quogueelectric said:
To work in westbury you may need 18 different nassau county licenses alone to work in a 30 mile radius of westbury and it is bullcrap.
I'm going to agree with you on that, it does not make sense that you need a license in each of the 3 Nassau Townships, and then additional licenses within their towns or incorporated villages. If I remember correctly, it was Massapequa or Massepequa park that also required an additional license. I know there are others.
As another poster pointed out, it should only require you register with those sub-jurisdictions, free of charge, so that you're kept "in the loop" with their specific additional code requirements. (Was it Oyster Bay that required a 20a A/C receptacle and circuit in every bedroom if the house did not have central A/C?)
That is why so many people just hire trunkslam electric because they will do it cheaper for cash with no regulation and no one will get paid and the homeowner doesnt have a clue for the qualifications of mr trunkslam.
I submit the reason isn't that simple. First, in these multiple enclaves where additional licensing is required, it is usually a town or village employee, a building inspector that would check the work. Work which most likely the owners do not want the authorities to know even occured. Because they don't want their taxes raised. Also, a lot of the work is illegal to begin with, starting with the basement bedrooms or apartments all the way to the Town of Hempstead's building department supervisor building an entire 2nd floor addition and in-law apartment without a single inspection or tax reassessment. Think that was wired by a trunk-slammer? No, it was wired by a licensed electrical contractor who was told, and complied, NOT to file for permits.
I cannot begin to count the number of houses and storefronts I see being renovated that display no permits. You're probably as aware as I am, 10x more work never gets permitted or inspected on Long Island than actually does. And much of it is by licensed contractors.
I doubt a Statewide license will change it at all.
As for the trunkslammers, I can speak for myself and on behalf of the 2-3 dozen I personally know who've engage in sidework to one extent or another, we do this for a professional living too, and at least our work is head and shoulders better than any licensed E/C's remotely-dispatched "crew" of a "Junior Mechanic" and a "helper" who've got less than 1 year FORMAL training between them could ever hope to be. Not every trunkslammer is a drunken handyman / electrician wannabee.
Suffolk county is 400$ alone for 2 yrs Southampton town tacks on annother 75 to 100 per year. The other 18 nassau county licences are probably at least 200 per year which you could get the major3 which covers about 75% of Nassau. Is INSANE OR you could just get your state licence pay a hundred dollars and call it a day. You prove you are qualified to the state run testing company and you are done. Not taking a practical with Billy Bob electrics Cousin who is pulling out oddball pieces of wire out of a bag and asking you what type of wire it is.
LOL, is that really how it's done?
On another front, how about these towns and villages adopt a uniform code, and be barred from making exceptions to it without proving some kind of logical reasoning other than "it;s a law we adopted?" I remember in one of Nassau's towns, you couldn't feed-thru a GFCI, the device had to be in each GFCI required location.
In my own home, I had to run galvanized gas pipe, but in Smithtown black pipe is perfectly acceptable.
When I replaced my windows and doors I did NOT need a permit as long as the header was going to remain unchanged. But in some areas you need a building permit to re-shingle aroof!
