electrical Inspections

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dcv

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Soon,the city council of the City of Houston,Texas will meet and vote on a new bill which will allow General Contractors to hire a private company to do the electrical inspections on their construction jobs. Instead of the city inspectors.

What good can become of this ,is this another case of the fox guarding the hen house?
I'm very interested in other opinions on this.

Thanks,
Craig :roll:
 
Re: electrical Inspections

There was a proposal for this same thing in the state of Colorado. I'm not sure what ever became of it, but I think it is a bad idea. It sounds like you would have a lot of conflict of interest problems.
 
Re: electrical Inspections

If a third party inspection company is involved, and qualified to perform this inspections of the installation, I probably would not have a problem with them submitting a report on complaince. I treat project engineers the same way on larger projects when there is no possible way that I can look at every aspect of the job. I would still perform random inspections on the project and coordinate with the private inspection firm on their findings and spot check their reports. The big question for some jurisdiction would be any applicable fees that would be charged. With third party inspection, do those fees get reduced?
 
Re: electrical Inspections

dcv, The balance of questionable inspection quality from the private sector lies in the certification requirements of an inspector. IMHO, the balance will lean toward the good because there are opportunities for independent inspection companies that must function on a high level of accuracy to maintain a good reputation and track record to stay in business. I do not think that independent inspection companies are going to show up on a project without being heavily bonded and covered for the E & O (errors and omissions) insurance.
Of course the GC may employ a registered electrical professional who may be proficient in commercial and not have a clue about residential. It will be up to the City regulatory types to set down rules that will make sure this does not happen.

On the flip side, the AHJ's liabilities are so high now that the city building departments will be more proficient by certifiying qualified independents specialized in each trade. But that's only my opinion.
 
Re: electrical Inspections

Thank God I live in Alaska and not Texas! The state of Texas over the past 8 years has increasingly passed laws protecting general contractors from litigation. GC's have a "right to repair" law on the books to prevent frivolous lawsuits (which I agree with). However, the homeowner must go to an arbitration board to determine what the GC must repair (homeowners must pay for this service). In addition, the arbitration board consists entirely of General Contractors! It does not surprise me that now the GC's want to hire their own inspectors. Maybe they can just have their electrical contractors do their own inspections before they load up after the job is done!
 
Re: electrical Inspections

There is a high conflict on intrest.The private inspector knows if he wants to keep being used he better pass all but big problems.The GC wants only to keep his job going full speed.I did see this kind of private inspection going on in Pasco county FL. about 6 months ago.It came with a twist,the inspection company gave a reduced fee to the GC ,in return the inspection company charged the EC $100 each time it failed.You can be sure they inspected it to the letter and flunked any and every thing they could.

I am in favor of letting the county or city do it

[ October 07, 2004, 05:29 PM: Message edited by: jimwalker ]
 
Re: electrical Inspections

Wasn't it the general contractor's (among others) work that we were inspecting? You know, it occurs to me that now the general contractor will be having to buy off, I mean hire inspection companies. And the more leaway, I mean competance you require the more it costs. So I think, just for the good of the community, we should also consider government grants and other suplimental funding strategies to reduce the obvious additional burden such incresed restrictions will place on these virtuous upstanding individuals and entities.

I know general contractors that insist on trying to get away with stuff just because they'll go nuts if they don't.
 
Re: electrical Inspections

It is because of added cost to bring things to code that many remodel jobs go unpermitted.Most GC and EC care mostly about money as do the workers
 
Re: electrical Inspections

There are a few independant engineering firms in my area that are allowed to do electrical inspections,The Jurisdiction can come behind them to ensure that it is all code compliant,It takes the extra work load off them and since the state allows it it flys....Same goes for all other trades.The growth spurt here is off the scale.The county pays nothing near what a qualified electrician can get in the field.So who do they get?The inspectors are back logged now and there are more ground breaking areas that they can`t think of handling so who`s to do the inspections ;)
 
Re: electrical Inspections

I own and operate a 3rd party, private electrical inspection company empowered by the local municipalities to make inspections.

1. We charge a fee that may be higher, but we pay our inspectors a salary that helps to pay their bills and alleviate the need to reach in one's pocket to 'supplement' his/her income, or as one poster mentioned to 'pass' an inspection.
2. This higher fee helps offset the cost of 'continuing' education costs.
3. We strive to all be on the same page with inspections so as not to have to deal with the 'not in my territory' BS.
4. I don't care who is inspecting, the chances for graft are high - the consequences should be too - we will dismiss our inspector from his position when he is caught and proven guilty.
5. We also believe in helping to educate the men in the field as well, and are all actively involved in our local organizations - oh yeah - without pay :) !
5. We have as our customers, the contractors - a definite potential problem as far as keeping them if we do not pass the installation.
(A) If a contractor does not like our inspection because he cannot pass - and then goes to another inspection company, let him - we do not want his liability of being unable to perform on our shoulders anyway.
(B) So how do we keep our customers? Good service... such as a person answering the phone from 7 am to 6 pm. prompt response to the inspection call (some days that is very difficult). Providing pertinent information that is accurate and they can readily use. Plan review that makes sense. A liason be the contractor and the building department as well as the POCO.

So can private companies work? Sure as long as the people care - sort of like contracting!!!

Pierre
 
Re: electrical Inspections

Even if you can establish a system that's relatively coruption free. You'll probably need a means of oversite to ensure that everything stays that way. So instead of inspecting buildings you'll be auditing inspection companies. I guess that the municipality will still collect it's permit fees. And now on top of that there will be an additional cost for the inspection company. That cost is going to continually grow because it will become more and more difficult for the inspecting company to comply with the municipality's auditing and regulations because that will be constantly improving. Meanwhile there'll be all these people doing the auditing and regulating, why don't they just inspect the buildings instead?

I really don't feel bad for cities that have a hard time managing the work load. I might be wrong but I bet the permit fees collected by the building department are sufficient to cover the costs. It's not like you're getting a deal.
 
Re: electrical Inspections

Yes the fees cover cost or should and the county should simply hire more inspectors if thats what it takes.There should never be any chance that inspectors look the other way to keep his job.Next thing we know we will have EC sign himself off.Just why would a GC want to pay for 2 inspections ? We have an inspection this morning and i know if we pass or fail has no impact on that mans wages or keeping employed
 
Re: electrical Inspections

Originally posted by dcv:
Soon,the city council of the City of Houston,Texas will meet and vote on a new bill which will allow General Contractors to hire a private company to do the electrical inspections on their construction jobs. Instead of the city inspectors.

What good can become of this ,is this another case of the fox guarding the hen house?
I'm very interested in other opinions on this.

Thanks,
Craig :roll:
Click to expand...
Sounds like a good idea to me as long as there is independance of the EC and the inspection people. In some ways it may be much better then using city inspectors since the city can't be sued if they fail to properly inspect whereas the private inspection company does not have that protection.
 
Re: electrical Inspections

It is interesting to me that the proponents of a particular system are used to the system they know and no one else has a system that is as good as their's. As far as the third party inspection is concerned, it has worked well in the Northeast where Pierre is from. In fact the Middle Department is still going strong and it is the one that wrote the precursor of the NEC. I have a copy of the reproduced 1897 Edition that the 1st Edition of the NEC was based on. They were located at 316 Walnut St., Philadelphia.

This argument reminds me of the question, "What is the best word processing program? . . . It is the one you learned." :D
 
Re: electrical Inspections

That's a good point Charlie. Here in California just about everything turns into a selfserving buerocracy so I'm sort of natually inclined to be scared of new things. :eek:
 
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