- Location
- San Francisco Bay Area, CA, USA
- Occupation
- Electrical Engineer
Also, the guy with the orange bucket and truck is harder to find than the person cutting hair in their house without a license. He is at a different jobsite every week or even every day, versus the woman being stationary in a house or illegal salon that gets inspected.The law here says (something to the effect of) No person shall layout, design, or install electrical wiring for another person unless they are the holder of (followed by license descriptions). This basically means it is unlawful to do electrical installations for hire if not licensed to do so. That don't mean non licensed people don't get away with it - especially for installations that do not require a permit - or at least require a permit before POCO can energize a new service.
Kind of sad in a way. However there are people that cut hair out of their homes with no licensing as well. But they need to be concerned of competition possibly reporting them. They also do get away with it much easier by doing it by word of mouth, but try to open a shop with signage and other advertising and you likely get shut down pretty quickly if not licensed.
Here in CA, I can wire my own house without a license, but I cannot wire my neighbor's house, even for free. Doesn't stop people from doing it, but they can't get a permit unless the HO goes down and gets the permit, but lies and says he is doing it all himself. If the inspector sniffs out the fraud, the penalties are often drastic, as in labeling the house uninhabitable. Happened here in my neighborhood just last year after. HO took out his permit as doing his own work, inspector showed up and saw the Mexicans from Home Despot actually doing it, red tagged the house and the whole family had to move to a hotel for a month while a real 'Lectrician ripped and replaced everything.