Industrial Applications - Permit for In-house Projects

[Wekstrom]

I am a licensed journeyman electrician and work for a large manufacturing facility in Massachusetts. I need to pull a permit for an electrical project that I and other in-house electricians will be working on. The local electrical inspector has indicated that only a master electrician can pull a permit for this work. Has anyone heard of this requirement?

 

[paulengr]

I do not know Massachusetts rules but most industrial plants are essentially permanently under construction and constantly making changes and in house electricians don’t pull permits in any state I’ve lived in, not even New Jersey.

That being said most states have different license “grades” where the project scope, usually a dollar figure, determines the license requirement. For instance in my current state North Carolina we have unlimited, intermediate, and limited licenses. The limited license is essentially limited to residential projects. The intermediate license limits are so low you can’t run a business off it, the unlimited license is only $50 more a year, and the text is almost identical. I’m sure Massachusetts is no different.


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[Martin B]

It is my experience, In my state (Nebraska), that the inspector has the upper hand here. I believe if push comes to shove your facility will be required to pull a permit for all electrical work that is not just replacing like kind devices or light bulbs and ballasts.

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[growler]

I am a licensed journeyman electrician and work for a large manufacturing facility in Massachusetts. I need to pull a permit for an electrical project that I and other in-house electricians will be working on. The local electrical inspector has indicated that only a master electrician can pull a permit for this work. Has anyone heard of this requirement?

I really don't know anything about the rules in MA but I did look at the journeyman's license and it states that you could only have one apprentice working under your license.

Since you say that other electricians would work on the project I take it that means more than one.

If you work for a "large" manufacturing facility they should know what's required because all of those type places have legal council available. It doesn't seem like you would want to pull a permit for a big job in your name and on your license just for an hourly wage.

 

[Chamuit]

Do you have engineers on-site?

(A few decades ago,) I was talking to an engineer who was over a facility that was allowed to do all of their own "permitting" in-house because they had engineering supervision. Like paulengr said above, most facilities are constantly being rearranged for one reason or another.

 

[petersonra]

a lot of industrial facilities have arrangements, formal and informal, with the ahj to handle the normal electrical things that go on there,

new construction or major remodeling is generally permitted in the normal ways.

 

[retirede]

When I was a plant engineer, the local municipal inspector wanted nothing to do with what we were doing. We couldn’t have gotten a permit or inspection if we wanted to.

 

[Wekstrom]

Thanks to all who have provided feedback on this permitting issue. I appreciate your various comments and for sharing some of your personal experiences with similar situations. I am relatively new to this company and my understanding is that very few permits were pulled in past years for work done in-house. For some reason the local electrical inspector has recently expressed a "great interest" in having us pull permits on almost all work and is also requiring a master electrician be the one pulling the permit. We do have electrical engineers on staff and they design most of the projects in questions. My biggest challenge is to find any documented exemptions that would give us some leniency on the permitting itself or at least on the master electrician requirement. I will continue to search the Mass General Laws for any applicable exemptions.