Hmm, America sounds deeply broken if that's true - we don't need thousands on lawyers for solar installation here. Contact installer, arrange appointment, compl

Hmm, America sounds deeply broken if that's true - we don't need thousands on lawyers for solar installation here. Contact installer, arrange appointment, complete the few bits of paperwork - unless your house has restrictions on works, eg shared property or rental. Planning permission in national park areas is, I think, required. As for the other, it pays to remind ourselves why we have some of those rules. After years of assorted homes and offices, seeing the horrific electrical or plumbing ideas people have had, most of them are there for a purpose. "Don't electrocute people" isn't nearly enough to get a dim bulb technician to know the right wiring or grounding rating for a particular use, or correct routing, or to prevent corners being cut when the company employing pays them minimum wage or on piecework. Best efforts are regularly compromised as a matter of policy when profit is the key driver. It's an area with clear need for strong regulation, otherwise people die. As someone who rewired my first house, even the onerous regulation wasn't too bad - do the work, stop at the 80 amp fuse, and get a suitably qualified electrician to check and sign it off before hook up. I forget the costs now, but perhaps pay £200 for the safety check and hookup, but saved £2,000+ for having someone rewire. The rules are simple. They have to be in order for the semi-interested teen to be adequately taught. No small business or self employed guy need be ruled out. I have a friend who, for developing his business, did a few of these courses a few years back - to get the necessary papers to add additional services. His recollection: Extreme boredom because mostly they try to teach common sense - something vanishingly rare - as a college course, pitched for those who had difficulty with shoelaces. Sadly some of that is the price to be paid for not killing people with shite wiring or gas plumbing. Deregulation or simplification has a death toll - which is why the rules got writ in the first place. I vote to keep - even if the rules are imperfect as they are 99% common sense. I've seen (and paid to repair or replace) what people do to houses and offices, left to their own devices, more than enough times than to encourage more.