(Good catch. I had totally missed this. – promoted by JulieWaters)
It isn’t sexy, doesn’t carry a catchy slogan, and hasn’t received any media coverage, but there is currently a bill – H.132 – sitting in the State Senate that would make all Vermont homes safer. H.132 was passed overwhelmingly by the House and referred to the Senate Committee on Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs (which includes Sen. Doug Racine, Democratic candidate for Governor).
Unknown to many, you currently do NOT need to be a licensed electrician to conduct electrical installations in residences with no more than two dwelling units (unless you’re in the City of Burlington, which has had a licensing requirement for some time). H.132 would require anyone wiring a one or two-family home to be a licensed electrician (in Do It Yourself fashion, owners of an owner-occupied dwelling would be exempted if they opt to do their own electrical). Vermont is the only New England state where anyone – license or not – can wire a home.
Enabling the neighborhood handyperson, doctor, lawyer, babysitter, carpenter or plumber – or whatever – to “stand in” as an electrician is unsafe. Scores of Vermonters have hired handymen purporting to be electricians, later finding out the person they paid hundreds of dollars to perform electrical work was in fact not licensed to ply the trade. It is common practice for the carpenter building a home to also do the electrical wiring because Vermont law does not prohibit her from doing so. Approach a licensed electrician, and nine out of 10 of them will tell horror stories about having to go into homes to repair the shoddy wiring done by these so-called handymen.
You’d think H.132 would be an easy sell in the Senate. The bill clearly fixes a glaring public safety issue. It also rewards those who have done what it takes to obtain and maintain licensure in our state. What’s more, a majority of citizens support requiring anyone doing electrical installations in one and two-family homes be licensed electricians (source: 2009 Vermonter Poll).
Sadly, H.132 is stalled in the Senate after earning near-unanimous support in the House. With only one month left in the legislative session, the bill still hasn’t received a Committee hearing. Our Senators certainly have a lot on their respective plates, but it is dumbfounding why such an important PUBLIC SAFETY bill is not getting much play in the Upper Chamber, especially when electrical fires are an all-too-common occurrence. Electricity is dangerous stuff, let alone when messed with by those who don’t know what they’re doing.
How does the GMD community feel about this? Have you been the victim of an unlicensed, wannabe electrician?
Link to the bill as passed by the House:
http://www.leg.state.vt.us/doc…
I am very concerned that the bill would remove that ability from people.
In other states, you can do your own wiring, but a licensed electrician has to sign off on the work before you close up the walls.
I could get behind the bill if that were what they’ve proposed, but I don’t support the bill in the current form. I used to live in one of the most restrictive towns in MA (for example, all closets had to have hard-wired lighting controlled by a wall switch, kitchens had to have a GFCI outlet every 12 inches along the counters – even out on an L in the middle of the room, and every room, no matter the size, had to have at least one switched wall outlet), and we STILL could do our own wiring – as long as we got a permit and got an electrician to inspect it and sign off when the work was complete.
A lot of people can’t afford to pay an electrician for dozens of hours of work, and it’s easy enough to pick up a copy of the electrical codes and some decent how-to books to learn how to do it right. If VT passes this bill, as it’s currently written, it will be one of the most restrictive in the region.
You can achieve the goal of safety by requiring the builder to get a permit and then get an inspection by a licensed electrician. Otherwise, it seems the goal of the bill is to force people to hire electricians for work they can do themselves.
Next thing you know, it’ll be illegal to put up your own stud wall (actually, in places, this also requires a permit and inspection by a licensed structural engineer)…
H.132 would NOT REQUIRE A LICENSE for any electrical work by the owner in the owner-occupied, freestanding single-unit residence and outbuildings accessory to the single-unit residence. Structures on owner-occupied farms are also exempt in the bill. In other words, if H.132 became law, you could still run to Home Depot for a code book and some DIY manuals, and then wire your owner-occupied home to your heart’s content.
Electrical wiring is not that complicated. I have lived in many older homes, some of them with knob and tube wiring, many of them with improvised electrical updates.
If we teach our children wiring safety, then they will know what to look for whether they are renting or buying. And, they will know how to improvise improvements in a way that does not endanger themselves or others.
If we leave it to an elite to do the work, our ignorance will be our worst enemy. We will still be endangered, by people who want to cheapen the product, for their own profit (Remember aluminum wiring?). Lobbyists will fight hard to continue endangering us, and we will be poorer in the long run.
Have you heard about the Chinese wallboard, imported for Katrina rebuilds, which is so toxic that houses must be gutted, including wiring, gas piping, etc? Just another product produced in a country where human life has no value! How many of the workers who produced it are sick and dying?
But, it sure was cheap!
I’m against this bill. I find licensure far too restrictive in many fields already and I would add the electrical field if this passed. Let’s let the consumer decide if the job needs a licensed expert or just the handyman.
I would rather see some teeth put into disclosure so that homeowners clearly know what they are getting (licensed vs non-licensed) and can weigh the need for their particular project, and liability for shoddy non-licensed work. Govt often oversteps when it tries to legislate behavior and risk decisions, much better to clarify the choices and assign consequences appropriately.
Good points raised by all. However, again, you would all still be able to do your own wiring under H.132:
This language is nearly identical to the exemption for residential plumbing in Vermont (26 V.S.A. § 2198. Exceptions; license not required). So, given the owner-occupied exemption in H.132 and its similarity to statute already on the books for the plumbing side, I respectfully don’t understand the reservations you all have. I am also unaware of any other New England state – aside from Vermont – that allows unlicensed people to wire a single-family house or a duplex that the owner does not live in.
RE: the requirements to become an electrician being too restrictive. Vermont’s requirements for obtaining a journeymen electricians’ license (namely the 8,000 hours of on-the-job-training and related classroom instruction) are nearly identical to every other New England state. Those who have not completed a certified apprenticeship, yet have acceptable experience in the trade, can petition the VT Licensing Board to sit for the licensing exam. We have licensing and professional regulation for a reason, and Vermont’s expectations aren’t off-base from electrical licensure requirements throughout New England.
H.132 clearly respects the “DIY” nature many Vermonters have. Your palace, your choice. However, allowing unlicensed people to wire a duplex or a single-family home not occupied by the owner and being rented to a tenant – as it sounds like some of you are in support of — is not safe. At that point, you are putting others at risk. This bill strikes a fair balance between allowing consumers to still make their own choices in an owner-occupied, single-family home, while protecting the rest of us.
much care for these types of laws. They come off as protectionism for workers rather than being safety driven.
What’s happened with gas is absurd. You can’t even buy a gas water heater without state gas certification..which means making sure that the plumber gets his cut of the sale.
What will happen with electrical work? We won’t be able to buy a breaker box or a roll of wire?
Furthermore, it seems to me that the DIY homeowner exemption is really just hot air because one will have to get an electrician to sign off in order to sell the house.
The irony is that any Joe can build a chimney and/or hook up a woodstove.
State professional licensure is primarily about ensuring that safety standards & codes are met, and secondarily for assuring competence within the chosen profession.
When you introduce the cost of hiring a professional as your main concern you are not weighing the true costs.
Having a professionally certified job done well and in a timely fashion can be a blessing compared to one that, in the case of poorly done electrical work:
may kill you or your loved ones from not grounding properly…
might short out, cause a fire, and burn the property down…
may simply use more electricity than necessary…. or
have outlets and switches that are inconveniently located.
When these are taken into consideration you are saving a great deal of money and potential anguish.
Hiring a professional to at least inspect the work is insurance against making a serious mistake.
There were some good suggestions in the comments to make a better bill but please do not work against your own life interests by narrowing everything to shallow first cost economics.
Life is more complicated than that.