Don't need a license ?

[Doctor Electric]

I heard that in the state of Ohio you don't need a license to run electrical jobs and pull permits. How is this possible when you need insurance bond numbers on the permit for liability reasons any thoughts on this would be great id like to start up my business full throttle but I have to take my test for the license first or do I ?

 

[Smart $]

http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/4740
http://www.com.ohio.gov/dico/ocilb/LicenseQualificationProcess.aspx

Ohio reciprocates with:

• KY, LA, WV, TN, NC

 

[Coppersmith]

http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/4740
http://www.com.ohio.gov/dico/ocilb/LicenseQualificationProcess.aspx

Ohio reciprocates with:

• KY, LA, WV, TN, NC

From the above links:

(A) No person shall act as or claim to be a type of contractor that this chapter licenses unless that person holds or has been assigned a license issued pursuant to this chapter for the type of contractor that person is acting as or claiming to be.

(D) A person is not an electrical contractor subject to licensure under this chapter for work that is limited to the construction, improvement, renovation, repair, testing, or maintenance of the following systems using less than fifty volts of electricity: fire alarm or burglar alarm, cabling, tele-data sound, communication, and landscape lighting and irrigation.

So unless you are doing low voltage you need a license. This is a good thing. You don't want to compete with unlicensed people. The requirement of being licensed protects your EC business since you can report and get rid of unlicensed competitors.

 

[kwired]

Don't know the rules there, but here there are instances where a permit is not required.

The law still says you need to be licensed to do wiring for others and applies whether a permit is required or not. Many get away with not being licensed - especially if a permit is not required. But if you did such work and there was a fire or electrocution and your work was to blame - not only do you have the general liability to deal with but the officials may fine you for not being licensed, and those who had the loss maybe have even more leverage to sue you for even more.

So at the very least you opened the door to more potential liability before you even did any work if you don't have proper licensing.