State Law Requiring Weekend and After Hours Inspections

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Ravenvalor

Ravenvalor

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Piedmont region of NC
Are there any states that have laws in place that require local AHJs to perform weekend and after hours inspections under certain conditions? Conditions such as a retailer trying to get his power turned back on during a busy 3 - day July 4th weekend. Or maybe a home trying to get it's power turned back on during a long 3 - day Christmas weekend.

Thanks for the help with this.
 
I doubt it, but I have heard of AHJ's accepting an independent engineer's report in lieu of the AHJ inspection.

A friend of mine built a Sam's Club gas station from ground breaking to pumping gas to the public in 30 days. They could only complete it by working 24/7 and having engineers on site to perform inspections. Pretty damn amazing, they buried 3 fuel tanks, poured footings and installed a canopy, a kiosk, utilities, site work, and poured the last concrete at the end of 3 weeks. Used the last week for touch up stuff.
 
I remember one area I worked after hours inspections was a flat rate of $150.00 no matter what day or time.

Roger
 
None that I’m aware of, nor should there be.

Some departments offer overtime rate inspections though as long as you coordinate far enough in advanced.

At the end of the day, it’s the customers problem if they don’t want to have work done during normal business hours.


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Ravenvalor said:
Conditions such as a retailer trying to get his power turned back on during a busy 3 - day July 4th weekend.
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Also, maybe I’m wrong, but as someone that does a lot of this type work, the more accurate way to describe this situation is, “we’re too greedy to go a single day without profit and also pay our employees for a day they will unwillingly miss so we can make repairs to our business. Also we don’t care that everyone doing the work will spend time away from their family working night shift and then immediately swing back into day shift.”

Sorry. I’ve been at this for awhile, and I’m over it. I’m finally at a point where I’ve started telling GC’s and their customers where to stick it when they demand me to work like this because “we can’t afford to lose a day.”


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I know of some jurisdictions that will allow a PE to sign off in special pre arranged circumstances. I Wyoming we used to occasionally do inspections after hours in special cases as our department culture was such that we always tried to accommodate helping the business community. But it was not something that we formalized in law or rules.
 
I have often wondered this also, but for different situations.

Occasionally during storms services will get ripped off of houses and need to be replaced. When electricians are called we generally connect them and tell the electrician we need an inspection ASAP. (Generally within 4-5 days)

It’s kind of a hard call when a homeowner makes some repairs, but they are allowed to do them so we demand an inspection before the end of the second workday or have the AHJ call us.
Some hope we will forget about it. Normally we have an order for disconnect the next week on them.
 
In WI, after hours hook-ups for power after a storm (i.e. repair / replace an existing electrical service) are allowed by the Utility company and a permit needs to be pulled the next business day and then a inspection to be scheduled. They may require an affidavit to allow the hook-up in place of a inspection for emergency work.

Other then that, no - no after hours inspections.
 
To the O.P. the question would be why was the power off?
Was do to storm damage or unforeseen emergency or was it planned work that ran over a weekend and now they are in a panic to get power restored?
 
If the power being out is due to a storm or other emergency the POCOs will usually connect back. Most will have the customer sign a "hold harmless" agreement relieving the POCO of any liability, then an inspection must be done in a few days. One POCO will connect back without the signed agreement but requires an inspection on the 1st working day that the inspector can come.
Planned outages or poor planning, no dice, they have to wait until regular business hours for inspection and connection.
 
We have a 48 hour clause. If an emergency happens beyond office hours, we basically have 48 hours to go there and check it out.
 
oldsparky52 said:
A friend of mine built a Sam's Club gas station from ground breaking to pumping gas to the public in 30 days. They could only complete it by working 24/7 and having engineers on site to perform inspections. Pretty damn amazing, they buried 3 fuel tanks, poured footings and installed a canopy, a kiosk, utilities, site work, and poured the last concrete at the end of 3 weeks. Used the last week for touch up stuff.
Click to expand...
I forgot to mention he got paid an extra $50k to perform this feat and because of the efficiencies of the work, it actually cost him less to do it. :)
 
during storms services will get ripped off of houses and need to be replaced

30 or so years ago big very rare ice storm knocked out large sections of power.
Own house still had power but overhead line was laying on the ground, along with mast and meter!

Called PSE to get on their list, and asked for permission to remove meter seal - guy said OK if I were eng or electrician, and call them in a few weeks to come replace the seal. Most rules ignored during storm aftermath crisis.

Repaired all with OH lines still live, PSE replaced the seal about 6 MONTHS later.

AFAIK, there was minimal or no inspections for reconnecting fallen lines, POCO handled it all.
 
oldsparky52 said:
I forgot to mention he got paid an extra $50k to perform this feat and because of the efficiencies of the work, it actually cost him less to do it. :)
Click to expand...

How much of that was split with the guys working around the clock to build it?


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brantmacga said:
How much of that was split with the guys working around the clock to build it?


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Click to expand...
Good question.

Most of them were subs, it was him and one super on the job. He's not too tight, I know he has shared with employees in the past, but he can/is a difficult task master. He did not tell me on this one.
 
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