroidinairely" well. BTW, I think you set a record for
misspellings in a single word.
However, the combination of exposing others to the risk of losing their
licenses, taking advantage of friends (you should have stuffed money in his
hand or in his toolbox), coupled with the gall of being extraordinarily well
paid and bending laws to suit you, means you're cheap _and_ a schmuck*.
To paraphrase Dean Wormer, "Egotistical, cheap and schmucky are no way to go
through life, young man."
R
*Main Entry: schmuck
Pronunciation: 'shm&k
Function: noun
Etymology: Yiddish shmok, literally, penis
Date: 1892
slang : JERK 4
Message 11 in thread
From: Rico dJour
(ricodjour@aol.computer )
Subject: Re: nice way to get home electrical done -- including county
inspection
View this article only
Newsgroups: alt.building.construction
Date: 2003-05-21 09:47:01 PST
>From: owhite@tigr.org (Owen White)
>
>Rico and Budda,
>
>Collectively, you're now assigning motives to me that arent true and
>then attacking me for those motives, name-calling, and citing
>misspellings. I dont see any reason to erode away at the group. If you
>have some issue you think would be appropriate to discuss please
>respond to me directly: owhite@tigr.org.
Collectively? Like a conspiracy? I have my own ideas and write my own
thoughts. Budda (a new poster to me) and I are coming from different places
with this.
My thoughts:
1). You posted to a public forum and that's where it stays. I see no reason
to swap emails.
2). You promoted a "technique" and I am criticizing it. The name-calling was
due to your hubris.
3). It's incredibly bad form to boast about being paid extremely well and then
let a guy who's not, who travelled a distance to spend a weekend working for
you, go home empty handed. Even if he objected to being paid, it's what he
does for a living and you should have paid him something more than gas and
tolls. It's not too late to send the guy something - gift certificate,
whatever.
4). You wrote that you had started looking into doing the work yourself, the
legal way, but then came up with this "method". You took a shortcut to save
yourself a few hundred bucks. The shortcut you chose could potentially cost
the supervising electrician his license and jail time (it's happened) - is that
worth a few hundred bucks to someone so well paid? It's selfish, is what it
is.
5). You spent all sorts of time doing this. How much value do you put on your
time? This newsgroup gets lots of similar posts from homeowners crowing about
how much they saved by contracting their own home. Every blessed one of them
conveniently manages to leave out the value of their time invested in the
project. You, being so extremely well paid, and smart enough to be a genius to
the wife, must realize that your time is money, too. How many hours did you put
into the electrical? That's working with the friend, working with the
supervising electrician and dealing with the inspector. Feel free to round it
to the nearest ten hours. Now divide that by the few hundred bucks. Not a big
number, is it?
6). I don't know where you got an estimate of 3-5 days to wire a shop. A
commercial shop wouldn't take that long.
7). You obliterated a single word, extraordinarily, with numerous
misspellings. It stood out because, otherwise, you were clear, articulate and
had no misspellings.
R