Wow. where to start. Let me understand everything. If your not union you can't be an electrician. Well in Illinois you can't get certified in most areas of the state. Does certification make you a better electrician. I think not. I've been doing my job for 25 years and do a darn good one. I work side by side with Union guys and see no difference in our work. Both sides have good and bad workers. A test will not keep out the bad ones and you all know that. A good electrician will stay employed while a poor one will go broke. Lets work on the insurance end of it. Make it available to everyone and then make it mandatory. GO Iowa. You don't need more rules.

I get the feeling from the comments that most of you think there was local control for electrical inspections. In the area I cover, (60) towns never had inspections, (12) had inspections, (5) counties never had inspections, (1) had inspections, farms had always been exempt from electrical inspections. If you look at the law the local inspections are still completed by the local inspectors. The areas the state took over are areas where no inspections where preformed. As an electrician I liked doing my CEU's, I think CEU's and inspections helped me continue to be a better electrician. I have researched other states inspection and permitting process and I think ours is one of the best and easiest to use. I think the quality of electrical work in the State of Iowa is getting better each and every day. If the program is shut down I will put my tools back on and go back to my trade, but I do think it will be a huge step in the wrong direction for Iowans. A consumer has to remember permits and inspections can be the only thing between them and a unsafe job.

Mike, For reasons that will become clear I wish to remain anonymous. I will tell you I'm an electrical contractor in rural Iowa doing about 1M a year. The large percentage of our work is farm,[grain and livestock} and commercial grain handling.We do some industrial and very little residential.Iowa, by area was mostly wide open in regards to permitting/inspections previous the law. There were locals, cities usuallly larger than 5K population and some counties that did some form of code enforcement, but there were many variations and some efforts to protect turf; but no one touched the farms and many of the small towns throughout the state. The law's main enforcement tool is through the utilities; in that if power is shut off to a given service it would require inspection to be reheated.(I think the utilities welcome this, as it gives them the opportunity to clean up a "multitude of sins" Gone would be the double male crowfoot cord to backfeed the welder recp in the toolshed for generating during an icestorm. In response to Wes's post; I find the state's on-line permitting and inspection program very east to use. The responses from the inspectors in getting inspections done has been very good. There is consistentcy from 1 to the next. We have interacted with 5 or 6 different ones. As a whole I would give the program a B Plus. In response to Ken's post, onerous is like beauty, in the eye of the beholder. I don't like $3.00 gas either, but fuel and liscense fees are both tax deductible expenses, As for permit costs; we did a project last summer that totaled with dryer, storage and handling equipment around 400k abd the permit fee was $190.00. The big problem with Iowa's statewide program is that is done without the "express written consent" of The Iowa Farm Bureau, with some support to opposition from commodity groups. When they took enforcement to the farms they really kicked a sacred cow. Previous to the law farm and small town work was governed by 1 of 2 methods. Either what the installer could sleep at night with doing or remembering the judge's first question at the trial," was the work done up to code?" Thanks.

Mike: I sent a letter to the representatives of Iowa. Would you like a copy of it? Also, I did receive a response from one of them which was a very short / to the point response. If you would like a copy of that, i would be happy to send to you.

Regards,

Steven Ford SFI Electrical Contractors Perry, Ohio

Well, I may have been a little hasty in my comments.....if you read Section 3 they ARE repealing Section 103 the electrical licensing requirements for the entire state. Hmmmm….typical lawyers hiding stuff in innocuous language. I did a quick search in the Iowa Code and there are exceptions provisions for low voltage stuff. Not sure why they want to repeal it.

Mike, I have read with interest the comments posted. I have been part of a group of electricians working on a State licensing provision for Kansas and it is easy to see why many small contractors prefer the local control system because of the ease of local communication.

I was not able to bring up the Iowa law, but it sounds like some overreach is in the present law and some modification is definitely necessary. The problem we encounter in local law and regulation is lack of uniformity. We have some areas here in Kansas with very good regulation, some with unreasonable regulation and some with no regulationat all. On the other hand, the further up the legislating ladder you go the more unresponsive to local needs it becomes. Somehow we need to achieve State legislation that gives a broad umbrella of protection for the public, but leaves the minutia, financing and enforcement at the local level.

I would hate to see a state licensing law repealed but would urge that instead, serious thought be given to the ammendment of this law to eliminate the more agregeous provisions. Unfortunately I have no real voice in this particular debate but it is far easier to modify an existing law than it is to start again from scratch.

Knowing a plumber in Iowa I think I can provide some context for this legislation. The state came in and implemented a rather poor state wide licensure program for all the building trades.

The state program does little to address any poor workmanship by these trades but was entirely successful in implementing onerous fees, high ongoing training costs and paperwork. This legislation is designed to return the licensing to local county and city control and return the unused state fees.

If this goes through one can hope that local authorities would be able to avoid repeating the mistakes of the statewide program and also raise the workmanship standards.

This is simply reverting license administration and enforcement to the local level. Electricians have always been licensed by jurisdiction here in Indiana and not statewide and the system seems to work just fine. It also works in Kansas, Pennsylvania and a handful of other states.

I don't see a problem with this as long as the locals keep up their end.

Seems to me that this is applying to alarm systems too. Different accross the country, but where I live under 90 volts is open to anyone. Seems a bit high, but thats the way it reads. I can't see requiring licensing for low volt alarms, data, telephone, CATV, thermostat and all of the other systems that are being installed these days.

If these people don't know what they are doing then the system won't work, but it won't likely be hazardous.

I read the language and it appears to be addressing alarm systems only...ie: 50v or less. Maybe the legislation would be better written to address that. Do you really need a licensed electrician to install a 24v fire alarm or security alarm? We require NICET certification for FA installers and any “regular” electrical work (120v & up) to be installed or supervised by a licensed electrician. NFPA 72 only requires NICET or factory trained individuals. Seems to me the market in Iowa is responding to an over reach by the trades to protect turf.

That said there is no way a non-licensed person should be anywhere near a grain elevator or fuel dispensing facility etc. As a matter fact, a lot of licensed electricians I know shouldn’t be near them either. It takes specialized knowledge and skill in those locations. Just because you have a piece of paper does not guarantee proper experience. I know engineers that have a license that I can’t trust either.

I love it. I do better work than most professionals and I have never failed an inspection.

Well I live in NC so I guess that I can't throw in my 2 cents worth.... I remember that Iowa has alot of grain such as corn... humm unqualified person working on a grain elevator with lots of dust... maybe this problem will take care of its self..or burn up half of Iowa.

Mike:

I admire and trust you, but I need more info, please.

I'm tired of hearing that our inability to compete in a worldwide marketplace is primarily due to our superior standards and intellect.

I'm saddened that in the electrical safety marketplace we cannot seem to "sell our goods" because we rely on past standards and not on innovation. That's a tough, a MIGHTY tough, row-to-hoe but when "pro's" claim "professionalism" that is in fact our row!

What good is it, I challenge, if our "professionalism" is beyond the affordability of the average consumer? What morality is there to our demand to be protected by government/codes/standards for delivering a product that is NOT, as rated by our CONSUMERS, reasonably priced?

I'm sorry if I'm off-thread here, and I have to say I've been unwilling to express my concern in any other forum but yours, but I feel COMPELLED to ask:

(1) Have we priced our expertise out of reach of the average citizen's budget? (2) If we've done so - I SAID IF! - are we part of the solution, or, like so many other merchants of gold, are we part of the paper-pauper'$ unreachable nervana?

Been a long-time member; been reluctant to do other than lurk and absorb and be awed by you and yours, but, PLEASE, let me ask: Are we trying to establish a plateau for all while giving most not the slightest hope of economically achieving it, because of our fixation on LICENSURE instead of INTEGRITY?

If I could afford the best, the safest, the cleanest, the coolest, the neatest, hell yeah - I'd probably buy the ... iPhone, wii, xBox; having bought, then replaced, then replaced the replacement, for GFI, then AFCI, now what - why wouldn't I just "fault" to gimmicks? Now what?

"Now what" is to replace the replacement experts; start all over again, maybe, but maybe leave out the bureaucrats and the power-brokers (unions?) and let the CONSUMERS tell the PRO's who is driving the train.

Thanks, Mike - and to your forum - for giving a place to this rant of mine.

Thanks then also goes to CONSIDERED and RESPONSIBLE consideration of what drives frustrated consumers to such "depths of depravity" as this.