B licensed w/o specialty

[dab]

i have a bone to pick. the going concensus of the B lic. contractors in my part of CA think they are entitled to do 3 trades of their choice. this is not the case as it is strictly prohibited by the cslb. they try to do a good job but they just don't get it. the nec is a full time job that takes years of studying and on the job experience. if the inspectors are not going to require them to do a good job, then the public suffers. i have fixed work that was only done in the last couple of years and was inspected not only by the county, but by a home inspector. the problem i found recently was as follows.... the old main panel for a residence was turned into a subpanel. that panel faced into a closet so it had to be turned around to face into the room. the old panel had one bus for the grounding. when they instlalled the new meter/main they installed a junction box beside it to splice the old se to the new ser. the only problem was that the new ser eq. grnd. was bonded to the jbox and not tun to the subpanel. this particular job was by an ec and still didn't get it right, so how is a general going to get it any better....

 

[cadpoint]

Not that this will help,
I had a breakfest conversation with an ex-inspector that stated about
the same lines as you, he said there plenty of trucks running around,
that his neighbor was even running one, he warned the neighbor that
was doing low voltage wiring on grass lighting, etc.. and not having anything inspected, and the guy doesn't have a license req'd in our state The neighbors response was "so what". He said he could chase and drop a dime, and he said there ain't enough hours in day.
Besides, who to say that this was even inspected sounds like a
midnight electrican. As been stated before many times one gets what they pay for ... Or home owner beware.
People don't understand the complex nature of our line of work. It's not a weekend hobby, call a professional.

 

[sfav8r]

In San Francisco, inspectors do not cut them any slack. The consensus here is that if you're going to perform the work of an electrician you need to perform it to the same standard. We work with a few generals who got tired of busting inspections and holding up jobs so they now use us.

Also, in San Francisco a GC cannot pull a permit for electrical and have an EC do the work. An EC MUST work under their own license.

 

[dana1028]

i have a bone to pick. the going concensus of the B lic. contractors in my part of CA think they are entitled to do 3 trades of their choice. this is not the case as it is strictly prohibited by the cslb.

I would disagree with you with respect to the 'strictly prohibited by the CSLB' part of your statement. I have personally called the CSLB about this matter and they refuse to take a stand against a B-license holder doing 100% electrical work! They [CSLB] say the B contractor is driving a nail - that is B work, he is drilling a hole through the roof and install a roof jack - that is roofers work; he is doing the electrical work; blah-blah-blah....thus there are multiple trades involved...and...this becomes a gray area....and CSLB doesn't want to push the point...blah-blah-blah. This query to the CSLB came about when our building official did not want to take a hard stance against issuing an electrical permit to a B-license holder if CSLB would not enforce this. Based upon this lack of support from CSLB our jurisdiction allowed B licensees to obtain electrical permits.

I know there are a number of jurisdictions who will not issue an electrical permit to a B-license, but I also know there are many more that do issue them.

 

[cowboyjwc]

Actually a B can do pretty much anything in CA. Home Depot vs the State of California. CA is getting all out of wack with what is allowed and what is not. We have concrete guys doing landscaping, we have landscapers doing pools, we have pool contractors doing concrete.

 

[petersonra]

Actually a B can do pretty much anything in CA. Home Depot vs the State of California. CA is getting all out of wack with what is allowed and what is not. We have concrete guys doing landscaping, we have landscapers doing pools, we have pool contractors doing concrete.

as long as they do it right, who cares what kind of license they have?