WA State questions

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petersonra

petersonra

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Northern illinois
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Semi-retired engineer
We are quoting something going to WA state that is a little unusual, and I am a little nervous about what our scope of work is supposed to be. WA state has some pretty strict rules about things, and I don't want to end up in a p***ing match at startup because of building permit and inspection rules.

Anyone from WA state want to give me some friendly advice about what an out of state equipment supplier can and cannot do as far as prewiring equipment?

How about a building with the equipment inside it?
 
I don't know of anything specific, and am surprised to hear that WA has a reputation of the sort you describe. Are you speaking of "local codes" in general, or have you heard of something in particular? I would give you a link to the state revisions to the NEC, but I suspect you have aready been there.
 
What I have heard is they are pretty picky about who can do electrical work.

What has been proposed is a prefabricated building, including lighting and HVAC, that would have an MCC and control panels, and some ancilliary equipment installed in it.

The MCC, control panel, lighting, and HVAC would be prewired at our shop, and then shipped to the job site inside the prefabricated building.

Is this going to be an issue with the inspection authority? We can put a UL label on the panel, but what about the conduit and wiring for the HVAC and lighting? or the conduit and wiring between the MCC and the control panel?

It would be simple if we could get a building that was UL listed as a control panel, becasue then we could label the whole assembly.
 
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OK. Now I understand the question well enough to know that I do not know its answer. Like most jurisdictions, they won't let you do electrical work in WA, unless you have a WA electrician's license. But if you do work outside the state, and then ship an item to the state, I do not know if they would treat that the same as though you had a factory within the state and did the wiring here.

Any WA contractors around that can offer some advice?
 
If it's the type of building I'm thinking of (prefab office, prefab class room, etc.) the state inspects them here and signs off on them, the only electrical I look at is the connection to the main disconnect.

Sorry I left off the part about that being in CA, I'm not sure how WA does it, but you might want to call the state and see.
 
WA state and UL

WA state and UL

I have been involved in some crazy situations with L&I inspectors that revolved around UL 508 listings of industrial control panels.

If the control panel is not UL508 listed or the control panel was not constructed "on-site" by owner employed electricians then you needed to cough up some payola to have an independent UL assessment done.

That might be somehting to fret about.
 
Well, none of the spec'd prefab builders wanted anything to do with the seismic issue, so I guess it is now going to be built on site.
 
My question then would be "how do manufactured home companies do it?"

Maybe there's an exception for homes but it seems like a similar scenario to me...

WA definitely likes their administrative rules, I feel sorry for the guy who has to read through that....
 
I own part of a company that retrofits sea cans into anything you can imagine. Anywhere from homes(which the US won't allow) to class 1 div 1 workshops that sit next to natural gas drilling rig. We pay to have them inspected by intertek which gives them an ETL label which is recognized as an equivalent to csa/ul. For the one offs we pay for a "special inspection" which is quite expensive and for the production offices we have factory status that allows us to inspect ourselves and then they just audit us regularly. So if you want a sea can turned into anything haha jk ;)
 
There are different tax set implications if you work in WA. You need to have a physical address (think PO Box) and there is a 10% tax on all business done in the state.
 
Washington has a B&O Tax. ( business & occupation ) It is a gross receipts tax. An example rate for retailing is .00471 of gross receipts.

Sales tax is charged on all labor and material though.
 
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