I have followed Joe Ts threads about abandoned/obsolete/deteriorated wiring and what the NEC should do about it. I have an opinion about who should take responsibility and who should police these situations. This is just my opinion and I welcome dissenting replies.
The photos joe has posted all fall into one or more of 5 catagories: Single family, multi-family, commercial, industrial or public municipality. Policing hazzards and seeing that they are corrected in a municipality such as street lights or any other that occur on the public traffic area is the responsibility of the public safety official of the municipality. If it is on private property but exposes the public to danger the city official has the right and the obligation to take what ever measures to protect the public. If it is in an industrial setting OSHA is the policeman there. The factories I do business with are inspected by their workman's comp carrier yearly and are pretty effective at getting companys to eliminate hazzards in the workplace. Commercial is also under the authority of the local public safety official. In my town you must pass inspection from the building inspector, public health officer and fire marshall annually to keep your doors open to the public. This applies to everybody from diners to car lots. Multi-family dwellings, where the occupants are tennants, fall under the authority of the housing authority. Units are supposed to be inspected when ever they are rented out, remodeled or sold. The housing authority usually enlists the services of the building inspector for these assessments. They can by law revoke an occupancy certificate on a rental until it meets code. Hotels and motels also fall under this authority and are inspected annually in my town. Health/safety inspections are done quarterly on any establishment that prepares food and all aspects of safety are addressed. Single family dwellings, where the occupant is the owner, are a different story. Electric utility installations are supposed to conform to the NESC and most do in my area with the exception of the small town that has their own electric utility.More often than not they violate every safety rule in the book. I attribute this to a mixture of ignorance and being penny wise and pound foolish. There should be a law that requires any municipality that sells electricity to have and maintain trained, qualified persons to maintain it. Too many small towns sell power and use the profits for everything else but the electrical infrastructure. The last catagory is single family dwellings. If the occupant is the owner the only way he is subjected to inspections is having permitted work done, re-connection after disconnection due to a fire or other hazzards that became an imminent threat to neighboring properties or conditions discovered during a legal search or through other criminal investigation such as electricity theft. As far as making a law that subjects homeowners to random inspections, forget aboutit. The ACLU would never stand for that! So what I'm saying is, the vast majority of Joe's pictures are of situations where it is already someone's responsibility to police. It just isn't being done. What would make anyone think that making it a requirement in yet another document, enforced by yet another government agency would fix it?
The photos joe has posted all fall into one or more of 5 catagories: Single family, multi-family, commercial, industrial or public municipality. Policing hazzards and seeing that they are corrected in a municipality such as street lights or any other that occur on the public traffic area is the responsibility of the public safety official of the municipality. If it is on private property but exposes the public to danger the city official has the right and the obligation to take what ever measures to protect the public. If it is in an industrial setting OSHA is the policeman there. The factories I do business with are inspected by their workman's comp carrier yearly and are pretty effective at getting companys to eliminate hazzards in the workplace. Commercial is also under the authority of the local public safety official. In my town you must pass inspection from the building inspector, public health officer and fire marshall annually to keep your doors open to the public. This applies to everybody from diners to car lots. Multi-family dwellings, where the occupants are tennants, fall under the authority of the housing authority. Units are supposed to be inspected when ever they are rented out, remodeled or sold. The housing authority usually enlists the services of the building inspector for these assessments. They can by law revoke an occupancy certificate on a rental until it meets code. Hotels and motels also fall under this authority and are inspected annually in my town. Health/safety inspections are done quarterly on any establishment that prepares food and all aspects of safety are addressed. Single family dwellings, where the occupant is the owner, are a different story. Electric utility installations are supposed to conform to the NESC and most do in my area with the exception of the small town that has their own electric utility.More often than not they violate every safety rule in the book. I attribute this to a mixture of ignorance and being penny wise and pound foolish. There should be a law that requires any municipality that sells electricity to have and maintain trained, qualified persons to maintain it. Too many small towns sell power and use the profits for everything else but the electrical infrastructure. The last catagory is single family dwellings. If the occupant is the owner the only way he is subjected to inspections is having permitted work done, re-connection after disconnection due to a fire or other hazzards that became an imminent threat to neighboring properties or conditions discovered during a legal search or through other criminal investigation such as electricity theft. As far as making a law that subjects homeowners to random inspections, forget aboutit. The ACLU would never stand for that! So what I'm saying is, the vast majority of Joe's pictures are of situations where it is already someone's responsibility to police. It just isn't being done. What would make anyone think that making it a requirement in yet another document, enforced by yet another government agency would fix it?
